No country for old metal heads: Russian police are breaking up concerts and arresting young and old alike — The Insider

The Yaroslavl incident was the harshest example, but it is far from the only Russian concert to have been broken up by the police over the past year. A month earlier, on Feb. 7, security forces raided Moscow’s Eclipse club during a performance by the black metal band “Nechist” (loosely translated as “Evil Spirits”). Ten people at the event were detained, with state-aligned media reporting that the “security forces disrupted a gathering of Satanists.”

“It feels like everything in Moscow is so calm and cloudless that the security services have absolutely nothing to do. There is no other work, so they have to launch a ‘witch hunt’ and catch men nearing 50 at underground rock concerts for the crowd’s amusement,” Sergei “Lazar” Atrashkevich, guitarist for the popular metal band Arkona, wrote of the incident. He later either deleted or hid the post.

Many commenters said the security forces had intended to disrupt a different event but went through the wrong door. Musician Igor (name changed) confirmed that account to The Insider, saying that a “gothic ball” was supposed to take place in a neighboring hall at the same club and was targeted over alleged “LGBT propaganda.”

“The organizers canceled the ball in advance, but the cops still needed to fight LGBT people, so they broke up the concert. As a result, that propaganda allegation, not Satanism, was written into the reports. As far as I know, one of the organizers was badly beaten at Eclipse. An acquaintance of mine was on her way to the concert but was a little late. By then there were flashing police lights everywhere, and no one was being let inside,” he said.

Before that, there had been a series of raids on punk concerts. On Jan. 6, Moscow police broke up Harvest Fest at the MO[TRI] bar (also known as “Motyga”). Witnesses said people were forced face down on the floor, their phones were checked for subscriptions to “undesirable” channels, and several visitors were beaten.

In 2025, law enforcement raided punk concerts in Yekaterinburg three times, disrupting a music festival at the Syndrome bar that May. “They checked everyone’s documents, messengers on their phones, tattoos, and asked about their attitude toward left-radical movements and the ‘special military operation,’” human rights project OVD-Info reported.

In June, police broke up another concert at the same venue. In July, they raided the New Bar club, this time joined by representatives of the right-wing radical movement Russkaya Obshchina (Russian Community). Guests were asked about their views on the war in Ukraine and on LGBTQ+ people.