What is the history of the gay community in Russia?
NA: There is no historical evidence from the Czarist period. Under Stalin, homosexuality was used as a pretext to send opponents of the regime to the gulags. In spite of all this, even in the soviet era, a little gay bar existed right in the center of Moscow, only a few meters from the town hall! Today have things changed? NA: At the beginning of the 1990s police raids on gay bars and clubs were frequent. Then, on May 27, 1993, homosexual relations were decriminalized by President Yeltsin, who wanted to anchor Russia securely in the framework of the Council of Europe. In reality, we began a policy of “nyet, nyet” which translates as “neither improvement of status nor criminalization.” Putin’s political advisors do not know how to address the question of homosexuality. Was the violence at the Gay Pride march proof of the homophobia which exists in Russian society? NA: The pronouncements of religious dignitaries and ultranationalists are often interpreted by journalists and social critic
