“In Europe, I got bored after only six months,” says Vorotnikov from the Russian art group Voina.

We continue the column "Post from the past": The art group "Voina" held its first action on May 1, 2007. Then the activists threw cats at the capital's McDonald's. After that, the most radical Moscow art group made an orgy in the Zoological Museum in honor of the election of Dmitry Medvedev as president, hung migrant workers and gays in Auchan in honor of the mayor of the capital Yuri Luzhkov, "captured" the White House and arranged a wake for the poet Prigov in the subway car. In 2010, Voina was glorified by activist Lenya Nikolaev, who, with a blue bucket on his head, climbed onto the roof of a car with a flashing light near the Kremlin. And on the night of June 14, activists painted a huge penis on Liteiny Bridge with white paint. When the bridge was moved apart, it turned out that this art object was looking directly at the FSB building.

1. Action group War "Censorship sucks!". May 22, 2008 at the Taganskaya prosecutor's office before the interrogation of the curator of the exhibition "Forbidden Art" Andrey Erofeev.

2. "Spiritual father" of the art group "Voina" Alexey Plutser-Sarno.

3. On May 1, 2007, the first action of "War" took place - "Mordovian Hour" in the capital's McDonald's. The action was accompanied by the slogans "Let's hit globalism with stray cats!"

4. On August 24, 2007, "Voina" held a memorial service for the poet Dmitry Alexandrovich Prigov in a moving carriage of the Moscow metro.

5. On September 6, 2008, on the Day of the City of Moscow, the art group Voina held an action in the Auchan supermarket, not far from the city of Lyubertsy. In the “Light” department, three guest workers and two homosexuals were “executed” by hanging, one of whom was also a Jew. The action was dedicated to the mayor of the capital Yuri Luzhkov.

6. On the night of November 6-7, 2009, "War" "stormed" the White House, drawing a skull with bones 12 floors high (about 40 meters) on the facade with a laser.

7. On May 19, 2010, Lenya Y*nuty, an activist from the Voina group, walked through the center of Moscow with a blue bucket on his head. It turned out that it was a "warm-up before a real action."

8. On July 11, 2009, "Voina" held an action "We demand to close the Sokolniki police station!". So the activists protested against the criminal case against the student Vsevolod Ostapov.

9. The last action of the "War" - "*be a prisoner of the FSB!". The action was designed not for casual passers-by, but for FSB officers, the windows of the building of which overlook Liteiny Bridge.

10. The most famous action of the "War" - "F*ck in support of Medvezhenok" took place on February 29, 2008 at the Zoological Museum. It was timed to coincide with the presidential elections in the Russian Federation, which took place on March 2. On the same day, a photo report from the action was published.

11. On August 24, 2007, "Voina" arranged a memorial service for the poet Dmitry Alexandrovich Prigov in a moving carriage.

12. An activist of the “Voina” is preparing an action “*get captured by the FSB!”15. July 11, 2009 - the action "We demand to close the Soklniki police department!": a protest against the criminal case against student Vsevolod Ostapov.

16. At the meeting of the Tagansky Court, where the case of the curator Andrey Erofeev was heard, Voina activists brought guitars, amplifiers and managed to sing the song "All cops are bastards."

We remind you that Bigpiccha is in

Co-founder of the infamous art group "Voina" Natalya Sokol turned to the Commissioner for Children's Rights Anna Kuznetsova with a request to evacuate her to Russia from Berlin. After six years of wandering around Europe, Sokol and her husband Oleg Vorotnikov found themselves in a desperate situation: Oleg ended up in prison, and Natalya herself is pregnant and with three small children is freezing on the street.

Vorotnikov disappeared in Berlin after a police raid and, according to some reports, is being held in the Moabit prison. Natalia has children between the ages of 2 and 8 in her arms, they have to live on captured canvas-topped boats in Rummelsburg Bay.

At the same time, persuasion does not allow the founders of Voina to seek political asylum in the EU. For the same reason, they have practically no documents in their hands, either for themselves or for their children. All of them are outside the law, do not have housing and livelihoods, earning their living by theft.

