September 30, 2024

"Prison Doll" Artist Sentenced


"Prison Doll" Artist Sentenced
The doll depicting the eight-pointed star, a symbol of "Prisoner Unity." Instagram, Vasily Slonov

An artist in Krasnoyarsk has been sentenced to a year of correctional labor for painting Soviet prison tattoos on baby dolls. His sentence also includes 15% of his annual salary being garnished to the government. 

Vasily Slonov was charged with "demonstrating the symbols of an extremist organization" with his art, which involved inking a common doll for children with distinctive prison tattoos, including a barbed wire fence, a guard tower, and an eight-pointed-star. The star in particular is a symbol associated with the A.U.E., or "Prisoner's Criminal Unity," an organized crime group that is classified as extremist by the Russian government. Prosecutors originally asked for two years of forced labor. Slonov's current sentence will allow him to continue to live at home. 

Slonov was arrested in February 2024 for an exhibit that included the dolls and that was photographed and posted on VKontakte. This, according to investigators, constitutes "repeated demonstration of extremist symbols."

The doll is part of a series of dolls painted by Slonov "as the study and reflection of the diversity of modern world culture in the iconographic form of the nevalyashka ['tumbling'] doll." 

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