I've just arrived in St Petersburg for the opening of Queer Fest, the city's annual gay
festival, and I'm racing to get to the launch party before police close it down. Since July,
promoting homosexuality has been a criminal offence.
"Well we've just arrived at the venue for the opening of Queer Fest and there are three
police cars and some fourteen police apparently on the lookout for gay propaganda".
That's the official term for suggesting that it's okay to be gay.
If you suggest it to anyone under 18, you can be arrested.
The law against so-called gay propaganda to minors has made the festival a pariah. Forty
venues refused to host the launch before this 17th floor gallery came to the rescue.
Polina, who's now scared to give her surname, is Queer Fest's main organiser."Nobody knows
what propaganda means. It's vague, and it's deliberately
vague because then our government can use this law arbitrarily to apply to anything,
any open expression of homosexuality. So really it drives all these people out of public space".
The law has caused outrage in the liberal West. Diplomats from Britain, Sweden and the
Netherlands have come to lend high-profile support.
"The Prime Minister has told President Putin, the other Ministers, their counterparts, that
they find this law against European law on human rights. So you have to say to what you
think is not right and is discrimination. So that is what we do and what we will keep
doing". Not if this man can help it.
"Why it's polite to act like this in Russia? It shows that these countries, honestly, they
don't respect us". Vitaly Milonov heads the legislative committee
of the St Petersburg city government. He drafted a ban on gay propaganda that became the model
for the national law. On the eve of the Queer Fest launch, he asked police to lock down
the venue.
For once, he didn't get what he wanted and the festival went ahead. It's organised by
a group called 'Vixhod' meaning 'Coming Out' but thanks to Milonov's law all this year's
events will be inside. "People are intimidated. People are afraid.
They don't know what is legal and not legal to do. I don't know
if I can hold hands with my girlfriend in the street and everybody's just feeling this
pressure all the time. That's what it's all about".
A video message from an esteemed gay celebrity urges them to carry on.
"Hello, I'm Stephen Fry. I'm sitting here in the offices of Vixhod, in St Petersburg.
I came here on a journey to find out just exactly what this new homophobic law is about
and although I've been horrified and upset and angry, at the brutish
tyranny of so many of the homophobic people who are supported by the local government
and indeed the federal government, what has touched me much more has been the work of
the activists of Vixhod and the people who stand up to bullying,
stand up to homophobia, stand up to name calling, stand up to violence.
And Vixhod is wicked. Thank you". The sentiments go down well with the LGBT
crowd, meaning lesbians, gays, bisexuals and trans-gendered.
But the overwhelming majority of Russians support the new law.
The country has never departed from the view that sex is only normal between a man and
a woman. Even in the relatively gay-friendly world of showbiz, popular celebrities are
actively backing it.
Valeriya Perfilova is one of Russia's favourite entertainers, performing around the world
and even at the Kremlin.
"I think it's our duty to protect our children from any kind of sexual propaganda, because
their mind is so vulnerable to process information of any kind of sexual relations,
whether straight or gay. It doesn't matter -- even me I would prefer not to know who
sleeps with whom. I think the person's private life has to be left behind their doors".
As well as being an acclaimed singer, Valeriya is a devoted mother of three. Like many Russians,
she wonders why her country's being picked on when scores of other countries don't even
allow gay sex. "Nobody discriminates them because they are
everywhere, in every sphere of social life and we have a lot of friends who are gay".
"So you have nothing against anyone for being gay?"
"No, no not at all. It's... I'm against ah... they need to shout it in the media. It's quite
unnatural. Why should I know who does this or that, who prefers this or... why should
I know? I don't care. I think it's not decent at least. We were brought up like this. It's
not decent to speak about it". Masha Gessen is also a mother of three but
sees the issue very differently. She's the ultimate suspect minority - a US-educated
dissident writer who is also a Jewish lesbian."Russia is not a tolerant society.
When the West was having a sexual revolution and the gay liberation movement in the '60s,
'70s and '80s, we had the Soviet Union. We didn't have any of that. We don't have a way
of talking about these things. This is really the first time that homosexuality has been
discussed in public in Russia and this is the way it's been discussed. So it's very
easy, it's very easy to turn people who are already not particularly tolerant, not accustomed
to talking about these things, to turn them violently against a social group and that's
exactly what's happened. We've seen a huge rise in anti-gay violence".
And they've seen it all over the internet. Vigilantes have been luring gays to parks,
accusing them of being paedophiles and publicly humiliating them. Every encounter recorded
and uploaded to far-Right websites.
"All of that appeared after propaganda laws. This group of people,
Occupy Pedofilyaj it's called, they are posting videos of young gay men being tortured and
obviously they open themselves in the videos and the police is not doing anything to investigate".
