A Moscow court has banned the sale of toilet paper with printed patterns of 1,000-ruble bills, the independent news website Vyorstka reported Thursday, citing the court’s ruling.
The decorative toilet paper was deemed to “offend religious feelings” since the 1,000-ruble banknote depicts Yaroslav the Wise, an 11th-century Kyivan Rus’ prince who was made a saint and, in 2016, canonized by the Russian Orthodox Church.
Moscow’s Preobrazhensky District Court sided with the prosecutor who brought the case forward and banned the websites of four online stores that sold the toilet paper.
“In a free democratic society, the dissemination of illegal information capable of offending the religious feelings of believers cannot be protected by freedom of thought, speech, opinion and information,” the judge was quoted as saying.
One of the four banned websites was Sima Land, which went viral for a 2021 pro-Putin flashmob amid widespread protests calling for the release of the late Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny.
Vyorstka said Sima Land and another e-commerce platform, Glavchudo, have since removed the decorative toilet paper from their websites.