MOSCOW, September 23. /ITAR-TASS/. Any Russian is now free to demonstrate his or her indignation against Western sanctions by simply wearing a designer T-shirt with a patriotic print. A campaign of swapping T-shirts with slogans on foreign languages for the ones with patriotic prints free of charge was kicked off in Moscow’s central Pushkin Square on Tuesday.

Various T-shirts were set out on a stall with a samovar in front of the Pushkin monument. The T-shirts displayed featured funny and provocative texts in Russian. Some read “Sanctions? Don’t make my Iskanders laugh” and featured pictures of these mobile ballistic missile systems. Some had the text of the Russian anthem on the background of St. Basil’s Cathedral /on Red Square/.

“All are trendy, nice and funny. Our action is called ‘Fashion’s Answer to the Sanctions is No!’,” designer Anastasia Zadorina, whose company had manufactured 30,000 such T-shirts, told ITAR-TASS.

Young people were flocking around the stall, with newsmakers seen among them. Girls changed clothes in a bus parked nearby, boys did it just in the street, despite not very warm weather. Actress Olga Kabo put on a T-shirt featuring a Topol giant road-mobile intercontinental ballistic missile and reading “Topol is Afraid of No Sanctions.” She said she had no doubts that Russia was right. “We will win because we are big and strong,” she told ITAR-TASS, adding that she hoped the current international confrontation would soon be ended. “Two such creative countries like Russia and Ukraine simply must live together,” she stressed.

According to Ksenia Melnikova, one of the action’s co-organizers and president of the Sodeistviye /Assistance/ Fund, the key idea of the action was to demonstrate the world that “Russia is afraid of no sanctions.” Confidentially, she said that the organizers were ready to give out such T-shirts not only in exchange for foreign ones but just for free to “help people demonstrate their patriotic position.”

“As for T-shirts with slogans in foreign languages, we will recycle them. Maybe, we will create a piece of art,” she said. In her words, the action was sponsored by two Russian companies and a “popular fundraising campaign may be organized” to further promote it.

Organizers say the action’s bus will move around the city over the next two weeks. Its stopovers may be seen on the action’s website http:www.otvetim-net.ru. It is planned to involve celebrities in the campaign. From Moscow, the patriotic bus will set off for Russian regions, including Crimea. A special action will be organized at Moscow’s Vnukovo airport on September 29, when patriotic T-shirts will be given out to passengers.