Musik So, ich wechsle jetzt auf Englisch, damit Lolia Nordic uns auch verstehen kann. Sie wird uns jetzt die Lektion-Performance Power PowerPoint against Fershelsen. Lolia is a Russian artist, activist and co-founder of feminist anti-war resistance movement who fled from Russia in 2022 due to political repression and since then she lives in exile in Austria. She speaks as an activist about the incidents also about the incidents at Peschmenhof this year. Applause for Lole. My name is Lole. I'm an activist from Russia and an artist and a witch as you can see from my hat. But I will take this hat away not to scare you because I know that, you know, in Austria some people are having troubles with things that are not really Christian. So, you know, I will keep it away. Actually, did you know that in Austria witch hunts happened very late? And I think witches that got burned in Europe the last it happened to them in Austria I think it's something that gives a little spiciness to the history of Austria and actually when I arrived here it was one of the first things that I learned about this country but then I learned a lot of other things and first of them is that it is not really safe to be an activist from Russia in Austria and because of these reasons I came prepared to the show and just in case if there are any secret agents from Russia here just so you know I have a security with me. And as you can see from the logo from my security on their shirts this is a logo of feminist anti-war resistance and I'm a co-founder of this movement that was founded in Russia on the second day after the full-scale invasion of Ukraine. And tonight I want to talk to you about what I learned when I came to Austria because before coming here it was not my first choice, it was very accidental, because I had a lot of troubles with police in Russia, I was arrested many times, I faced police brutality, I faced governmental violence, I faced a lot of things, and then I had to flee because everything escalated to a terrorism case against me, which sounds a bit wild for especially for Austrians so I feel like I came to this country not knowing almost anything about it besides very dark history that happened 80 years ago but we'll talk about that later so and I started to doing my to do my, because I wanted to know, because it seems so far away from my country, it seems like, I don't know, it's just like different region, you know, I'm coming from St. Petersburg, it's completely different area geographically, climate-wise, so I just felt it's completely different space but then I found out that apparently Russia and Austria has so much things in common and there's a huge friendship going on that I didn't know about so today I will present you some of my research and what actually surprised me is that when I talk to Austrian people about this a lot of them don't know and this is something disturbing. So I think this friendship started a while ago and I was surprised to realize that actually for Vladimir Putin Austria is one of his favorite countries actually. And he had a lot of fun here, you know, back in the days in early 2000s when the gas was cheap, money were floating, I don't know, people were having fun with him, high-rank politicians, businessmen and other criminals. And his daughter learned skiing in Austria, in Alps. And he actually loves skiing. He does it a lot and I think Austria was one of his favorite places to ski. And then I found weirder stuff. You know? Something that really bothered me because, you know, having being a Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Austria and having Vladimir Putin dancing with you on your wedding day, I think as a person who builds career in foreign affairs this is like the top like the top level it's really difficult to outperform this if we're talking about foreign affairs so I think like she won this competition because and she kneeled in front of him I don't know this is insane but actually now she lives in Russia if maybe you heard because she said that she was cancelled in Austria for her questionable friendship choices, but now she's very welcome in Russia and she has a lot of money there and she lives somewhere, whatever. I was surprised how crazy it was going. And of course, I didn't know that Ibiza word had such a severe context before I came to Austria. I thought Ibiza is about parties and having fun for young people, people of different ages, but now when I hear Ibiza, I'm triggered because of what we're talking about. And then it goes, like, it never stopped. Like, the deeper I went to the archives of the internet, it just never stops. A lot of friendliness, a lot of business as usual, a lot of mutual support with FPO and other far-right people, if I don't want to say other words that is more appropriate to their political beliefs. And, you know, the further I got, it got wilder. For example, I don't know if you're familiar with Jan Marsalek. Marsalek, I don't know how to pronounce Austrian names of spies that work for Russia, but this person who was running this company Wirecard and who stole billions of money, he found shelter in Russia and later it was obvious to everyone after investigations that for years he has been working for Kremlin, for Russian secret service, using his connections in Austria, using his connections with Austrian secret services, governmental figures, high-ranked politicians, to sell information to the Kremlin, including information of Russian people, and not only Russian people, but those who are against Putin's regime. So Russian secret service could use that information to assassinate these people. And you know