“Whether he was arrested, alive or not, I have no information. I tried to drive the dacha to the Moabit prison - they didn’t accept it: does that mean he’s not there? Contacted lawyers - refuse to assist. And the local press cannot be broken through, this is propaganda reinforced concrete. I live with three children on a boat with canvas walls - so as not to sit in a transit prison, waiting for an escort to a Swiss concentration camp, where people are kept for two years in closets underground. I don’t have friends or at least some sane acquaintances in Berlin, ”writes Natalya Sokol in Facebook.


Kuznetsova’s office has already responded to Sokol’s request, got in touch with her and sent a request to the Consular Department of the Russian Foreign Ministry, the radio station “Moscow speaking” reports. As Natalia was informed by the negotiators.

Recall that the radical left-wing actionist group "War" claims achievements in the field of conceptual protest street art. It was formed in 2007 by Oleg Vorotnikov, nicknamed the Thief, his wife Natalya Sokol, nicknamed Koza, Pyotr Verzilov with an obscene nickname, and Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, a member of the punk band Pussy Riot.

Among the most resonant actions of the "Voina" are the "Palace coup" with a police car, a sex performance in the Timiryazev Biological Museum, an action with jumping on the FSO car, as well as an action with an image of a phallus on the Liteiny Bridge in St. Petersburg and others. The public was especially outraged by the trick of Elena Kostyleva, a member of the Voina group, in the St. Petersburg supermarket Nakhodka, where she stuffed frozen chicken into her crotch.

Vorotnikov was charged with insulting police officers and using violence against law enforcement officials after he poured urine on police officers on March 31, 2011 during the March of Dissenters in St. Petersburg. In addition, there are questions about past promotions. After that, Vorotnikov and Sokol with their children went on the run to Europe. In Russia, they are both wanted and arrested in absentia.


However, in Europe, an unusual family quickly got into trouble on such a scale that it is just right to write an adventure drama. Some of which "Reedus" talked about in. Sponsors from among lovers of contemporary art left Vorotnikov and Sokol with their young children to their fate, and they actually turned into homeless people: they live anywhere, steal food and clothes from stores, roam from country to country like gypsies, regularly dealing with the police, migration services and aggressive natives.

“I fought fascists in the Prague metro, human rights activists in Basel, NO TAV fanatic hucksters in Venice. Now I always carry a hammer with me, ”Vorotnikov told reporters. The police officers beat Natalia several times in the face while checking her documents. “Even a Russian cop, he wouldn’t do this to a woman who has a child,” she complained to the Czech media. Falcon's Page Facebook, where she talks about her misadventures, you can’t call it otherwise than shocking.

Dissidents and oppositionists from Russia are reluctant to help the family due to the fact that Vorotnikov, after wandering around Europe, spoke positively about the activities of President Vladimir Putin, as well as the reunification of Crimea with Russia.

From his adventures, the actionist took away the firm conviction that Europe was "experiencing an epidemic of psychosis caused by fear for its high standard of living."


In 2010, when the activists of the Voina art group Oleg Vorotnikov and Leonid Nikolaev were detained after the Palace Revolution action, a group of Russian intellectuals came out in their defense: music critic Artemy Troitsky, art historian Andrei Erofeev, publisher Alexander Ivanov, journalist Andrei Loshak, co-owner of the Falanster bookstore Boris Kupriyanov, artists Alexander Kosolapov and Oleg Kulik.

Reedus decided to ask intellectuals if they continue to support War in 2018. Andrey Erofeev told "" that he was at the dacha and had not yet seen Natalya Sokol's appeal to the Russian authorities, and therefore could not comment. Andrey Loshak said that he "has no time" for this, Kupriyanov said that he "is completely unaware of this situation and cannot comment on it," and Troitsky, Ivanov, Kosolapov and Kulik were unavailable for comment.

“Apparently, in Europe it is even worse to live outside the system, especially with children. Therefore, disappointed in everything in general, the family asks for help from the Motherland. His system in comparison turned out to be better, apparently. The liberals who once defended the "War" are now silent. But the “quilted jackets” began to comment on the situation with the pregnant Sokol and children. They are calling for the return of these already intruding anarchists to Russia and somehow help them. Let them steal houses, or something, ”concludes journalist Natalya Radulova.

“The asocial behavior of the utyrks proclaimed by the “artists” is supported by the EU solely as an “export” colonial practice. This is an obvious banality - just as the hypocrisy of the European media and the “public” is banal, feeding the mentioned scumbags for conducting an information war - and immediately forgetting about them, as soon as the puppets go beyond the prescribed role, ”the researcher of the Institute believes Russian history RAS Alexander Dyukov. In his opinion, it is high time to remove children from irresponsible parents.