Some might see this as bullies picking on a weak minority, but Vitaly Milonov says he's
fighting Satan.
As well as being a politician, he's an Orthodox Church deacon.
"It's a sin. We... as a Christian, I cannot allow... because I'm elected as a Christian,
a member of parliament... because I never hide that...I'm a Christian. I think that
a society that legalise sin cannot do it because sins are written not
by men, not by humans, it's written by God a list of the sins. That's why society that
legalise sin is going down terrifically". Even so, he insists his law isn't anti-gay,
it's just pro-children. Homosexuals can still do what they want behind closed doors but
from now on they can't tell anyone under 18 that it's normal.
"It's legal to smoke a cigarette, it's legal to smoke a cigarette, but no one is able to
make propaganda of cigarettes or spicy food among very small kids. It's
not... it will.... it can kill a kid to give him spicy food, but it's nice stuff for an
adult. We are talking about lessons in the schools
with the assistance of LGBT organisation describing that it can be not only Santa Claus, one Santa
Claus, it can be a couple of Santa Claus - you know... that they are destroying the fairy
tales of Europe, changing them from princess and a prince to two princes or two queens
living together". Gay rights for Russia!... Gay rights for Russia!
The repercussions of Milonov's law are spreading around the globe. Protests have been held
in 30 countries, like this one outside Downing Street in London.
Many are demanding a boycott of the Winter Olympics to be held in the Russian city of
Sochi in February. "We should boycott the Games
completely. Boycott them. Any civilised country should boycott them for this. If this was
about people of colour or about religion, oh there'd be a huge hue cry, but it's not.
Because it's gay men and women, oh fuck them - you know what I mean? Pardon the language
folks". Britain's government opposes a boycott, but
both sides of parliament decry the law. Chris Bryant, an openly gay Labour MP, warned it
could potentially ensnare Russia's president. "And by the way can I just say to Mr Putin
that every time he postures with his shirt off again, people might start thinking he's
promoting homosexuality".
Vladimir Putin is renowned for baring his chest, usually during manly stunts.
Even fully clothed he's Russia's ultimate man's man. He just has to plunge a net into
water to catch a king-sized trout. The national parliament, the Duma, is just as firmly in
his grip. It passed the gay propaganda law without a single dissenting vote.
"I mean I don't think he's a visceral homophobe. He's just a basic, primitive xenophobe and
this particular brand of xenophobia is convenient and politically-- feels politically
right to him at the moment". Masha Gessen was among scores of protestors
at the Duma the day the law was passed. Vigilantes attacked them as police looked on. She and
her partner are now planning to move the family to the US."We have three kids and we violate
the homosexual propaganda law every day, many times a day because every time we indicate
that we believe in social equality of traditional and non-traditional marital relations, which
is how the law puts it, we violate the law. So theoretically,
it is possible to start hauling us into the police station today, several times a day
for instances of violation".
One group the police aren't hauling in is the far-right, anti-gay gang known as Occupy
Pedofilyaj. Its members log onto gay websites posing as teenagers. If anyone responds they
cajole him to a meeting place and pounce. What follows is brutal degradation. The gang
acting as police, judge and jury. The harassment goes on until they agree they're paedophiles.
"Tell us why you were meeting him?""Just to talk. I wasn't going to sleep with him".
On the few occasions police intervene, they arrest the gang's victims.
One of the most active members is a 24 year old woman named Yekaterina Zigunova. She sees
all homosexuals as potential or actual paedophiles. "Are you homosexual?""No"."No? Speak louder!""No,
no". "Are you having sex with boys or girls?""With
girls". After contacting her on her website, she agreed
to meet us in one of the parks where they lure their victims.
In person, Yekaterina is remarkably polite and friendly.
"The objective of the movement is to look for paedophile-minded residents - to find
them and reveal their intentions and consequently to film a video that will leave them publicly
disgraced".
She and her friends carry out their entrapments every Saturday. They call them 'safaris' as
if they're hunting animals.
The clips can be sickening - one showing a man being forced to drink his urine.
"Isn't that cruel?" "Well, it seems to me paedophilia itself is
more cruel than exposing it.
For generations, the Communist Party and the Orthodox Church made little distinction between
gays and child molesters. When Stalin outlawed homosexuality in 1933 his officials began
denouncing gays as pederasts, degenerate aristocrats and traitors. Gay sex remained a serious crime
until 1993 - two years after the Soviet Union collapsed - but the old prejudices have found
new life.
"The paedophiles that come are almost all homosexual so I have to get acquainted with
them while talking to them. Otherwise, fortunately I have no such acquaintances"."Why?""Because
there is nothing for me to discuss with them... nothing to talk about".
"Do you view them as 'dirty' people?""No, from my viewpoint they are not dirty people.
