Ed Mishin: Only power shift in Russia will help LGBT
Barack Obama, the US leader, met Russian LGBT activists in Saint-Petersburg. In his turn, Vladimir Putin unexpectedly said he was also ready to speak with gays but there hadn't been any initiative from them. "I reassure you that I am working with them in my team and even sometimes I award them with state medals for achievements in this or that spheres. Do not make a mountain out of a molehill. There is nothing terrible happens in my country", Putin told the journalists.
After a scandal with James Kirchick, the American journalist, who during the Russia Today's live show spoke out against LGBT rights violation in Russia, the aforementioned English language Russian TV Channel has decided to hold a discussion on "wide opportunity for gays to live in Russia a full-fledged life in every aspect of that word". The invitation was also sent to Ed Mishin, the founder of Gay.Ru - the main Russian LGBT web-portal and the "Kvir" magazine but he refused to participate in that show.
Ed Mishin in his interview for the Radio Svoboda told about how had the Russian authorities' gay hatred been influencing the life of the Russian LGBT community.
- Why have you refused to participate in the RT show?
- On the formulation of the question it became clear that the TV program would fulfill order to show how wonderful had gays been living in Russia, the rest wasn't of any interest of the program's authors. Why would I have need it?
- Gay.Ru site was founded in 1997. It is the oldest and the main gay web portal in Russia. The Kvir's pilot edition was published 10 years ago in September 2003. What are the developments now around them?
- The magazine is closed because its distributors have refused to put it on sale due to the new gay hate law. The site is still functioning but under the acting law it might be shut down without a trial. The police have already visited me and requested to give written replies (cause someone had secretly informed them about "homopropaganda").
- What would you do if you were closed?
- We may move out of Russian jurisdiction to another domain name and shift our servers. The first steps have already been taken. You won't believe us - the Google has banned Gay.Ru from search results. If you type a word "gay" in the Yandex, Yahoo, Rambler, Bing and in other search engines - everywhere Gay.Ru will justly be in the first lines. But the Russian branch of the Google informed that it "adhered to the values of the host country". As a result Gay.Ru is banned from the search requests and the news feeds.
- How many people visit your site? Is it true that Kvir copies have been outnumbering other popular magazines for men?
- 60-70 thousand people are visiting www.gay.ru everyday. Once a time the publishers and distributors' Union foolishly had published the men's magazines' sales statistics that was based not on the number of its copies but on the salespersons' replies. "Foolishly" because the truth about the exaggerated number of copies had been revealed and after that they have never been doing such polls. The fact was that the Kvir was more popular than the Men's Health, the GQ and the Playboy laid end to end. The Kvir did not vanish, its team is doing the www.kvir.ru project and its usage statistics has tripled this year.
- The RT show told about the bloom of clubbing in Russia. Is it true? What is actually going on there?
- Actually, there has been no any "bloom" now for a long time. Recently the "Sharm/Shans" - the oldest gay club, has been closed. According to its owners - due to the constant pressure from the law enforcement agencies. The owner of another gay club "Raszvet" (Bloom) has told me in private about the similar measures taken on his business. The so-called "bloom" means the opening of new establishments. Where are they?
- The possibility of a meeting between Vladimir Putin and representatives of the LGBT community is being discussed now in the society. Do you believe that the meeting is necessary? Would you like to participate in it? Has Nikolay Alekseev a right to represent the whole LGBT movement there?
- No doubt, that gesture of the president won't do any worse. Vice versa, it might cool down the heat. May be the ambiguous definitions of the law would be amended and be made clearer. I personally do not quite understand my role in the meeting but if the guests list would be adequate, then why not? Under the "adequate" I mean the representation of every socially important LGBT organization and union and, if possible, Mr.Alexeev's absence there because he had already showed his unwillingness to cooperate with the Russian authorities even when they were ready to meet.
- Did the initiative to hold gay pride help the Russian LGBT movement or not?
- Of course it did not. I do not see where it did help. The authorities did not pay specific attention to gays and lesbians before but after the passage of gay hate legislation (and a ridiculous fuss around the idea to hold the gay pride in Moscow has become the trigger to it) young morons have come to the scene because they believed that only they had got from the Russian authorities the right to sanitize Russia of sexual minorities. And the first blood has already been spilled...
- Why during all these years no popular and serious movement for protection of LGBT rights has emerged in Russia? The number of ardent activists is so small and even some of them are hard to be dealt with?
- Because there is no gay business, there is no money for LGBT movement's support. The number of foreigners who are backing our gay organizations is small because until recently they believed that Russia was a rich country and it would sustain its LGBT organizations herself. Or simply there are no real leaders or ardent, exuberant figures.
- Many gays believe the situation in Russia won't change for the better in the nearest future and are willing to move abroad. There are discussions on that issue on your site. But there is also another point of view - Russia can't avoid the path which the Western democracies have already gone through, tolerance will come, same-sex marriages will be legalized and so on. What is your outlook?
- I think that in Russia will neither be tolerance nor same-sex marriages for a long long time. So far it becomes even worse every single year.
-There are many ways of response to gay hate laws - the boycott of the Sochi Olympics and Russian vodka, appeals to the international bodies to seek protection of LGBT rights, inclusion of Milonov and Mizulina into the Magnitski list. What do you think we should do?
