Police in St. Petersburg arrested and charged an 18-year-old street musician with unlawfully organizing a public gathering after a video of her leading a crowd in singing an anti-Putin rock song went viral, local media reported on Thursday.
According to the Bumaga news website, the musician, whose name is Diana Loginova, faces a single administrative charge for organizing an unauthorized public gathering. She was also placed in administrative detention for 13 days, Bumaga added.
Loginova, who performs under the name Naoko with the band Stoptime, was arrested on Tuesday after being filmed earlier leading a crowd in central St. Petersburg in singing the lyrics to the exiled rapper Noize MC’s hit song “Swan Lake Cooperative.”
The Swan Lake ballet became a symbol of the collapse of the Soviet Union after it was broadcast on state television uninterrupted for three days during the upheaval of August 1991. The Noize MC song title and lyrics also reference the notorious Ozero (“Lake”) dacha cooperative, which was formed in the mid-1990s by Putin’s longtime friends and associates.
“I want to watch the ballet, let the swans dance. Let the old man shake in fear for his lake,” a crowd on the streets of St. Petersburg was heard singing in the viral video.
A court banned “Swan Lake Cooperative” as “extremist” in May 2025, ruling that the song constituted “propaganda for a violent government overthrow” and a threat to the “moral and ethical development” of minors.
Russia’s Justice Ministry labeled Noize MC, whose real name is Ivan Alexeyev, a “foreign agent” in November 2022. He relocated to Lithuania after the full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
Neither Loginova, who has previously taken part and won national and international student music competitions, nor the St. Petersburg police have publicly commented on the reported arrest.
On its Telegram channel, the band Stoptime wrote that its Tuesday night performance was canceled without providing a reason.
“We’ll be back to you very soon,” the band said that morning after urging subscribers to avoid sharing videos of their performances online.
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