In St Petersburg, participants in a photoshoot featuring elements of shibari at a cemetery have received suspended sentences.

The Krasnogvardeysky District Court in St Petersburg found the participants of a photo shoot at Bolshoy Okhtinsky Cemetery guilty of offending the feelings of religious believers (part 2, Article 148 of the Criminal Code) and desecrating burial places (point ‘a,’ part 2, Article 244 of the Criminal Code). This was reported by the city courts’ press service.

Artists Anna Panteleeva and Kristina Rozhkova were each given a two-year suspended sentence, while model Yaroslav Gumenny and photographer Sergey Evstyukhin received 18 months each.

The prosecutor had requested sentences of three to four years in a penal colony settlement.

The young people held the photo shoot in June 2024. Panteleeva and Gumenny took part as models. Panteleeva posed topless and tied with shibari rope by tombs. Gumenny was tied with the same rope to a cross placed by one of the graves for the shoot. Panteleeva later posted a story from the shoot.

The prosecution also claimed that Rozhkova “directed the models’ actions” and, along with Evstyukhin, photographed them. Rozhkova herself initially denied taking part in the photo shoot.

In court, all those involved pleaded guilty.

• A case against the photo shoot participants was opened after Panteleeva’s story was spotted by the “Male State” movement, which started a campaign of harassment against the artist. In addition, a homophobic man from St Petersburg, Timur Bulatov, filed a report on her.
• After their arrest, the photo shoot participants spent a month in a pretrial detention centre, but in July they were transferred to house arrest or placed under a travel ban.