In 2012, the Marat Gelman Gallery in Moscow, organized the exhibition “Spiritual Manger” in support of Pussy Riot. The Federal Security Service (FSB) responded. A horde of anti-social religious activists attacked the gallery, and the show was beaten up; the ruins were doused with a particularly foul-smelling chemical that the FSB often uses against its enemies. By the way, you don’t have to look far for religious activists. Just around the corner in the park close to the gallery, a church van gives out soup to the homeless. However, if it is necessary to organize a pogrom, invigorating drinks, posters, clubs, and chemicals are distributed in addition to soup.

The same year I was invited by Tatjana Kurtanova from Fotoloft Gallery in Moscow, located in the same area as Marat Gelman Gallery, to make my art exhibition there. Before the opening, Gelman promoted the show in his blog with my picture, “The Final Snack,” an ironic remake of DaVinci’s “The Last Supper”; the characters are antisocials who have organized a real binge of junk food and sugary drinks. Soon a well-known Orthodox activist and his comrades wrote a letter of complaint to the mayor of Moscow and the prosecutor’s office, demanding that “The Final Snack” would be removed from the exhibition. The leading newspaper in Russia published part of the address. According to the Orthodox activists, it is a “deliberate sacrilegious provocation,” aiming to “disrupt public order and provoke riots.” At the same time, in the blogs and commentaries were circulating violent threats against the art gallery and me.

The situation was quite alarming. It seemed that you could get beaten up if you didn’t get arrested. I was a bit worried about the situation, and I asked for advice from the cultural advisor for the Estonian president. He encouraged me and said that the president had promised to launch all diplomatic channels if I were to be arrested in Russia. It didn’t make my prospects more attractive. I flew to Moscow to hang an exhibition. The exhibition curator Tatjana Kurtanova, a woman hardened in Putin’s culture wars, only laughed and said this is how life works for them.

Fortunately, the exhibition’s opening was peaceful; I wonder if the soup kitchen didn’t have a quorum or if excessive drinks were distributed. Nevertheless, the gallery had hired two security guards for the opening, one to secure me and the other for the “Final Snack.” It wasn’t until the next day that the two rags crept into the gallery and spilled their famous slurry. The floor covering had to be replaced, but “The Final Snack” was later sold to a collector in Moscow for a reasonable price.