By Masha Gessen, from Words Will Break Cement: The Passion of Pussy Riot, out now from Riverhead Books. Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, Maria Alyokhina, and Yekaterina Samutsevich, members of the Russian punk-rock band and art-activist group Pussy Riot, were arrested in March 2012 and sentenced to two years in prison for “hooliganism motivated by religious hatred,” after staging a performance at Moscow’s Cathedral of Christ the Savior. They may receive amnesty under legislation passed in December by the lower house of Russia’s parliament. Gessen’s previous books include The Man Without a Face: The Unlikely Rise of Vladimir Putin.

Gera wanted to pee.…