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In Ukraine he wages war with weapons; at home, with repression, contested laws and propaganda. This is Vladimir Putin, president of a Russia that has just adopted a law declaring the “international LGBT movement” an extremist organisation. With Putin in a cold war against them for years, many members of the LGBTQ+ community have had to leave the country they were born in. One of them is Yuri, who now lives in Belgrade — because, as he says in his story for Nova, in his own country he is banned and unwanted.
Yuri, who for his own safety does not want his surname made public, left Russia in 2022. He currently lives in Belgrade, and he shared with us what his life in his homeland looked like.
“In Russia I was never 100 percent open about what I really am — only with close friends — but at the same time I didn't hide. Direct questions about myself I answered directly. The only positive things for the LGBTQ+ community I can remember date from the early 2000s. Tatu represented Russia at Eurovision; you could see some gay people on television, even in commercials. I was 17 then,” he says.
The situation changed, he stresses, when Putin launched an open war against the population he belongs to.
“Everything changed after the civic protests of 2011. In 2013 the federal law against ‘gay propaganda' was introduced, banning any demonstrations — even conversations with minors about questions of sex and sexuality outside standard heteronormativity. I worked in the public sector and in education, and I know how dramatically that affected young people. Since then, even psychologists and social workers cannot do their jobs openly. They cannot support young people who feel a little different from others and struggle because of it,” he explains.
That, he admits, was when he understood the law was only the first step towards a total ban on the LGBTQ+ community in Russia.
“I moved to Moscow in 2019 — it was completely different from the rest of the country. A few gay clubs, people on the street looking much more diverse — but none of that had anything in common with any question of human rights. Any activity connected to Pride was always banned. I never went on a date, for example, before carefully checking social media profiles, just to be sure it was a real person and that it was safe,” Yuri says.
A new, more drastic level of repression began in 2022.
“That was when the new law against the propaganda of ‘non-traditional values' banned any open discussion of sexuality — not just with under-18s, but for everyone. Since that absolute absurdity began, streaming services have cut gay storylines out of series entirely, music channels have drained the colour out of rainbows in K-pop videos, entire series of books have been destroyed because homosexual characters appear in them. It was never like this even in the late Soviet Union, or in modern Iran,” he stresses.
The Russian authorities' next move — declaring the international LGBT movement an extremist organisation — Yuri considers absurd.
“It's beyond absurd, because no such organisation has ever existed. The court session was officially secret; only the ruling was made public, without any commentary or reasoning. An interesting fact is that several activist groups tried to join the proceedings so they could defend themselves — they even founded a real movement with that very name — but the Supreme Court rejected all their appeals,” Yuri explains.
As for what life will look like for LGBTQ+ people in Russia under the new, even more repressive conditions, he says it is impossible to know.
“We can't predict how far this will really affect people, because we don't know any details of the material from this closed process — but in general, Russian law prescribes clear punishments for extremists. Displaying extremist symbols (and the rainbow may now count as one) carries a fine or detention of up to 15 days. Financially supporting extremist organisations carries up to eight years in prison. Organising the work of an extremist organisation, or taking part in it, carries up to ten years.”
Everything Yuri describes comes straight from the Kremlin's kitchen — with Vladimir Putin as head chef. In the words of our interlocutor: an autocrat who wants a broken society.
Source: Nova. English adaptation: gay-serbia.com.