Dmitry Volchek, a columnist for Radio Liberty, met with the emigrated Oleg Vorotnikov (The Thief) - the leader of the Voina art group that thundered five years ago

Last Russian share art group "Voina" with the participation of Oleg Vorotnikov, Natalia Sokol, Leonid Nikolaev and anonymous activists took place on December 31, 2011. No one then could have thought that "Mento-Auto-Da-Fe" would be their last statement for many years and the last action performed in a classic line-up.

At one time, the progressive youth of the two capitals, at least, followed the radical actions of the art group with amazement. It was they who arranged a memorial service for Dmitry Prigov with a feast in the metro, welded the entrance to the Oprichnik restaurant with an “iron curtain”, “stormed” the White House with laser graphics, organized a run with blue buckets on their heads on the roof of the FSO car, and finally, drew 70- meter member on the Foundry drawbridge in St. Petersburg. For this and other actions they received several months of imprisonment and the state award "Innovation". Videos of artistic and political actions with the participation of the Thief, the Goat, Lenya Crazy and several anonymous activists "blew up" the Internet five or six years ago. They were, perhaps, the most coveted information "ban", a symbol of reckless protest against consumerism and lack of freedom at a time when the two capitals seemed unable to breathe the air of change.

Then something went wrong. And to be honest, it all went wrong.

Around 2010, the main "instigators" of the artistic turmoil were firmly pressed by the authorities along the criminal line. Vorotnikov the Thief and Nikolev the Crazy spent several months in prison. Released in 2011 on a small bail, the activist leaders immediately disappeared and were put on the wanted list. In 2010, Aleksey Plutser-Sarno, the mouthpiece of Voina on the Internet, co-author and chronicler of all actions, left the country somewhere in the Baltics. After some time, it became known that Vorotnikov, with his wife and two children, also illegally moved to the West, to Europe. The same rumors circulated about the most reckless activist of the group, Lena-Crazy. But they turned out to be lies. It came to light under the saddest of circumstances. Lenya, who pulled fate by the mustache more than once, died as a result of a domestic accident. On September 22, 2015, Leonid Nikolaev fell from a height and later died in hospital from his injuries. It turned out that for several years he lived illegally in the Domodedovo region and was preparing a new radical action - perhaps the most daring in the entire history of the "War".

About Vorotnikova and Sokol with children after their emigration, little was heard in the context of actionist art. In Europe, the family moved from place to place. From time to time there were strange reports about their skirmishes and fights with local anarchists and informals. Then rumors came that Vorotnikov and Sokol with their children had moved to Switzerland at the invitation of Adrian Notz, the director of the cradle of Dadaism, the Cabaret Voltaire, familiar to our readers (also, by the way, one of Lenin's favorite places). But otherwise, only rumors, there are few details.

And just the other day, an article by Dmitry Volchek “Five years without “War”” was published on the Radio Liberty website. The author managed to meet (where exactly, it is not directly stated, but most likely in Switzerland) with Oleg Vorotnikov and his wife Natalia Sokol. Vor refused to give an interview, but the conversation took place. And his retelling, sometimes with quotes, was recorded by Volchek. The text is permeated with sympathy for the art rebels of the past, but in general the information is not funny.

Volchek's text, for obvious reasons, is replete with understatements, so I will briefly retell it as I understood it myself. In Europe, the guys were also driven into a corner. They pressed the children again (there are now three of them, the third daughter, Trinity, was born in Switzerland). In the migration prison, they were given a choice: either they go to a refugee camp and ask for political asylum, or they are separated from their children and deported through Interpol. They did not want to ask for political asylum, but there was nothing to choose from. Vorotnikov's words are quoted in Volchek's text: "... and we succumbed to the shelter ... We were taken to the camp, paperwork was done and literally left to lie on the floor in the aisle. We were told that this is the best camp for families with children.”

In the words of Vorotnikov, it is difficult to separate sincere statements from outrageous ones, for this you need to know him personally. But the author of the article confirms that Vorotnikov, perceived as an implacable opponent of the authorities, has indeed now become a supporter of Putin, positively assesses the role of Volodin (who is already beginning to be called a possible successor), admires Lavrov's foreign policy actions. Liberals are spoken of rather with contempt.

