MOSCOW, June 11 (RIA Novosti) – A 19-year-old Russian woman, who a local tabloid said “demeaned” the city of Kazan by posing naked in front of a downtown landmark, faces up to six years in jail for the illegal production of pornography, a spokeswoman for the local prosecutor’s office told RIA Novosti on Tuesday.
The teen model, identified only as Nastya K, posed in varying degrees of undress in front of the city’s prided Farmers Palace, which houses the Tatarstan republic’s Ministry of Agriculture, because she wanted some extra cash for a trip to Goa, said whistle-blowing tabloid ProKazan, which filed the complaint.
Softcore porn stars in Russia are generally paid about 3,000 rubles ($100) per photo session, the Komsomolskaya Pravda newspaper wrote when reporting about the incident.
ProKazan said the photos were particularly demeaning because the city is hosting the much-publicized Summer Universiade next month, an international sporting event featuring 13,500 college athletes from more than 170 countries.
The Kazan prosecutor’s office is scheduled to review the complaint by Friday. According to Russian legislation, the punishment for “illegal production and distribution of pornography” is up to six years of jail. But there is no legal definition of pornography.
Fortunately for Nastya K, local prosecutors may be on her side. “Frankly, the whole case is laughable and has no substance,” prosecutor spokeswoman Irina Petrova said by telephone.
The controversial photos were released by the Sexart.com softcore porn site late last month, and the uproar among Kazan-based netizens crested last week. Sexart.com did not return repeated email requests for comment in time for publication.
Anti-pornography cases remain rare in Russia, despite hundreds of erotic photo shoots, many in public places, produced in the country every year. However, there is a growing chorus of calls for stricter morals countrywide, with lawmakers and conservative activists cracking down on the gay community and even provocative art exhibitions.
Tatarstan is a predominantly Muslim region, but the local version of Islam is considered markedly liberal. There are some radical groups, however, and law enforcement officials reported killing several alleged Islamic extremists last October.
Last year a case of several Kazan police officers allegedly beating a man to death, including by inserting a bottle into his rectum, sent shockwaves throughout Russia. That trial is scheduled to begin next week.
Well-known Russian journalist Oleg Kashin wrote on Saturday on his Facebook page, quoting an online commentator, that “in Kazan, they sodomize a man with a bottle of champagne at a police department, they attempt to assassinate a mufti, some guy kills two people and writes ‘Pussy Riot’ on the wall in blood … and then a girl poses for naked pictures and everyone panics.”
