Soaring to dizzying heights: Christ the Saviour Cathedral as a historical arena for the persecution of Pussy Riot

Abstract

On 21 February 2012, a female Russian punk collective ‘Pussy Riot’ performed a ‘Punk Prayer Against Putin’ on the soleas of Moscow’s Cathedral of Christ the Saviour. The ensuing controversy over the performance, as well as criminal charges brought against three members of the group, made explicit the contentious nature of the place of Pussy Riot’s ‘punk prayer’. The author examines place in its dual identity as an event and as an actor, one affected, the other affecting. As an actor, a place becomes capable of enacting change, and as an event, it takes on the qualities of its occupants. While the rebuilt Christ the Saviour Cathedral was once a women’s convent, a monument to Russian victory over Napoleon, a never-completed Palace of Soviets and a giant outdoor swimming pool, the author examines how this place oscillates between resonance and irrelevance, disenchantment and re-enchantment, deterritorialization and reterritorialization.