Author: Nadya Tolokonnikova

Stop Making Stupid People Famous!
Posted on

Flowers in my Hair

A rooftop at dawn. Moscow still half-asleep.
Concrete breathes cold. Somewhere, a siren rehearses the future.

Nadya Riot sits cross-legged on the edge, boots scuffed, guitar case beside her. She has dandelion flowers woven through her hair, yellow against the gray. She plucks one, blows—seeds scatter like quiet manifestos.

RED SON stands nearby, cape barely moving, eyes red not with rage but with listening.

NADYA RIOT:
They call it weakness, you know. Flowers. Songs. A girl with a guitar instead of a gun.
(smiles)
But dandelions crack sidewalks. They don’t ask permission.

RED SON:
In my world, revolutions arrive wearing uniforms. They carry certainty like a weapon.
(pauses)
You arrive… unarmed.

NADYA RIOT:
Unarmed isn’t the same as harmless. Punk was never about chaos—it was about truth said too loud.
I don’t want a throne toppled. I want fear embarrassed.
I want people to laugh at it until it shrinks.

RED SON:
Power does not fear laughter. It fears organization.

NADYA RIOT:
Then watch closely.
Music organizes breathing.
Choruses organize strangers.
Silence organizes courage.

(She places a dandelion behind his ear. Absurd. Tender.)

RED SON:
I could stop tanks. I could bend history with my hands.

NADYA RIOT:
And they’d rebuild the tanks with better steel.
But try stopping a song once it’s learned.
Try arresting a memory.

RED SON:
You dream of a peaceful revolution.

NADYA RIOT:
No. I practice it.
Every time someone chooses joy over obedience.
Every time a girl sings when she’s told to kneel.

(The wind lifts. Seeds drift across the city.)

RED SON:
What do you want from me?

NADYA RIOT:
Nothing heroic.
Just don’t crush the flowers when you land.

(She stands, slings the guitar over her shoulder.)

NADYA RIOT (softly):
Even empires are temporary.
But dandelions—
they come back every spring.

Red Son watches the seeds disappear into the morning light, uncertain for the first time whether strength is measured in force… or in what refuses to be afraid.

Posted on

Too Rich To Be Cool

The setting is a dimly lit, sticker-plastered dive bar backroom. Yugo Joe is nursing a lukewarm beer, while Nadya Riot is busy stitching a “Tax the Rich” patch onto a frayed denim vest.

Yugo Joe: (Sighing, gesturing at a news clip on the muted TV) Look at that guy. Another gold-plated tower, another fleet of planes. It’s exhausting, Nadya. How can anyone think being that rich is “cool”? It’s just… heavy.

Nadya Riot: (Without looking up) Cool? Joe, the man’s aesthetic is “dictator chic” from a 1980s catalog. There’s no soul in it. You can’t be cool when you’re obsessed with your own name in neon. Coolness requires a certain amount of detachment, right? He’s the opposite. He’s attached to every cent.

Yugo Joe: Exactly! It’s the selfishness that kills it for me. I always thought being cool meant being a man of the people—or at least having enough self-awareness to share the room. He treats the whole world like his personal lobby. If you aren’t helping him win, you don’t exist.

Nadya Riot: It’s a scarcity mindset, which is hilarious for a billionaire. He acts like if he gives away a crumb of credit or a dollar of tax, his whole ego will deflate. Real coolness is generative. It’s punk, it’s DIY, it’s collective energy. You can’t buy “edge” at a country club, I don’t care how many zeros are in your bank account.

Yugo Joe: Right? He’s got all the money in the world and he uses it to buy… more of the same. More mirrors. It’s like he’s stuck in a loop of trying to prove he’s the biggest guy in the room. A cool person doesn’t have to tell you they’re the “best” every five minutes. They just are.

Nadya Riot: (She bites the thread and finally looks up) It’s because he’s a consumer, Joe. A professional consumer. He consumes attention, land, and loyalty. But art? Rebellion? Authentic style? Those things require sacrifice and empathy. He’s too selfish to ever let a moment be about something bigger than himself.

Yugo Joe: I guess that’s the tragedy of it. He’s got the resources to change the world, but he’s too busy checking the gold leaf on his bathroom fixtures.

Nadya Riot: Let him have his gold. It’s heavy, it’s soft, and it’s gaudy. I’ll take a canvas jacket and a loud guitar any day. You can’t be a rebel when you are the system.

Posted on

The Madness of Kings

The Madness of Kings: Trump, Putin, and the Pathology of Power

By Nadya of Pussy Riot

If a monkey hoarded more bananas than it could eat, while most of the other monkeys starved, scientists would study that monkey to see what is wrong with it. When humans exhibit this same behavior, we put them on the cover of Forbes magazine. This quote exposes the sickness at the heart of modern power structures, where wealth, control, and narcissism are mistaken for strength and leadership. Nowhere is this pathology more evident than in the rule of Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin—two men whose personal insecurities and mental instabilities shape global events and destroy lives.

Psychologists define narcissistic personality disorder (NPD) as an inflated sense of self-importance, a deep need for admiration, and a lack of empathy. Both Trump and Putin exhibit these traits to an extreme. Trump, with his gold-plated towers and obsession with ratings, cannot function without constant praise. His fragile ego depends on rallies filled with chanting followers, social media adoration, and the illusion that he is a genius businessman—despite multiple bankruptcies and scams like Trump University. Like the hypothetical monkey hoarding bananas, Trump hoards wealth, attention, and power while millions of Americans suffer in poverty. His detachment from reality was most grotesquely revealed during the COVID-19 pandemic when he suggested injecting bleach as a cure—an act of deadly stupidity masked as leadership.

Putin, on the other hand, presents a more calculated and sinister form of narcissism. Unlike Trump’s buffoonish incompetence, Putin’s madness is that of a KGB operative who sees enemies everywhere, including in his own people. He hoards not just wealth but entire nations, treating Ukraine as a personal possession rather than a sovereign country. He poisons his critics, jails protesters, and clings to power with an iron grip. His megalomania leads him to rewrite history, positioning himself as the eternal tsar of Russia. While his citizens struggle under economic sanctions and repression, he sits on billions, his paranoia deepening with each passing year.

What is most terrifying about these two men is how their psychological disorders are not treated as illnesses but as strengths. Their wealth and power shield them from accountability. In any just society, they would be examined like the deranged monkey hoarding bananas, diagnosed with deep psychological instability, and prevented from harming others. Instead, they are worshiped by cult-like followers who mistake their sickness for greatness.

It is time to stop glorifying the madness of kings. True leadership is not measured by how much wealth one hoards, how many enemies one crushes, or how loudly one demands obedience. A just world would place human dignity over gold-plated thrones, and compassion over conquest. Until then, we remain trapped in the delusions of the madmen who rule us, watching as they drive the world toward disaster.