RUSSIAN MAN NAILS HIS BALLS TO RED SQUARE COBBLESTONE IN FRONT OF TOURISTS AS ACT OF PROTEST

PYOTR PAVLENSKY

A Russian protester had the balls to nail his testicles to Red Square cobblestone Sunday to protest the nation’s “police state.”
Performance artist Pyotr Pavlensky, 29, sat naked with metal piercing his scrotum outside Lenin’s Mausoleum in broad daylight in full view of tourists so they would presumably see his point, according to the Agence France-Presse.

Pavlensky said he resorted to drastic measures on the nation’s Police Day holiday to raise awareness about Russia’s purported inaction as the Kremlin squashes political rights.

“A naked artist, looking at his balls nailed to the Kremlin pavement, is a metaphor for the apathy, political indifference, and fatalism of contemporary Russian society,” he wrote in a statement posted to the Grani.ru website.

This is far from the first time Pavlensky abused his own body in protest. He reportedly sewed his lips together in support of the punk group Pussy Riot who were locked up for playing anti-Kremlin music inside Moscow’s cathedral in 2011.

He also wrapped his nude body in barbed wire outside the Legislative Assembly Building in Saint Petersburg in May, according to The Moscow Times. He spent several days in police custody and underwent psychiatric exams that declared him legally sane.

After the most recent stunt, police covered Pavlensky with a blanket, brought him to a hospital in central Moscow and finally brought him into custody, state news agency RIA Novosti reported.

We understand he was trying to make a point but wasn’t there a better way to go about it?