Cracking the QR Code

In Moscow, July 2, a pair of legs with hot red stilettos on one end and a plush purple QR code at the other flounced down a Moscow street and into a restaurant.

The stunt comes after Mayor Sergei Sobyanin announced in mid-June that Moscow residents would be required to present a QR code, printed or on an electronic device, that would prove they were protected from the Covid-19 virus when entering certain public venues such as cafes, bars, and restaurants.

The QR culprit decided to forego traditional code-presentation to embody her own safety status. As she sashayed to her destination along Bolshaya Nikitskaya Street, she kicked her heels above her neon-yellow spandex shorts, wiggled in front of passerby, and even confronted a few side-walkers with a daring dip to the concrete. She then entered the Izakaya Restaurant & Bar and was last recorded, still bopping, near another woman – presumably the bar’s hostess.

QR codes and other Covid-19 regulations come among a surge in coronavirus cases in Moscow. Other preventative measures have included barring the city’s residents from sitting on benches, declaring June 15 to 19 working holidays for non-essential businesses, banning food enterprises and other parts of the service industry such as nightclubs from having customers between 11 pm and 6 am, and requiring that at least 60% of employees in industries where individuals work in-person with a large flow of customers are vaccinated.

Moscow's government has offered incentives in the forms of grants for food and other industries that comply with new regulations, but it seems the walking QR code needed far less encouragement.