Unlike the political ones, Vorotnikov is extremely skeptical about the artistic processes inside Russia. Pavlensky - "secondarily, shamefully." In general, there is nothing interesting in Russia, except that "Enjoykin" (makes cool videos on youtube) well done. Authorities for Vorotnikov still do not exist, and at the global level, too. Even Banksy, who transferred money to War, is, in his words, "painters, they do everything for money."

Such is the strange metamorphosis. However, I'm not completely sure of its truth. Is it worth taking all the words of the artist at face value? Or is it non-conformism, taken to the limit, turned into ruthlessness towards colleagues, friends and sympathizers. No answer.

In the West, Vorotnikov is also obviously disappointed, he does not want to integrate into the local artistic life. He yearns for his homeland, wants to return. The position is like this: “I refuse on principle to organize actions here, to participate in artistic life. You can criticize Russia only from within, and not sitting in the West... We are not emigrants, we are not refugees, it was not a gesture, like our acquaintances. We arrived for a while, and then the return channel slammed shut ... "

Like this. That in Russia they were waiting for a prison and the risk of deprivation of parental rights, that in the West - the same thing.

On the whole, it once again confirms the idea that compulsion to emigrate remains one of the most sophisticated and effective methods of reprisal against the "soil" artist. Especially over a nonconformist. And even more so over the actionist. The break with the country, which provides the author with an artistic context and habitat, strongly knocks him out of the saddle. And the difficult information exchange between the artist and his audience further complicates the situation. In a trap similar to the one into which Avdey Ter-Oganyan was previously driven and, now "War" also fell into. But these guys are special. I believe that they will figure out how to get out. And I wish them good luck.


Vladimir Bogdanov,AI

The co-founder of the infamous art group "Voina" Natalia Sokol turned to the Commissioner for Children's Rights Anna Kuznetsova with a request to evacuate her to Russia from Berlin. After six years of wandering around Europe, Sokol and her husband Oleg Vorotnikov found themselves in a desperate situation: Oleg ended up in prison, and Natalya herself is pregnant and with three small children is freezing on the street.

Vorotnikov disappeared in Berlin after a police raid and, according to some reports, is being held in the Moabit prison. Natalia has children between the ages of 2 and 8 in her arms, they have to live on captured canvas-topped boats in Rummelsburg Bay.

At the same time, persuasion does not allow the founders of Voina to seek political asylum in the EU. For the same reason, they have practically no documents in their hands either for themselves or for their children, and they are all outside the law.

“Whether he was arrested, alive or not, I have no information. I tried to drive the dacha to the Moabit prison - they didn’t accept it: does that mean he’s not there? Contacted lawyers - refuse to assist. And the local press cannot be broken through, this is propaganda reinforced concrete. I live with three children on a boat with canvas walls - so as not to sit in a transit prison, waiting for an escort to a Swiss concentration camp, where people are kept for two years in closets underground. I don’t have friends or at least some sane acquaintances in Berlin,” Natalya Sokol writes on Facebook.

Kuznetsova’s office has already responded to Sokol’s request, got in touch with her and sent a request to the Consular Department of the Russian Foreign Ministry, Radio Moscow Says reports. As the negotiators told Natalya, Anna Kuznetsova plans to send a request for pardon to the President of Russia.

Recall that the left-wing radical actionist group "War" claims to achieve achievements in the field of conceptual protest street art. It was formed in 2007 by Oleg Vorotnikov, nicknamed the Thief, his wife Natalya Sokol, nicknamed Koza, Pyotr Verzilov with an obscene nickname, and Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, a member of the punk band Pussy Riot.

Among the most resonant actions of the "Voina" are the "Palace coup" with a police car, a sex performance in the Timiryazev Biological Museum, an action with jumping on the FSO car, as well as an action with an image of a phallus on the Liteiny Bridge in St. Petersburg and others. The public was especially outraged by the trick of Elena Kostyleva, a member of the Voina group, in the St. Petersburg supermarket Nakhodka, where she stuffed frozen chicken into her crotch.

Vorotnikov was charged with insulting police officers and using violence against law enforcement officials after he poured urine on police officers on March 31, 2011 during the March of Dissenters in St. Petersburg. In addition, there are questions about past promotions. After that, Vorotnikov and Sokol with their children went on the run to Europe. In Russia, they are both wanted and arrested in absentia.

