Nadya Tolokonnikova
Nadya Tolokonnikova* was born in Norilsk in Siberia, Russia. She studied philosophy at Lomonosov Moscow State University. She is an artist, political activist and founding member of punk-rock art collective Pussy Riot. In 2012, following an anti-Putin performance in Moscow's Cathedral of Christ the Saviour, Tolokonnikova was sentenced to two years in prison for hooliganism; she was released in 2013. Tolokonnikova is a member of prisoners' rights group Zona Prava and is a founder of the independent news service MediaZona. In 2014, she received the Hannah Arendt Prize for Political Thought.