We just have different interests, let us put it like that. It's like when one enjoys a
certain music style, while the other likes a different one. They have one preference,
while I have another. I'll never find a common language with them".
Yekaterina clearly enjoys her internet notoriety. In one video she talks about hunting gays
with guns. "We do a 'safari' once a week. Paedophiles
and faggots are completely nuts. They creep into the main square with a banner of tolerance.
At this meeting we decided to arm ourselves with something besides rubber truncheons.
Dmitry, do you see the target?""I have the target".She's also a strong advocate of the
gay propaganda law. "I fully support it. We should have no propaganda
of homosexuality. It is contrary to the basic institution of family. Children can't make
decisions of their own, and being kids, they often dwell on things. They shape their viewpoint
based on what they see in the street. If they see someone revealing signs of homosexuality
in the street, their perception that there is a mum, a dad and a kid is lost. That is
why I stand for this law. I fully support this law".
"Do you worry, though, that you may have given unintended encouragement to some of the groups
who are attacking gay people and videoing them?""Oh this is
an element of propaganda, Western propaganda, because believe me, the real level of physical
attacks towards gay people is a million times lower than violence among football fans or
violence among those who have different tastes in food.
It's really funny in Russia to hear all the Western voices, guys you know reporters with
the serious faces say, 'Level.... the level of crime against homosexuals is terribly high'
you know. We are looking and laughing. What are you talking about?"
But anyone can go on line to see the multiple attacks. Police have been crushing gay protests
in full view of cameras. So why is Russia risking so much damage to its
image abroad as the clock ticks down to the Sochi Olympics? Perhaps part of the
reason can be found just walking around St Petersburg. It's a museum of Russia's lost
greatness. This was the capital of a Tsarist empire that rivalled Europe. And it was the
cradle of the Soviet Revolution that made Russia a superpower. But in the 1990s, amid
Western inspired reforms, the state and economy crumbled. "Now to understand the gay propaganda
issue you have to look at the other 'p' word - paranoia.
You see it's widely accepted that the West doesn't want Russia to be a superpower again
as it was in the Cold War. But more than that there are strong suspicions here that Western
governments are actively working together to undermine Russia, to keep it weak. How
does that relate to this? Well, many in the government, the church,
even the media are convinced that gay rights groups, like all opposition groups, are just
fronts for hostile Western governments. By that theory, they're being paid to spread
gay propaganda to corrupt Russia's children and to dilute its manhood. "Russia can be
a problem to some of our partners because we're trying to be strong and we don't....
we don't want to allow a new world order to kill people on the streets of Syria.
So poisoning of Russian society with these new standards of liberal homosexual revolution
would of course make us weak". Polina's group, Vixhod, has already been accused
of traitorous activities. In June a court declared it to be a foreign agent and fined
it fifteen thousand dollars - prosecutors claiming it was secretly funded from abroad.
The finding has been overturned but Polina fears a charge of gay propaganda could wipe
them out. "It's a constant risk everything that we do with our organisation could be
interpreted as propaganda under this silly law so.... and the fines are thirty thousand
dollars. So, as you can understand, a fine like that
we cannot sustain. If we are hit with a fine like that we would have to close and then
find other ways of working". "Russia without Putin! Russia without Putin!"The
paranoia goes right to the top. Over the past two years President Putin has
faced angry protests from the new middle class, demanding accountability and an end to corruption.
Masha Gessen who wrote a best-selling book on Putin, insists he sees these opponents
as a fifth column."In fact he's convinced that Hillary Clinton personally is behind
the protest movement and that's why the crackdown is so much targeted against so-called foreign
agents. Well LGBT people personify foreign agents
better than anybody else. We're sort of the quintessential foreign agent and that's what
this law is about". Stephen Fry warned the festival that Russia
was sliding toward fascism."And to use your voice quietly, moderately, reasonably,
but persistently against the terrible tide of nationalism, religious zealotry and hatred
that is threatening to turn this glorious Mother Russia into a fascist state".
"I hope there isn't anybody in this room who is below 18 years of age, because if there
is I will now be a criminal according to Russian law."
At the Queer Fest dance night, the crowd is out and proud, but in contrast to Western
gay groups, they're not calling for an Olympic boycott. They're hoping Westerners who come
to Sochi might lend a hand. "First and foremost Olympics is going to be a unique opportunity
to speak out for LGBT rights. I think that whatever happens in the West usually doesn't
get to us here. I would call on Games participants to come here and to do visible things in support
of LGBT people. Only this way will we have a public discussion around....
again around propaganda laws about these violations of those LGBT rights here in Russia
and this is what we need as the LGBT community fighting for our rights here. So that's the
most important thing, you know, athletes, visitors, sponsors, come here and do something".
Tonight, they can forget about their problems.
Tomorrow they can worry about what's coming next.