The vile and sickening rise of homophobic hatred in Russia

I'm Irish but have lived in Poland for a fairly considerable amount of time. I lived in Warsaw so it may have been different to the rest of Poland but I had no worries whatsoever being LGBT in Warsaw. It was the same as in Ireland at least in my experience.

I've never been to Russia so couldn't comment on that.

I know this thread might be a little aged at this time but I thought I'd throw in my experiences of going school, college, living and working in Russia.

Living now in Cork and looking at Russia from the outside in, the issue of being gay (I am gay myself) in Russia is progressively getting worse; Russians might see this as natural because the country has/had demographic issues (aging population, overpopulated by women and 'not enough men') and homosexuals are seen as a threat to procreation (and in turn, the survival of Russian society). For a westerner, that might sound like bile and you might presume that people wouldn't take that seriously, but in Russia, it is taken seriously because the government holds this stance also.

Indeed, the terminology is also interesting. In Russian, the word for 'straight' is натурал (which means 'natural') and 'gay' is нетрадиционый (non-traditional).

I had no gay friends living in Vladimirskaya Oblast' (region to the east of Moscow, about 300km) I remember in 2006 on my 17th birthday a group of 4 straight friends decided to surprise me on my birthday and take me to Moscow to a club called Tri Ob'yezany which was a massively famous gay club in Moscow. What they didn't realise is that it was not my scene but still, we had a great time. These 4 friends are all 'very' straight and in fact, when they found out I was gay - we didn't speak or communicate for about a year because of it. Any way, we took the late night train into Moscow's Yaroslavski train station and from there, we took a taxi to the club; there was no problem asking a taxi driver to take us to a gay club, there was no yobs waiting outside the club, it wasn't underground and hidden; in fact there were 3 or 4 floors in the club and it was absolutely packed full. Now, in 2019 - I would not DARE take a taxi to such a place and I would be very aware of the fact that the risk of being attacked in the vicinity of the club would be very high. I've just googled it and it seems it has since been closed down. You can do a google search for "три обезьяны клуб" for videos on youtube or pictures of what it once was.

I then went to university in Tver' (North West between Moscow and St. Petersburg) and again - I encountered no sexuality related problems. Infact, I even met an openly trans girl one night at a drunken karaoke bar. Of course, never in my life living in Russia would I have been openly gay or outwardly so but at university, I did have gay friends at the university and even some who were open to their parents etc. It was 'fine'. In the case of my friends, their families were not happy about it, but they were not happy because of how society would make my friends live their lives. In deed, one good friend of mine actually married a lesbian girl just so that their internal passport stated that they were married. My friend was under a lot of pressure at work and even by officials for not being married. This, back then, was deemed 'strange' by society.

When I was finishing up university, I began working in a school as a classroom assistant. Now in Russia of 2019, this would not be allowed as I would pose a risk of propagandating towards minors due to my sexuality.

It is an absolute mess.

I am sorry I have rambled on! If you want any more stories or adventures, I'll happily oblige.

Or if you are ready for a real Russian experience. Prepare yourselves.

1989's Pink Evening by Yuriy Shatunov (who had concert in Dublin just 2 years ago!).