actually now his career escalated to him being involved in war in Ukraine so that's how your life develops when you're friends with Putin I guess. And then just a few years ago I learned about this guy. Remember this face because this person is walking the same streets as you these days. Egiste Ott, he is also a friend of Jan Marsalek and he was a very high-ranked person in the Austrian intelligence. He is a cop, he is also working in this intelligence secret service department and he was using his professional access to private data of Austrian citizens and people registered in Austria, like me, residents of Austria, to use his professional access to sell this information to Kremlin. And also he used his professional skills to teach Russian secret service how to attack and assassinate people better on the territory of Europe because he is a cop, he knows how to, you know, get away with things, he knows how cops work, you know, how secret service works and this person, he was detained at some point, I think it was two years ago, but then he was released because there was a lack of evidence and I felt a bit weird because the moment I came to Austria, one of the persons that this guy spied off, because Kremlin wanted to kill this person, it was investigative journalist Hristo Grozev, he had to flee Vienna, where he lived for the last 20 years, because Austrian government said it's not safe for you to be here anymore because you're going to be assassinated by Russian spies and that happened because this guy was selling his data where he lived what he was doing spying on him this is guy this guy is still free he's going to have some court hearings soon but I mean he's free. And then of course the gas deals oh my god. You know I was very impressed how Austria presented itself as neutral country and that they support Ukraine and everything but then I found out that billions of money are floating to Putin's pocket through the gas that Austria has been buying for years and even when OMV company said that they're not buying this gas anymore, the gas is still floating to the country. I think this is some kind of weird neutrality definition. And just recently we found out that there was a spy, a Russian spy working for OMV. And also what surprised me that in Vienna there's an office of big Russian company connected to fossil fuels still working. It's called this one, Sibur. And they have an office three minutes away from parliament. And they won a court so they're not sanctioned anymore. sanctioned, they won a court so they're not sanctioned anymore and this is actually like a nest of Russian spies, pro-Russian agents that are still working in Vienna, living their best life. So and actually I you know I have a lot of enemies in Russia you know like cops, governmental figures, Nazis but I didn't think that I will have any myths in Austria so soon. But then I got one. This questionable man really impressed me with what he says and what he does. I mean, embarrassing activities. Also like a little level of his intellect kind of shocks me in a bad way. But I mean knowing that there are literal Nazis being active in Austria, being able to participate in the demos and do their speeches is kind of really crazy to me. But I thought okay at least at least I'm here and I'm safe and I'm not going to face any political repression because this is Europe, a democratic country and everything. But then I went to Antifa camp this summer, to Perschmanhof museum. And I organized an event there. I brought there not only myself, but a friend from Ukraine, who came from Kiev and who has to hide from bombings every day and a friend from Belarus, a political activist who had to flee from police brutality. And when we started our events on the Sunday of 26th of July, five minutes later we are seeing one police car arriving and then the second one, then the third, then fourth, five, six, seven, eight. Eight police cars coming to Pershmonhof Museum on Sunday because they thought that something really bad is happening there. And what was happening there? People with anti-fascist views were exchanging their knowledge, doing public talks, doing lectures, spending time together, learning at Peschmanskhof Museum, because this is a memorial that this year celebrates its 80 years of the horrible crime that happened there. A family was assassinated there, shot to death by Austrian Nazi police 80 years ago because they were hiding anti-fascist partisans and helping them during Second World War. And police has this brilliant idea to come to this museum on the 80 years anniversary of this horrible crime to disrupt anti-fascist camp and anti-fascist activists and there were a lot of police officers there I am not allowed to show their faces because I think it's not legal so I just found some random pictures that I could put on you know this is the picture of the police cars only half of them are here but anyway one of the one of the guys he was very aggressive the moment he arrived he all of them had guns he had a gun as well behind his belt and he constantly was doing this gesture and shouting don't escalate don't escalate nobody was escalating except him he was the only person who was so nervous so angry he clearly has anger issues everybody was chill everybody was very surprised why we have eight police cars here in the middle of the day, but he was screaming, he was being very rude and then he broke into the museum, to the actual house where this assassination happened and started screaming on people and saying that there are probably undocumented people here or some extremists here or somebody violating nature here this person