However, in Europe, an unusual family quickly got into trouble on such a scale that it is just right to write an adventure drama. Some of which "Reedus" talked about in this publication. Sponsors from among lovers of contemporary art left Vorotnikov and Sokol with their young children to their fate, and they actually turned into homeless people: they live anywhere, steal food and clothes from stores, wander from country to country, regularly dealing with the police, migration services and aggressive natives.

“I fought with the Nazis in the Prague metro, with human rights activists in Basel, with the hucksters who are fans of NO TAV in Venice. Now I always carry a hammer with me, ”Vorotnikov told reporters.

The police officers beat Natalia several times in the face while checking her documents.

“Even a Russian cop, he wouldn’t do this to a woman who has a child,” she complained to the Czech media.

Sokol's Facebook page, where she talks about her misadventures, is nothing short of shocking.

Dissidents and oppositionists from Russia are not eager to help the family due to the fact that Vorotnikov, having wandered around Europe, spoke positively about the activities of President Vladimir Putin, as well as the reunification of Crimea with Russia.

From his adventures, the actionist took away the firm conviction that Europe was "experiencing an epidemic of psychosis caused by fear for its high standard of living."

In 2010, when the activists of the Voina art group Oleg Vorotnikov and Leonid Nikolaev were detained after the Palace Revolution action, a group of Russian intellectuals came out in their defense: music critic Artemy Troitsky, art historian Andrei Erofeev, publisher Alexander Ivanov, journalist Andrei Loshak, co-owner of the Falanster bookstore Boris Kupriyanov, artists Alexander Kosolapov and Oleg Kulik.

Andrei Erofeev told Reedus that he was at the dacha and had not yet seen Natalya Sokol's appeal to the Russian authorities, and therefore could not comment. Andrey Loshak said that he "has no time" for this, Kupriyanov said that he "is completely unaware of this situation and cannot comment on it," and Troitsky, Ivanov, Kosolapov and Kulik were unavailable for comment.

“Apparently, in Europe it is even worse to live outside the system, especially with children. Therefore, disappointed in everything in general, the family asks for help from the Motherland. His system in comparison turned out to be better, apparently. The liberals who once defended the "War" are now silent. But the “quilted jackets” began to comment on the situation with the pregnant Sokol and children. They are calling for the return of these already intruding anarchists to Russia and somehow help them. Let them steal houses, or something, ”concludes journalist Natalya Radulova.

“The asocial behavior of the utyrks proclaimed by the “artists” is supported by the EU solely as an “export” colonial practice. This is an obvious banality - just as the hypocrisy of the European media and the “public” is banality, feeding the mentioned gimmicks for conducting an information war - and immediately forgetting about them, as soon as the puppets go beyond the prescribed role, ”says a researcher at the Institute of Russian History of the Russian Academy of Sciences Alexander Dyukov. In his opinion, it is high time to remove children from irresponsible parents.

The leader of the art group "Voina" since its creation in 2007. In the fall of 2010, in connection with one of the group's actions, a criminal case was initiated against him under the article "hooliganism committed by a group of persons by prior agreement"; case closed in September 2011. In the spring of 2011, he also became a defendant in a criminal case under the article "hooliganism, the use of violence against a representative of the authorities and insulting a representative of the authorities." In July 2011, he was put on the international wanted list.


Oleg Vladimirovich Vorotnikov, also known as Vor and Humus, was born, presumably, in 1978. According to him, he lived in the city of Novomoskovsk, Tula region, but in the investigative documents he was referred to as a "native of the Perm region", registered in the village of Ordzhonikidze, Tula region. Vorotnikov said that he grew up in a large family, whose members had the status of victims of the Chernobyl disaster, he also reported that his father was a miner who had to drive a minibus to provide for his family. According to Vorotnikov, one of his brothers died in a car accident and another was killed. He mentioned in one of the interviews his sister Nastya. "I can call most of my relatives unfortunate people," Vorotnikov noted.

The future leader of the art group "Voina" studied at the Novomoskovsk Lyceum, where many knew him because he wrote poetry well ("Everything was forgiven me as the best poet of Novomoskovsk," he said). Later he entered the philosophical faculty of the Moscow state university(Moscow State University), but he himself spoke of him not flattering. It is also known that for some time the leader of the art group worked as the head of the information department (or press secretary) at the Moscow Museum of Cinema.

