St. Petersburg woman detained in Russia on charges of offending religious believers over Easter bread photo

Russian authorities have detained a 20-year-old St. Petersburg resident on charges of offending the religious feelings of believers, the Leningrad Region office of the Investigative Committee announced.

She is expected to be formally charged and placed under a restraint measure in the near future. The investigating authority said it is continuing investigative work to establish all the circumstances of the offense and is taking steps to address the conditions that contributed to it.

On April 14, the Investigative Committee announced it had opened a criminal case against a local resident, saying she had posted a photograph in a messaging app that “offended the religious feelings of believers.” The authority did not specify what the image depicted.

The photograph showed an Easter bread and a sex toy, the Telegram news channel Ostorozhno Novosti reported. According to the outlet, the woman’s name is Tatyana. The image was reposted by Z-blogger Vladislav Pozdnyakov. Pozdnyakov later published a video in which Tatyana says she posted the photo out of foolishness, calling it a “thoughtless act” with no intent to offend anyone. She added that she “acknowledges her guilt and repents.”

This is not the first criminal case involving Easter bread and charges of offending religious believers. On April 13, a case was opened against a Moscow bar employee who had prepared a hookah using an Easter bread as the base at a customer’s request. Vladislav Pozdnyakov drew attention to her social media post, after which the criminal case was opened. That same evening, police published a video of the woman apologizing.