he has to be expelled from his work because he clearly is not professional enough to do it and I think when the person has anger issues like that he shouldn't be not allowed to have a gun behind his belt because at some point I got really scared because he was his face was so nervous he was screaming so intensely and he was constantly trying to touch his gun when I felt that he's going to point this gun at me at some point and the first thing that was in my mind is that 80 years ago police officers from Austria killed people here they killed anti-fascists here and if I got traumatized by this I don't understand how traumatizing it was for the minorities of Corinthian Slavins and people whose family histories are connected to the space and to this region. This is embarrassment. So what I want to say to you all is that this story is not over and when repressions like this happen, we all have to push back. Because if we don't, it won't stop and it will get even worse. But eight police cars was not enough for these people. At some point, while police was interrogating people and running around, we heard this weird, agitating, irritating noise. They brought a helicopter to the venue on Sunday in the middle of nowhere on a mountain where you don't even have cell phone connections. Eight police cars was not enough for peaceful anti-fascist camp. A helicopter was needed. I actually felt like, you know, I felt like somebody just really wanted to ride a helicopter. You know, these local police officers were like, ah, I want to ride a helicopter so much, you know, like cis straight men moment. And then they were just like, oh, there's this Antifa camp happening. This is our chance to get on a helicopter and have this cute little ride on a Sunday morning. This is insane. This is ridiculous. This is just it feels crazy to me. I am from Russia. I am politically persecuted person from Russia. I never saw a police helicopter on any action I did. This is just... it blows my mind. But I mean, I think that this huge embarrassment shouldn't ever repeat. But probably it will, because repression escalates if we don't work with them. Anyways, you know who didn't have any problems on their summer camp this season? Our favorite guy Martin Sellner. Because three weeks after Pershmannhof museum and Antifag camp was harassed by police and violated by police Martin Zellner with a bunch of Nazis and far-right activists did their summer camp somewhere in the mountains of Austria and look at these images like this looks kinda like images where you should have a police helicopter maybe, you know? People who have criminal records, people who are openly sharing their fascist views gathered in this camp to learn how to, you know, probably attack anti-fascists on the demos, to share their extremist ideology against migrants, against women, against queer people. Nobody attended this camp. Nobody. That's what they were doing. A lot of interesting activities, I mean. Nobody interrupted them. And another person that I want to talk about today is this one. This is a politician and administrative figure from Carinthia who was also at Mershpenhov museum when this situation happened, when the police raid happened. He is one of the politicians and administrative officials from the region and he's you know quite adult guy, not like a not like a unexperienced young person and he acted really mean on the camp. He was really rude, he was very agitated and at some point when he was already leaving I followed him and tried to talk to him and I made a speech to him saying that what you did at Perschmanhof museum, what you did to Antifa camp, is going to stay in history. Because you violated the memorial of the victims of Nazis. You violated the local minority communities. You violated people who are political refugees, like me and a person from Belarus you violated a person from Ukraine who is surviving the war right now with your bullshit whatever happens now your face is going to stay in history as a person responsible for this and your relatives your grandchildren your grand grandchildren everybody will know that you did this and this is a crime that I think is a fascist crime. This is my personal opinion that people can agree or disagree with. But the weird thing that happened is when I told him my monologue about how everybody is going to be embarrassed and how he will leave, be left in history like this horrible person. He turned to me with a very mean face and he showed me a middle finger. Grown ass man, official, governmental official who was doing his job on a special police operation shows an activist, a young woman, a middle finger on his workplace. Another person saw it, I don't have it documented, I don't care if this person is going to accuse me of lying or not, I don't care because there is no other time and space to fight fascism. And I'm going to fight it now, and I want to do it together with you. There's no space left to wait and to tolerate this bullshit. And for this person, I want to say, and for everyone who was involved in this, I faced a lot of brutality and governmental violence in Russia. My life was ruined in Russia. I have to leave everything behind to protect my life and my freedom to come here. And I will not let these local fascists and governmental criminals to ruin my life again and to ruin the life of my friends. So I'm going to resist this repression and there are thousands of people in Austria who are ready to resist it together because this is a violation of human rights, this is a violation of our freedom and this is the rise of fascism that we can't let happen. Thank you very much Thank you.