Freed Pussy Riot punk rockers reunite in Siberia

KRASNOYARSK, Russia - Agence France-Presse

Two members of anti-Kremlin punk band Pussy Riot, Nadezhda Tolokonnikova (R) and Maria Alyokhina smile as they meet in the airport of the Siberian city of Krasnoyarsk, some 3500 km east of Moscow, on December 24, 2013.

Two members of anti-Kremlin punk band Pussy Riot embraced each other Tuesday as they reunited in the Siberian city of Krasnoyarsk, a day after they walked out of separate prisons under a Russian amnesty.

 Maria Alyokhina, who had been serving her sentence at a prison colony in the central city of Nizhny Novgorod, flew into Krasnoyarsk to meet up with bandmate Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, who was released from a prison hospital in the Siberian city.

 Tolokonnikova said she wanted to spend at least a week in Krasnoyarsk with her grandmother.
 The young women, both of whom have small children, embraced each other during their reunion at Krasnoyarsk airport, an AFP correspondent said.

 Russian freelance photographer Denis Sinyakov, one of a group of 30 Greenpeace activists charged with hooliganism for a protest against Arctic oil drilling in September, also joined the women after being released on bail last month.

 Alyokhina, 25, and Tolokonnikova,24, were released two months early under a Kremlin-backed amnesty after serving most of their two-year sentences for staging a protest performance against President Vladimir Putin in an Orthodox cathedral in Moscow in February 2012.

 The "Arctic 30" are also expected to escape prosecution under the amnesty.