
Today, August 15, at 10 a.m., the Cathedral of Christ the Savior was held in support of the arrested Pussy Riot participants Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, Maria Alekhina and Ekaterina Samutsevich. About 20 civilian activists climbed the steps of the temple, put on colored balaclavs and raised sheets of paper with letters from which the inscription “Blessed is blessed” - a quote from a naked sermon. Less than a minute later on the site were employees of the ChOP, guarding the main Orthodox temple of the country, as well as unknown people in civilian clothes. They in an extremely harsh form tried to detain activists, one of them - Alexei Sheremetyev - the Chopovtsy knelt down and pressed his head to the asphalt, simultaneously breaking their hands behind his back. One of the unknowns answered the request that they were ordinary parishioners and want to stop “blasphemy”. While the two men held Sheremetyev, the others (about 15 people) set about journalists who illuminated the action: they threatened to break the cameras of Evgeny Feldman (New Gazeta), Vladimir Romensky (Rain TV), Nicky Maksimyuk (Grani.ru), I have The New Times Matvey Krylov. The security guards broke their hand and refused to let it go to the photojournalist, not paying attention to the presented press card. Only the arrival of the police, who detained three activists (they were delivered to the Hamovniki police department), reassured the guards of the temple. 



Two attacked Alexei Sheremetyev at once (the man in his jacket introduced himself as a parishioner of the temple) - they twisted their hands to the young man and did not let them get up from the ground. The security guard in a white shirt is especially active - he waved his feet, wanting to get through the cameras.



For about fifteen minutes, the guards chased the participants in the action, beat them, tried to detain, break photos and video cameras. Perhaps I first saw in Moscow such aggression in relation to journalists - I miraculously saved my camera from destruction. The hooligan guards calm down only after the police arrived, which was called by the participants in the action.
LLC SOP "Bell" was created in 2002 on the basis of its own security service of the temple. According to the SPARK system, the head of the "bell" is Vladimir Semin, who also owns security enterprises "bell to" and "bell-DSB". Semin's co -owners on the “bell” - brother and sister Mikhail and Elena Podvalina, who in turn own LLC “Mytnoye Courtyard” - a car wash in the territory of the Cathedral of Christ the Savior. Also, security activities on the territory of the temple are carried out by Chop "Bell-A", owned by Alexander Barinov. Presumably, the employees of these security enterprises on the morning of August 15 conducted the detention of participants in the promotion in support of Pussy Riot, during which journalists who illuminated the action were injured.
At 17 o’clock, the leadership of the CTI "Bell" was already inaccessible to comment. “Everyone has already dispersed, the working day has ended,” the employee who approached the phone told The New Times.