William Herrington in the exhibit in Zheleznogorsk. Photo: screenshot from a video by Ruslan Tsyganov

A teenager who submitted a photo of a well-known adult film star to be included at a war veterans’ memorial in southwestern Russia has been charged with “rehabilitating Nazism”, a crime punishable by up to five years’ imprisonment, the Kursk regional branch of Russia’s Investigative Committee reported on Thursday.

According to the local investigators, an unnamed 17-year-old in Zheleznogorsk, a town in the Kursk region, submitted a photograph that “humiliated the honour and dignity of veterans of the Great Patriotic War” to appear in an installation honouring local servicemen, before taking a photo of its presence at the memorial, and sharing it online.

Independent news outlet 7x7 said the teenager submitted seven photographs of William (Billy) Herrington, an adult film star who died in 2018, best known for his work in gay pornography in the 1990s and the Gachimuchi meme, which became popular among Russian teenagers in the late 2010s.

The Battle of Kursk installation was unveiled in Zheleznogorsk at the end of April, featuring over 2,000 photos submitted by local residents of veterans of World War II and the war in Ukraine.

In early May, former Zheleznogorsk City Duma deputy Ruslan Tsyganov posted a video on social media with the panel of veterans, drawing attention to the photographs of Herrington. Shortly thereafter, the local Mayor’s Office filed an official complaint.

In an interview with state-owned news agency RIA Novosti in May, Anton Polsky, the memorial’s creator, explained that he and other creators of the installation had overlooked the photo of Herrington because they were “brought up with different values”, “watch different films”, and “didn’t know these American actors”.