A protest on the banks of the Neva

Daniel Kotsubinsky‘s placard reads, “Let Yury Dmitriev go, Kremlin! You’ve tormented him enough!”

He stands in St Petersburg in front of one of Mikhail Shemyakin’s two sphinxes, creatures displaying a woman’s face to the roadside, a grinning skull on the side facing the Kresty Prison across the river.

The two sculptures were erected in 1995 as a memorial to the Victims of Political Repression.