I must've started searching for Russian feminist punk bands in fall of 2012. I was crashing on my dad's couch in South Brooklyn after a transient period of couchsurfing, marooned there by Hurricane Sandy. I missed Boston. Following Occupy & Boston's first Ladyfest, the buzz of a nascent activist consciousness crept into town, and it seemed like things were starting to fall into place.

Just before leaving Boston, I helped organize a "Pussy Riot Benefit" with some friends—a basement show featuring rad feminist punk and hardcore bands. Monetarily, we probably raised a very tiny drop in a very large bucket, but it was fun to organize a feminist punk show with friends. Most of all, I was excited that people were suddenly talking about Russia. Having been born in St. Petersburg and maintaining an interest in Russian culture I wasn't surprised that the country could produce rad music or rad activism, but I was genuinely surprised first about the feminist angle (in my experience, Russian culture allows little flexibility in gender roles and regards "feminism" as a dirty word), and second, that Americans noticed and cared.

That fall, as Nadia and Masha got shipped off to prison camps in Siberia, South Brooklyn tried to recover from the storm. My dad and I spent a lot of time in the same apartment engrossed in separate laptops, separate internet missives. He followed Russian news bloggers closely and would update me on troubling developments. A rise in protofascist nationalism, censorship, religious zealotry, increased intolerance towards LGBTQ populations and ethnic minorities. Putin's motorcycle gang militia. The Magnitsky Act. Talking about Russia so much implicitly directed my Soundcloud dives Russia-bound. I wanted to relate, I think, but I also must have desperately wanted to find proof that there was inspiring art being made in every political dystopia, that Russian punk feminism didn't live and die with Pussy Riot.

Over the following year I fell down the rabbit hole of related and unrelated media: A YouTube documentary about Moscow street punk; a screamo band called Nasty Taste with a memorable Hard Candy-like violent hitchhiker revenge music video,

wide-eyed romantic bedroom pop by songwriter Dasha Shults; gorgeous brooding shoegaze by Moscow couple Glaswen, a punk webzine called Sadwave. I first heard about Fanny Kaplan from a flyer for an event at a Moscow cafe in August 2013, put together by the label Temniwye Lowadki (Dark Horses). The event description asked the question, "Is there a riot-grrrl movement in Moscow?" and hoped to answer in the affirmative.

Fanny Kaplan, named after a woman who tried to assassinate Lenin back in 1918 because she thought he was hurting the revolution, is a trio of inspiring women who live in Moscow and play new wave/coldwave synth-and-drum driven postpunk. Their songs are dark, anxious, urgent; their lyrics figurative and poignant . They released the 4-song siyaniye nits EP in 2012, then the plastilin full length in September 2013. Their web presence was frequently tagged "riot grrrl" and they've been vocally supportive of other female bands and musicians. This was the band I needed to find. . .