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Coronation. From Upgrade series.

Coronation. From Upgrade series.
On October 7, 2019, on the birthday of Vladimir Putin, in a small town in the Moscow region called Kolomna, one artist from Ekaterinburg made a mural popularly known as «Atlas-Putin.» On this mural, you can see the man, which looks just like the president of Russia, wearing a greek-style toga, standing on the pedestal and holding planet Earth. Above his head was a text: «You are keeping (supporting) the whole world, and the whole world is supporting you.»
The author said that it was his idea to congratulate Putin this way.

On the next day, after the vote about constitutional amendments through which Putin’s presidential terms would be reset, on July 2, 2020, at about 1 pm, another artist from Ekaterinburg arrived in Kolomna and started to make some changes to the original «congratulation mural.» Instead of planet Earth, there should’ve been a big gold crown, and all text should’ve disappeared. At about 5–00 pm, the «upgrade» was relatively close to finishing, but on the finish line, the painting process was interrupted by police. After, the authors of a new version of Atlas spent about 24 hours in the police station until the lawyers came, and Kolomna’s court decided to judge artists for using foul language in a public place.

Meanwhile, at about 6 pm on July 2, at the place of the coronation, arrived a team from Kolomna’s government to solve the problem with the new version of the mural. At about 7 pm, with the help of the same skylift that Ural artists rented, the Crown was covered with light grey paint.

A week after, around 9-10th July 2020, the mural was restored by unknown artists – planet Earth and all original texts returned to the same places. The circle has completed, and the story goes further.
Thanks to Igor, Nikita, Natalia, Marianna, Marina, our lawyers Fedor Sirosh (Agora) and Michael Birukov (OVD Info), and special thanks to two dickheads from FSB for the priceless experience and «interesting» conversations.
To be continued.
Kolomna, Russia, 2020.