Artist Yelena Osipova picketing on Nevsky Prospekt in Petersburg on 12 June 2023. Photo courtesy of mr7.ru
A reader has informed mr7.ru that today on Nevsky Prospekt, near the Kazan Cathedral, Petersburg artist Yelena Osipova stood with a poster for a short time. On Russia Day, she asked for “rehabilitation” for the whole country. She was not detained by police.
Osipova has been staging solo protest pickets in the city center for over twenty years. She has been repeatedly detained by the police, although recently they have more often simply asked her to shut down her pickets and taken her home.
On January 31, an exhibition of the artist’s works opened in the offices of the Yabloko Party on Shpalernaya Street. The next day, however, the police came to the offices and seized the posters and paintings on display. An investigation into them was launched, whose findings were later submitted to the Investigative Committee. The works have not yet been returned to the artist.
This past spring, Osipova became ill and needed hospitalization: she suffered a stroke. The artist returned home only two weeks ago. Today she left the house for the first time since her illness.
Source: “Artist Yelena Osipova picketed on Nevsky and was not detained,” mr7.ru, 12 June 2023. Translated by the Russian Reader
