You are crucifying freedom, but the human soul knows no shackles!” 50 years since the famous inscription on the Peter and Paul Fortress. KGB lieutenant Putin took part in the investigation

Forwarded From Plot (Anton Khitrov)

“You are crucifying freedom, but the human soul knows no shackles!”. 50 years since the famous inscription on the Peter and Paul Fortress. KGB lieutenant Putin took part in the investigation

Hi, this is Anton. Yesterday, August 3, marked half a century since Soviet dissident artists Yuliy Rybakov and Oleg Volkov left a 42-meter inscription in white paint on the Peter and Paul Fortress. It was an action in support of unofficial art, which faced censorship in the USSR.

The KGB handled the case, and Vladimir Putin was among those involved in the investigation, then a 23-year-old lieutenant. The artists were found, and both received prison terms for “malicious hooliganism” and “damage to state property”: Volkov got six years, Rybakov seven. Meduza wrote about this in detail here.

In 2016, street artist Timofey Radya made an homage to this work: the same inscription, also in St. Petersburg, on Pirogovskaya Embankment, but without the exclamation mark.

And yesterday, on another anniversary, he presented an edition of prints he made together with Yuliy Rybakov, co-author of the original graffiti. There are two photographs there, one from 1976, from the case materials, and one from 2016, taken by Radya himself. They are for sale; you can even buy a print signed by both artists.

In his post, Radya writes: “A few days ago, when a friend of mine called this ‘an attempt to unite everyone in one time,’ I felt everything fall into place.”

Let’s try to live to see the moment when this inscription is returned to the Peter and Paul Fortress and protected as a monument.

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Photos by Timofey Radya. If our piece about the inscription does not open, read it here or here