In 2005, Vorotnikov and Natalya Sokol (Koza, Kozlyonok) created the Sokoleg art group, which was engaged in outdoor photography (according to other information - avant-garde fashion) and performances. Natalya was mentioned in the press as a candidate of physical and mathematical sciences, a junior researcher at Moscow State University, a specialist in the field of biochemical and medical physics. Since 2008, the press has repeatedly written that Sokol was Vorotnikov's wife, possibly a civil one. In 2009, they had a child whom they named Casper the Beloved Falcon.

In early 2007, Vorotnikov and Sokol organized the War group. Vorotnikov has always played a key role for her. He was called the "founding father", and the media claimed that "War - this is Vorotnikov", although the ideas of many performances were invented by Sokol, who stated that the group's goal was "an art war with all global ideological rotten stuff."

The group became known thanks to numerous resonant actions in which Vorotnikov acted both as an organizer and as a performer. In August 2007, he took part in the "War" action called "Feast", which was a commemoration for the poet Dmitry Prigov in the Moscow metro car. In 2008, a few days before the Russian presidential election, Voina held a group orgy at the Biological Museum in Moscow against the background of the slogan "F***ing for the heir of the Little Bear." One of the couples who participated in the orgy were Vorotnikov and Sokol. In July 2008, during the action "Cop in a priest's cassock", Vorotnikov, dressed in a cassock over a police uniform, dialed in a supermarket a large number of products and took them out without paying. In June 2010, one of the most famous campaigns of "Voina" was held in St. Petersburg - "X *** is captured by the FSB": the activists of the group drew a huge phallus measuring 65 meters in length and 27 meters in width on the Liteiny Bridge. After the bridge was pulled apart, the raised image of the phallus appeared in front of the windows of the Federal Security Service Administration for St. Petersburg and the Leningrad Region. For this action in April 2011, the art group "Voina" received the Russian art award "Innovation", established by the Ministry of Culture and the State Center for Contemporary Art, in the nomination "Work of visual art".

In the future, the actions of the art group headed by Vorotnikov became more and more defiant. Thus, in September 2010, in St. Petersburg, members of the Voina group carried out the Palace Revolution, during which they overturned several police cars, and some of them may have had policemen inside. Soon, Vorotnikov, Sokol and group activist Leonid Nikolaev, known under the pseudonym "Lenya E *** Nuty", were prosecuted under article 213 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation (hooliganism committed by a group of persons by prior agreement). In November 2010 they were detained in a Moscow apartment. Some of the detainees' personal belongings were confiscated, and they themselves were interrogated at the Ministry of Internal Affairs' "E" center involved in the fight against extremism, after which Vorotnikov and Nikolaev were sent to St. Petersburg to a pre-trial detention center. In January 2011, the court refused to release Vorotnikov and Nikolaev on bail of 2 million rubles each.

The arrest of the activists of the art group caused a wide resonance both in Russia and abroad. In their support, the site "Free War" was created, on which fundraising was organized for things needed by prisoners and for paying lawyers. In addition, British street artist Banksy and blogger Vagif Abdilov, who lived in Norway, collected money for those arrested (he organized the issue of custom stamps of the Norwegian Royal Mail depicting the group's action on Liteiny Bridge).

Vorotnikov spent more than three months in prison. In February 2011, by decision of the court of the Dzerzhinsky district of St. Petersburg, he was released from the pre-trial detention center on bail of three hundred thousand rubles. The court took into account that the leader of the art group has a place of permanent registration, "receives income from work" (although he himself claimed otherwise in an interview), as well as the fact that he has a minor child in his care. In the same month, Nikolaev was also released on bail. Speaking to Radio Liberty about his prison experience, Vorotnikov noted that he kept notes while in custody. At the same time, he doubted that they should be published after their release (“It would be more interesting, of course, if it could be published promptly, it would be more like a share”).

At the end of March 2011, Vorotnikov said that the money collected to help "Voina" was transferred to two political prisoners, as well as his former cellmate, whose case, according to Vorotnikov, was fabricated. In addition, in April 2011, part of the money collected for the "War" was transferred to Barnaul activists, in respect of whom, after their graffiti campaign "Do you need such fellow travelers?" A case was initiated on charges of hooliganism "motivated by political hatred, committed by a group of persons by prior conspiracy."

