Authorities in Bali today released the identity of a foreign woman who was arrested yesterday for posing naked by a 700-year-old sacred tree in Tabanan.
Forty-year-old Luiza Kosykh, who is in Indonesia on an investor visa, was arrested by Denpasar Immigration officers yesterday at noon at a villa in Pererenan.
According to the authorities, Kosykh, who claimed that she is in Bali to invest, took the picture on April 11, 2021 (so before the Russian yogi who was caught doing the exact same thing last year) and claimed that she did not know the tree was sacred.
“She uploaded [the picture] on Instagram on the same date. We don’t know who highlighted it in 2023,” Barron Ichsan, the head of the Immigration Division of the Bali Office of the Ministry of Law and Human Rights said in a press conference earlier today.
The sacred 700-year-old kayu putih (weeping paperbark) tree is located on the grounds of the Babakan Temple in Bayan Village.
“She said that she took the picture with her friend because [she wanted to] be at one with nature,” added Barron.
Barron said the photo was technically not pornographic.
“She said that in the picture she was wearing panties and that her friend, A, later edited [the photo] to make it [seem like she was] more immersed in nature,” he said.
“If we look at her picture, this is not nude photography that is arousing. Could be different for dirty-minded people. I look at the photo, I see it as art, and not erotic. But yes, [it was taken] at the wrong place. That is a sacred place.”
It is unclear what happened to her friend who was identified as A.
To the authorities, Kosykh apologized and said that she took the picture on a whim and she did not mean to disrespect Indonesians, especially the people of Bali.
Barron said that Kosykh will be deported from Indonesia imminently.
Social media activist Ni Luh Djelantik uploaded the Russian woman’s picture on Monday and it soon went viral, triggering outrage on the island and beyond.
Last year, we wrote a story about a Russian yogi who shot to infamy after posing naked at the very same tree.
Twenty-eight-year-old Alina Fazleeva and her husband performed rituals to apologize to the spirits at the temple before being deported from Indonesia.
One would think that Fazleeva’s story would serve as a cautionary tale to everyone else.
“We call upon local administrations to speed up the creation of a handbook or guidance book consisting of dos and don’ts for foreign citizens so that they are aware of the things they can and cannot do in Bali,” Barron said.
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