Follower of Flying Spaghetti Monster allowed to wear COLANDER in Russian driver’s license photo

A devout and persistent Flying Spaghetti Monster minister baffled Russia’s traffic police by posing for a driver’s license photo wearing a colander on his head.

Russian authorities are generally quite strict when it comes to rules on issuing documents so it took Mikhail Iosilevich from the city of Nizhny Novgorod in European Russia several hours to convince the traffic police to allow him to pose with an orange colander for his driver’s license.

The man had to prove that the Pastafarian Church, where he is a minister, is indeed registered as a religious group in Russia. On top of that, he presented a signed statement saying that the kitchenware on his head is a sacred symbol of faith.

“Naturally, they didn’t want to do it at first… but at the end the traffic police found no legal grounds to deny [the request]”, Mikhail told local media on Wednesday.

Pastafarianism originated in 2005 when Bobby Henderson wrote a satirical open letter to the Kansas Board of Education, mocking its plans to teach intelligent design in schools. In his letter, Henderson demanded equal time for ‘Flying Spaghetti Monsterism’ to be taught in science classes, alongside creationism and evolution.

The new faith quickly became an internet phenomenon and spread across the globe. Its followers worship the Flying Spaghetti Monster, who they say created the universe. They often appear in photos wearing colanders on their heads.

Mikhail is not the first to pull this stunt in Russia. In 2016, a man from Moscow succeeded in obtaining a Pastafarian-style driver’s license but he posed wearing a colander-shaped hat rather than an actual kitchenware.

According to some estimates, somewhere from 230,000 to 500,000 people identify as Pastafarians in Russia. Their exact number is hard to count since the church has no formal membership.

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