TODAY the World Cup draws to a close. Whoever wins, on some level the Russian state, the host, and its president, Vladimir Putin, have won. But what of the Russian people?

As warm and open as the country has seemed, it is still a difficult place for opposition activists and artists. Among the most famous of these is Pussy Riot, the punk band and collective that transfixed the world when, six years ago, three of their young members, Maria Alyokhina, Nadezhda Tolokonnikova and Yekaterina Samutsevich were tried for their forty second performance of their anti-Putin ‘Punk Prayer’.inside Moscow’s Cathedral of Christ the Saviour. They were sentenced to a shocking 20 months in prison, though Samutsevich was given a suspended sentence on appeal.

Pussy Riot still exists. Riot Days, a show fronted by Alyokhina is coming to the Summerhall venue at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe this August. Members continue to protest in Russia and produce political videos, like the song, Elections, released in the run up to the election Vladimir Putin won earlier this year. In a Russia that has clamped down still further on oppositional activism, they are still arrested and detained.

Alexander Cheparukhin, the producer of Riot Days ¬ a show based on a book by Maria Alyokhina describing her battles in court and experience of prison ¬ knows their struggles. “Several girls still do actions,” he says. “Most of those girls are in Siberia and Crimea. They do political actions to protest against the political imprisonment of some people. They get arrested. They tend to be detained for several hours, maximum one night.”

Cheparukhin was introduced to me as a person who would talk “on behalf” of the Pussy Riot collective. Surprisingly, he’s a man, not a woman, and the organiser of music festivals and events. But then anyone, as the collective has often said, can be Pussy Riot. Anyone can perform in one of their cut-out balaclava masks. Anyone can protest in their spirit.

Russia, he says, has only got worse for activists since the Pussy Riot trial. “The difference is huge,” he says, “and not positive. For example, in 2010, the predecessor of Pussy Riot, Voina Group, made a very famous action called A Dick Captured By The FSB. They drew a penis, in nine seconds, on a big drawbridge in St Petersburg. When the drawbridge was up, and the ships had to pass for several hours, the authority couldn’t do anything with this bridge. And what was the result? A state award of $50,000 by the Minister of Culture Federation.”

Before the trial of Pussy Riot, Cheparukhin observes, “It seemed everything was possible in Russia. My personal opinion is that for 15-20 years Russia was in fact, in the area of artistic freedom, the most free country in the world.” But things changed during a wave of protests around 2011 and 2012, of which Pussy Riot was part. “Since this time Russian legislation became much more severe. For instance in 2012 whatever Pussy Riot did, they only deserved by law something like five days of community service. That’s why this court was such a shock for us. They did something which was a small hooliganism and deserved five days of community service. But they were accused of hooliganism based on religious hatred, which was not the truth. There was no religious hatred there. So it was like a special attempt of power of Kremilin to show everybody, 'Don’t do this.'”

Since then, he notes, Russian law has become more restrictive. “The Russian parliament has accepted so many new laws which are very repressive. You can be thrown to prison even for posting a document on Facebook.”

Among the Pussy Riot members who have been recently detained is Maria Alyokhina, or “Masha” as she is often called, one of the most famous of Pussy Riot’s members, who, during her trial cross-examined witnesses and said, in her closing statement defiantly denounced Russia’s "totalitarian-authoritarian system”.

“Masha was arrested yesterday,” Cheparukhin says, as he explains why he is distracted by his phone’s constant beep of messages. He is trying, he adds, to “solve an issue for her”, following her release, with a fine of £5000, which she does not intend to pay

For Alyokhina, this recent detention and fine is a minor affair. She has, after all, been horse whipped by Cossacks for protesting at the Olympic Games in Sochi, done a hunger strike in prison, and experienced single-cell confinement. Her transgressions on this occasion were twofold. The first, that she had evaded a 100-hour community service that she was sentenced to after, in April, she released boxes of paper airplanes outside the headquarters of Russia’s Federal Security Service, in protest at Russia-wide ban on encrypted messaging service Telegram. The second because she evaded a further 40-hour community service, given as sentence for a visit she made to the FSB office on the centennial of the Soviet secret police, with a sign that read, “Happy birthday, executioners.”

Much of her campaigning nowadays is focussed on the injustices of Russia's court and penal system. Last year, she and fellow Pussy Riot member, Olga Borisova, staged a protest outside a Siberian prison, with banner and flares, objecting to the imprisonment of Crimean film director Oleg Sentsov on a 20 year sentence under terrorist offences.

