Russia: MEP protests against Putin – with noodles instead of words

eloquent gesture
Russian MP protests against Putin – with pasta instead of words

A local politician from Samara managed to make an impressive statement without a single word: He hung spaghetti over his ears while listening to Vladimir Putin’s speech. In Russia, everyone knows how to interpret this gesture.

“Hanging noodles on someone’s ears”. In Russia, everyone knows this idiom. It means nothing other than telling lies. Untie a bear, you could say in German. Mikhail Abdalkin, Communist MP in the Samara regiontook the phrase literally – and actually hung spaghetti over his ears.

Without saying a word, the regional MP made a statement with this gesture: he simply accused his counterpart of lying to him. And this one turned out to be none other than Vladimir Putin. Because Abdalkin was just listening to the Kremlin chief’s speech to the Federal Assembly when the noodles dangled from his ears.

On Telegram wrote the politician on the video of his action: “At the request of the Deputy Chairman of the Samara Regional Duma, I listened to the President’s two-hour message. He has my full support, I completely agree, great performance. I’ve had something like that for the last 23 years I haven’t heard of it yet. I’m pleasantly surprised,” Abdalkin wrote with a heavy dose of sarcasm.

But the noodles on his ears let the whole of Russia know what he actually thinks of the words of the Kremlin boss.

The message Andalkin was sending out to the world did not go unnoticed by his party comrades either. A spokesman for the Communist Party called the action “stupid” in an interview and announced an internal party investigation.

Creative protest in Russia

Again and again, local politicians in Russia come up with creative forms of protest. Last fall, for example, seven MPs from Saint Petersburg caused a sensation. They had managed to push through an official appeal to the State Duma in a municipal council, in which they called for Vladimir Putin’s dismissal – on charges of treason. Nikita Yuferev, one of the initiators of the appeal, told the time in an exclusive conversation with the starwhat the local politicians wanted to achieve with their proposal to the Duma and what strategy they hoped to use to avoid punishment. In the meantime he had to leave Russia. Read the whole interview here:

Exclusive interview

Appeal to the Duma

MP Nikita Yuferev wants to have Putin charged with treason. He explains the strategy to the star

09/12/2022