Media outlets and the Beware News website reported that a Moscow court sentenced Ksenia Belousova, an employee of a Moscow bar, to three years and 25 days in prison in a case of insulting the feelings of believers. She was detained in the courtroom.
As it turned out at the court session, in 2025, Belousova received a three-year suspended sentence in a drug case (it is not specified which article we are talking about). In this regard, the Prosecutor’s Office requested the cancellation of the suspended sentence against 27-year-old Belousova and, by adding the sentences, grant her a real sentence in a colony.
In the new case, the court sentenced her to 200 hours of hard labor, but added the penalty to the previous period and sentenced her to actual imprisonment for three years and 25 days.
The indictment says that on Easter, “a holiday of exceptional importance,” Belousova posted on her Instagram account a video of a hookah with a bowl shaped like an Easter cake, one of the “most recognizable symbols” of the holiday. The investigation believes that in this way, the girl wanted to “draw the public’s attention to the professionalism of the hookah maker.”
She added a comment that was “clearly mocking,” creating a “evaluation rubric,” investigators allege. We are talking about the caption on the photo: “Even Christ rose from this.” In the published video, Ksenia can be heard telling her colleagues in the bar that the same customer asked to make such a hookah for him and went and bought a cake himself.
The case was opened against the girl on April 13. Blogger Z Vladislav Pozdnyakov, as well as pro-government Telegram channels, drew attention to the video on their Instagram. Soon after, Belousova deleted the post and issued an apology, but there is still a criminal case against her for insulting the feelings of believers (Part 1 of Article 148 of the Criminal Code). The police also released a video apologizing to Ksenia.
In her final speech, Belousova said: “I am a believer myself, and so is my family. I attend church regularly and I appreciate and respect everything related to the church. My family, my mother, father and brother are involved. I ask you to take into account their health condition.”
In April 2026, the Investigation Committee opened another case related to insulting the feelings of believers. The person involved in the case was a resident of the Moreno district near St. Petersburg. The girl posted a photo of a cake with a dildo, Telegram channels wrote.