Russia is looking to crack down on pop stars for performances and outfits that they feel is too revealing, and Russian politicians are fighting to defend what they claim are “traditional” valies, according to the Moscow Times.
At the center of it all is singer Natalya Chistyakova-Ionova, who is best known by her stage name Glukoza, who found herself in the middle of a scandal after pro-Kremlin censorship activist Yekaterina Mizulina spoke about her performance last week in the Siberian city of Krasnoyarsk.
“Glukoza came on stage in an indecent state and was touching her intimate parts [during the performance]…in front of thousands of children,” Mizulina said in a post on Telegram. “Residents of Krasnoyarsk are outraged…they are asking to hold the singer accountable. I advise authorities in all other cities where she performs in the future to first test the singer for drugs.”
This prompted a response from the Glukoza, who issued the following statement on Instagram.
The star apologized for her behavior during the aforementioned performance and blamed it on a mixture of “sleeping pills and antidepressants” that were recently prescribed to her.
Despite the apology, the state-run media announced that the singer’s accounts across several Russian banks were blocked due to alleged tax debt, which raised some eyebrows. Her name also was erased from a promotional poster of a large festival set to take place in September in Moscow.