In early March 2011, Vorotnikov, Nikolaev and Sokol were attacked in the center of St. Petersburg. According to the activists, they were walking from the press conference, noticed that they were being followed, and took pictures of their pursuers. Then these people, who introduced themselves as employees of the criminal investigation department, beat the members of the Voina group and took away their flash card with photos. At the end of March, a criminal case was opened in connection with this incident under article 116 of the Criminal Code (beatings).

At the end of the same month, Vorotnikov and Sokol, along with their son, were detained during an unauthorized opposition "March of Dissent" in St. Petersburg, after which they were taken to different police stations. On the march, according to Sokol, they walked in a column of anarchists with the aim of "shouting anarchist slogans" and threw bottles of urine at the police. According to Vorotnikov and his lawyer, he was beaten several times during his arrest and at the police station, and was released only because he needed hospitalization. Sokol was kept in the police station for about a day, and Vorotnikov took his son from the hospital, where Kasper was placed after his parents were detained.

On April 14, 2011, a new criminal case was opened against Vorotnikov on suspicion of hooliganism, violence against a government official and insulting a government official. According to investigators, during the detention on the "March of Dissent" Vorotnikov tore off the uniform caps from several policemen, hit one of them, and also damaged a police car.

In the same month, the first criminal case initiated against Vorotnikov and Nikolaev was transferred, at the request of the defense, from the Main Investigation Department of the Central Internal Affairs Directorate for St. Petersburg to the Main Investigation Department of the Russian Investigative Committee for St. Petersburg. This was due to the fact that the St. Petersburg Central Internal Affairs Directorate in this case was both the accuser and the injured party, whose property was damaged as a result of the "Voina" action. According to the lawyers, the investigators also ordered a psychiatric examination of Vorotnikov, despite the fact that the article "hooliganism" did not imply this.

At the end of April 2011, there were reports in the press that Vorotnikov escaped from interrogation in a criminal case about actions during the "March of Dissent", and simply did not appear for the second interrogation, because he thought that he would be arrested. Back in April 2011, supporters of Voina stated that the leader of the art group was put on the wanted list, but he was officially put on the federal wanted list in May 2011. In July 2011, it became known that Vorotnikov's wife, Natalya Sokol, was also charged with a criminal case under Article 319 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation (insulting a representative of the authorities) for her behavior at the "march of dissent."

In July 2011, Vorotnikov was put on the international wanted list. His bail of 300 thousand rubles was seized in favor of the state. On July 22 of the same year, the Dzerzhinsky District Court of St. Petersburg granted the investigators' request to change the preventive measure for Vorotnikov in the first case and arrested him in absentia. On August 31, 2011, the European Court of Human Rights registered a complaint from Vorotnikov about the violation by the Russian authorities of his rights to freedom and personal integrity. At the same time, Vorotnikov perceived the international criminal investigation "as one of the highest forms of recognition of the work of a political artist here on earth."

In October 2011, it became known that as early as September 1, the criminal prosecution of Vorotnikov and Nikolaev, which began after the "Palace coup" action, was terminated, since the actions they committed did not comply with the article of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation under which they were charged. In the same month, the St. Petersburg City Court overturned the lower court's decision to collect bail for Vorotnikov in favor of the state. In early November, the case of the "Palace coup" was resumed, on December 1 it was suspended, and in February 2012 the prosecutor's office again insisted on continuing the investigation.

On January 19, 2012, Vorotnikov and Sokol had a second child, a girl whom they decided to call Mama Beloved Sokol. The next day, the court denied the investigators' request for the arrest of Natalya Sokol.

The media published a variety of assessments of Vorotnikov and his activities. So, at one time Anton Kotenev, who participated in the activities of the Voina group, wrote that Oleg was “one of the smartest and most subtle people” whom he “had met in life”, who reads a lot and is well versed in art. At the same time, it was noted that for many he caused rejection, in many respects - because of his commitment to theft of food in stores, erected as a principle, and also due to the fact that he and Sokol took their young son to all the actions, putting him in danger. There were even reports in the media that Casper's parents could be held administratively liable for improper performance of parental duties.

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