Celebrating International Women’s Day the Russian way

International Women’s Day may be celebrated worldwide but nowhere more so than in Russia where it’s a national holiday. The Calvert Journal takes a whistlestop tour of events and declarations of support for women in Russia on this most special of days.

Not only are museums across the country free today but if you’re into ice skating then you’re in luck as rinks have also dropped their entry fees — but only for women.

Four of Russia’s top media outlets, RIA Novosti, Echo Moskvy, Ogonyok and Interfax teamed up to compile their annual list of the 100 most influential women in Russia. Although the top four spots are occupied by female politicians, singer and actress Alla Pugacheva comes in at number five.

In Moscow, a new exhibition dedicated to feminism chose women’s day to refuse artworks featuring the punk band Pussy Riot. Writing on her Facebook page, artist Victoria Lomasko said they were rejected by the curator for being “dangerous”. The exhibition, Feminism: From Avant-Garde to the Present Day, is on show at the new centre beneath the Worker and Collective Farm Girl statue in north Moscow.

Elsewhere in the capital, youth culture website Weekend OpenSpace (WOS) released a mixtape of songs that all feature the word…mama. They include Mama by the Spice Girls, Dear Mama by Tupac Shakur and Mother by Ray Charles.

Meanwhile, the lucky ladies of the Mozhaysky district outside Moscow woke up today to find images of the governor, Dmitry Belanovich, bearing flowers on billboards across his region. And, over in Chechnya, Ramzan Kadyrov, Chechen leader and Instagram fanatic, posted a touching photo of him and his ma with the words: “I love my mother more than life itself.”

Ramzan Kadyrov’s Instragram