What was shocking in 2012, however, wasn’t just the trial itself, but the degree of misogyny that was unleashed in the wider Russian public. They were called “whores” and “sluts” and threatened with rape and burning. This summer, from August 2 to September 26, Edinburgh’s Summerhall will also host Free The Pussy, an exhibition of artworks that were made in response to Pussy Riot’s imprisonment in 2012, curated by gender political artist Tamsyn Challenger. Including works by Yoko Ono, Judy Chicago and Carolee Schneemann, it is testimony to the impact of Pussy Riot on artists and activists across the rest of the world. It also highlights the misogyny experienced by Pussy Riot and many other women activists.

Challenger, who has often be described as an artist-agitator, first became involved with work around Pussy Riot, in 2012, when the women were on trial, and she contributed to a responsive book called Let’s Start A Pussy Riot. “We’ve created a womb room cinema,” she says. “We’ve got a forty second countdown meow clock. The pub, The Royal Dick, is going to be turned into The Royal Pussy. And, off the back of Maedeh Hojabri, the Iranian girl who was arrested for dancing on Instagram, I’m creating a cordoned off space in which women can dance and are free to dance.”

Cheparukhin believes that Pussy Riot probably has more followers in the west now than in Russia. “A lot of people thought they were wrong in doing their action in church and I cannot say that there are a lot of real followers of them in Russia. There are a lot of people who protested against their imprisonment, yes. Maybe hundreds of thousands. But I wouldn’t say that they influenced that much the behaviour of young people. I would say their influence is bigger in the west.”

Meanwhile, in Russia, some see them as having brought on the ongoing clampdown on opposition activists. “Pussy Riot was definitely a turning point. That’s why the attitude towards the collective is contradictory for many people. Even some opposition people think that they triggered this very reactionary behaviour of the government. Before Pussy Riot, the reaction to mass protests was much more liberal. After Pussy Riot, step by step, the Russian state started to call protestors enemies. And now most of the people who are against Putin are called enemies.”

Nevertheless, he says, they were an “integral part of this history of the protest movement of 2011-12 and maybe one of the brightest parts”. One of the best things they have done, since their trial and imprisonment, he says, was to set up the news website, Mediazona, which highlights court and prison injustices. “It’s very strong. And it’s a major media force now. It’s not like hidden underground it’s major. Even the government have to take into account their articles and reports, very brave reports.”

Prior to the World Cup 2018, many hoped that there would be a boycott of the country as host. Cheparukhin was among them. “I initially thought I would be happy if it was boycotted,” he says. “But I’ve been in Moscow during the World Cup and I think finally it was good for Russian people because it’s such a good atmosphere. Very peaceful, a lot of love and friendship." He admired, he says, how tolerant the police were with some of the fans. “It’s incredible and really new there. Incredibly new. You see very friendly police and it doesn’t mean that they are instructed to be like this. No, they just admire this atmosphere when like tens of thousands of people are dancing in the centre of Moscow. So finally I liked it very much.”

A boycott, he says, would have been a “proper political gesture against Putin’s regime”. “But,”he adds, “since it was not boycotted, I think the best you can do is celebrate its spirit of friendship. And, by the way, a lot of opposition people, some Pussy Riot members, also were jumping around in this crowd in Moscow. They liked it. There was even swimming in fountains in the centre of Moscow.”

Free The Pussy: women arrested for activism

Maedeh Hojabri: The Iranian teen who amassed a huge Instagram following for her videos featuring her dancing, became one of many in her country to have been arrested under their laws for dancing in public. When last week, she appeared on Iranian television, giving what appeared to be a forced confession, there was a huge backlash. A wave of supporters of Hojabri posted videos of themselves dancing with the hashtag #dancingisnotacrime.

China’s Feminist Five: In March 2015, ten young Chinese feminists were arrested by Beijing police for planning to hand out stickers about sexual harassment on International Women’s Day. Five were criminally detained for over a month, triggering an international outcry. Their plight went viral under the hashtag #’FreetheFive

Saudi women drivers: The ban on women driving in Saudia Arabia may have been lifted this year, but even as it was there were still women in jail for having defied it. Among them was Loujain al-Hathloul, a well-known young activist, who spent 73 days in jail for defying the ban in 2014 and came to world attention for a short video she posted on YouTube of her arrest as she attempted to drive across the border from the United Arab Emirates into Saudi Arabia.

Megumi Igarashi: In 2014, who works under the pseudonym Rokudenashiko – or good-for-nothing girl – was arrested after she distributed data that enabled recipients to make 3D prints of her vagina. She was later found guilty of obscenity and fined 400,000 yen (£2,575).