Introduction Gay Russia is a vast subject with a short modern history. Life is not easy for LGBT Russians and most prefer to remain in quiet safe closets. But three LGBT organizations are challenging the old traditions and attitudes. It is not easy or always safe but the challenge is great and their determination is
As of 2011, Russia had no criminal law directed at LGBT people. However that changed in 2013 when the Russian duma passed –and Putin signed–a deliberate discriminatory law against any public advocacy of gay rights or equality. Since that legalization of homophobia LGBT advocates have faced increased hostility and violence–and death. There is a LGBT community network but it operates mostly indoors and online, out of public scrutiny, although a peaceful small Pride rally was held in July 2014 in a field some distance from central St. Petersburg. As one activist said, “the courageous became more courageous, the closeted became more closeted. However the latter are much more than the first.” The future for Russian LGBT progress is dim.
Name: Russia
Population: 142008000
Capital: Moscow - Pop. 10482000
Area: 17075400 sq. km/ sq. miles
Language: Russian
Religion: Russian Orthodox
Status of Homosexuality: Legal
Telephone Country Code: 7
How I Told Russia I Was Gay
Intro: At age 5, Artem Kolesov, the son of two Russian pastors living outside Moscow, realized he was gay, but it took another 18 years before he had the courage to come out to his family, friends and, ultimately, the world.
Gay in Putin’s Moscow: Why the City is Pinker Than You Think
LGBT nights are easy to find and Grindr reaches into the heart of the Kremlin itself. But two years after the law banning ‘homosexual propaganda’, can being gay in the Russian capital really be much fun? By Chris Michael, Judith Soal and Maeve Shearlaw The Guardian 13 June 2015 http://www.theguardian.com/cities/2015/jun/13/gay-putin-moscow-life-nightlife-clubbing-law-lgbt “Moscow is like a small
Russian Gay Activist Speaks Out 2013
Gay City News October 2, 2013. By Doug Ireland Nikolai Baev, 38, (photo right) is a veteran Russian gay activist born and raised in Moscow. He founded the first gay group in the city of Novosibirsk when he was a university student there, and is one of the original organizers of the efforts to stage
Moscow Gay Pride Launched–Heading into Bloody Battle
Fifth attempt to challenge Mayor’s Pride ban in central Moscow this Saturday 29 May Posted by Richard Ammon GllobalGayz.com Moscow 27 May 2010 The fifth attempt to hold a Moscow Pride parade was launched today in the Grand Ballroom at the Lesnaya Holiday Inn hotel in Moscow. Nikolai Alekseev, the Moscow Pride organizer (photo right),
Leo Tolstoy and Russian Soup
Richard Ammon GlobalGayz.com I recently traveled to Russia where I visited three cities: Moscow, St. Petersburg and Tula. Tula? It’s hardly a tourist hotspot, but this industrial city 120 miles south of Moscow is the location of a world renown site that has become a shrine of sorts for intellectuals, students and lovers of Russian
Gay Walt Whitman Statue Unveiled in Moscow by Hillary with Homophobic Mayor’s Approval
Westhampton, MA – October 15, 2009 Richard Ammon –GlobalGayz.com Didja read this one!? Goes to show how schizoid homophobia can be–and how dangerous it is in the hands of irrational public authorities. From (AFP) in the Times of London, October 15, 2009 A statue of the American poet and gay icon Walt Whitman was unveiled
Gay Russia 2006
Introduction: The following two stories about LGBT folks in Russia are by guest writers who have been to the major gay cities in Russia–Moscow and St. Petersburg. My own experience of Russia last year was far away in Siberia via the Trans-Siberian railroad from Beijing to Ekaterinburg then back to Vladivostok. The cities along the
Russia Through the Back Door: Finland to Russia via Boat Canal
Intro: Want to go to Russia without the throngs of airports, the dense huddles of Moscow or sandwiched in a package cruise up the Gulf of Finland to Petersburg? Try the back road from Lappeenranta, Finland, through forty miles of wilderness to Vyborg, Russia. The route is a peaceful journey amid beautiful lakes and forests with hardly a sound and no masses of traffic. This unique trip is by way of the remarkably engineered and little known (outside of Finland) Saimaa shipping canal.
