Young Russians want to see the swans dance

Translated by Aurora Forlivesi

A video filmed in recent weeks in St. Petersburg has gone viral on social media, showing a large group of young people singing and jumping along to songs by Russian artists. These names and tracks may mean little to those unfamiliar with the Russian music scene—or its history—but the event is actually quite significant.

The scene took place in the city center and features a trio of young performers, a band called Stoptime, playing and singing while followed by the crowd. The group consists of 18-year-old Diana Loginova (known by her stage name Naoko), percussionist Alexander Orlov, and guitarist Vladislav Leontyev. The three were arrested afterward and sentenced to 12 or 13 days in jail for organizing an unauthorized public gathering, which allegedly obstructed access to the nearby metro station. Additionally, Loginova faces a potential fine for allegedly discrediting the Russian military.

The main reason for the arrests actually concerns the songs being performed—tracks by Russian artists labeled as “foreign agents” by the authorities due to their anti-government and anti-war stances. The “foreign agent” designation is a tool the government uses to prevent organizations, associations, media outlets, or individuals deemed inconvenient to the regime from participating in public life. It strips them of various civil and political rights, such as taking part in politics and elections, organizing public events, working with minors or in public universities, and requires compliance with a range of additional administrative rules.

Among the artists labeled as “foreign agents” are Noize MC, Monetochka, Zemfira, and Pornofilmy—the very songs chosen by Stoptime for their small public concert in St. Petersburg. In the viral videos, the crowd can be seen singing and jumping along to two songs in particular: “Eto bylo v Rossii” (“It Was in Russia”) by Monetochka and “Kooperativ Lebedinoye Ozero” (“Swan Lake Cooperative”) by Noize MC. The first song, released in May 2024 and immediately banned in Russia, evokes images of life in Russia before the war, from World Cup 2018 celebrations to Navalny rallies. Monetochka sings with a melancholic tone:

This was in Russia, it means it was a long time ago,

This was in Russia, it means it was in a dream,

A dream cannot be stolen, it will stay with me.

The song “Kooperativ Lebedinoye Ozero” is instead a metal anthem against President Putin, containing a double reference: on one hand, it alludes to the Ozero Cooperative (“lake”), a company founded by Putin in the 1990s that brought together members of his inner circle and closest allies; on the other, it references Tchaikovsky’s famous Russian ballet Swan Lake (Lebedinoye Ozero), which in Russia is virtually an institution, comparable to Italy’s Sanremo Festival. Some lines from the chorus go:

I want to watch the ballet,

Let the swans dance!

May the old man tremble in fear

For his “Ozero.”

Let the swans dance!

In Russia, Swan Lake is not only a cultural symbol linked to theater and the arts, but also a political one. Traditionally, during the Soviet era, it was broadcast at the funerals of certain Communist Party secretaries or during moments of extreme crisis. Most notably, the ballet was aired continuously for hours in August 1991, during the failed coup attempt against Mikhail Gorbachev that led to the dissolution of the USSR a few months later. In other words, the youths in the square, singing about wanting to see the swans dance, were invoking the fall of Putin and his government.

Two other songs are the reason Diana Loginova also faces a potential fine for “discrediting the Russian army.” In the first song, Ty Soldat by Monetochka, a young woman expresses her regret at not being able to be with her soldier, because she is against the war and, in any conflict he fights, she will always be on the opposite side. The second, Svetlaja Polosa, is reportedly a song that Ukrainian soldiers listen to during drone attacks.

In the days following the arrest of the three youths, Monetochka herself—who now lives abroad, like all the other mentioned artists—expressed solidarity with Loginova, reciting a poem about the fear that regimes have of music and art. Meanwhile, another young person was arrested in Ekaterinburg, Russia, for showing support for Loginova by taking to the streets and singing the same songs.

Beyond the musical context, this episode shows that a small segment of Russian society—especially young people—is willing to take personal risks to oppose the war and Putin’s regime. It may not amount to a large-scale mass protest, but it represents an important, albeit rare, form of grassroots dissent in Russia.

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