Musician in St. Petersburg Arrested for Anti-Putin Performance Going Viral
An 18-year-old street musician by the name of Diana Loginova from St. Petersburg has been apprehended by the police and charged with the offense of orchestrating a public gathering that was not authorized after a video capturing her leading a group in singing an anti-Putin rock song went viral. According to the Bumaga news site, Loginova is facing a solitary administrative accusation for conducting an unsanctioned public gathering and has been subjected to a 13-day period of administrative detention.
Popularly known as Naoko within the music industry, Loginova hails from the band Stoptime and was taken into custody on a Tuesday following a recording that showcased her facilitating a crowd in central St. Petersburg to chant the lyrics of the banned rapper Noize MC’s track “Swan Lake Cooperative”. The ballet Swan Lake became a representative symbol of the Soviet Union’s collapse after being aired continuously on state TV for three consecutive days during the turmoil of August 1991. Noize MC’s song was titled and contains explanations about the infamous Ozero (“Lake”) dacha cooperative, which was established in the mid-1990s by Putin’s close friends and associates.
The music group Stoptime had their Tuesday night show banned and denoted as “extremist” in May 2025 by a court ruling that categorized the song as edging on “propaganda for a violent government overthrow” and identified it as a danger to the ethical and moral education of minors. Noize MC, the legal name being Ivan Alexeyev, was labeled a “foreign agent” by Russia’s Justice Ministry in November 2022 and subsequently migrated to Lithuania post the invasion of Ukraine.
The St. Petersburg police and Loginova have remained reticent regarding the arrest, as neither of them has issued a public statement concerning the incidence. Via their Telegram platform, Stoptime confirmed that their performance scheduled for Tuesday night was annulled, without elaborating on the reason behind it. They briefly assured their fans that they would be back soon, urging them not to share videos of their live shows online.