- Recently I am getting lost in the number of the Russian authorities' initiatives. I believe that we need a democratic power shift in Russia. Then even the "mad printer" (the Russian Parliament) would stop and Mizulina together with Milonov would become just a nightmare. Me personally, I do participate in protest actions and vote against "bloody regime".
- If you were invited to a meeting with Obama what would you tell him?
- I think it would be foolish to give him advice. I would just shake hands and tell that when I were reading the news from America (on progress in protection and promotion of LGBT rights) I felt myself like I was living in a third world country.
NB: After taking that interview, the news came that Alexey Zhouravlyov, the United Russia parliament faction deputy, had prepared amendments to the Russian Family Code which approve the termination of parental rights to those parents who follow "non-traditional sexual relations".
English translation presented by Yerdna Bananes
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Ed Mishin in his interview for the Radio Svoboda told about how had the Russian authorities' gay hatred been influencing the life of the Russian LGBT community.
- On the formulation of the question it became clear that the TV program would fulfill order to show how wonderful had gays been living in Russia, the rest wasn't of any interest of the program's authors. Why would I have need it?
- Gay.Ru site was founded in 1997. It is the oldest and the main gay web portal in Russia. The Kvir's pilot edition was published 10 years ago in September 2003. What are the developments now around them?
- The magazine is closed because its distributors have refused to put it on sale due to the new gay hate law. The site is still functioning but under the acting law it might be shut down without a trial. The police have already visited me and requested to give written replies (cause someone had secretly informed them about "homopropaganda").
- What would you do if you were closed?
- We may move out of Russian jurisdiction to another domain name and shift our servers. The first steps have already been taken. You won't believe us - the Google has banned Gay.Ru from search results. If you type a word "gay" in the Yandex, Yahoo, Rambler, Bing and in other search engines - everywhere Gay.Ru will justly be in the first lines. But the Russian branch of the Google informed that it "adhered to the values of the host country". As a result Gay.Ru is banned from the search requests and the news feeds.
- How many people visit your site? Is it true that Kvir copies have been outnumbering other popular magazines for men?
- 60-70 thousand people are visiting www.gay.ru everyday. Once a time the publishers and distributors' Union foolishly had published the men's magazines' sales statistics that was based not on the number of its copies but on the salespersons' replies. "Foolishly" because the truth about the exaggerated number of copies had been revealed and after that they have never been doing such polls. The fact was that the Kvir was more popular than the Men's Health, the GQ and the Playboy laid end to end. The Kvir did not vanish, its team is doing the www.kvir.ru project and its usage statistics has tripled this year.
- The RT show told about the bloom of clubbing in Russia. Is it true? What is actually going on there?
- Actually, there has been no any "bloom" now for a long time. Recently the "Sharm/Shans" - the oldest gay club, has been closed. According to its owners - due to the constant pressure from the law enforcement agencies. The owner of another gay club "Raszvet" (Bloom) has told me in private about the similar measures taken on his business. The so-called "bloom" means the opening of new establishments. Where are they?
- The possibility of a meeting between Vladimir Putin and representatives of the LGBT community is being discussed now in the society. Do you believe that the meeting is necessary? Would you like to participate in it? Has Nikolay Alekseev a right to represent the whole LGBT movement there?
- No doubt, that gesture of the president won't do any worse. Vice versa, it might cool down the heat. May be the ambiguous definitions of the law would be amended and be made clearer. I personally do not quite understand my role in the meeting but if the guests list would be adequate, then why not? Under the "adequate" I mean the representation of every socially important LGBT organization and union and, if possible, Mr.Alexeev's absence there because he had already showed his unwillingness to cooperate with the Russian authorities even when they were ready to meet.
- Did the initiative to hold gay pride help the Russian LGBT movement or not?
- Of course it did not. I do not see where it did help. The authorities did not pay specific attention to gays and lesbians before but after the passage of gay hate legislation (and a ridiculous fuss around the idea to hold the gay pride in Moscow has become the trigger to it) young morons have come to the scene because they believed that only they had got from the Russian authorities the right to sanitize Russia of sexual minorities. And the first blood has already been spilled...
- Why during all these years no popular and serious movement for protection of LGBT rights has emerged in Russia? The number of ardent activists is so small and even some of them are hard to be dealt with?
- Because there is no gay business, there is no money for LGBT movement's support. The number of foreigners who are backing our gay organizations is small because until recently they believed that Russia was a rich country and it would sustain its LGBT organizations herself. Or simply there are no real leaders or ardent, exuberant figures.
- Many gays believe the situation in Russia won't change for the better in the nearest future and are willing to move abroad. There are discussions on that issue on your site. But there is also another point of view - Russia can't avoid the path which the Western democracies have already gone through, tolerance will come, same-sex marriages will be legalized and so on. What is your outlook?
- I think that in Russia will neither be tolerance nor same-sex marriages for a long long time. So far it becomes even worse every single year.
-There are many ways of response to gay hate laws - the boycott of the Sochi Olympics and Russian vodka, appeals to the international bodies to seek protection of LGBT rights, inclusion of Milonov and Mizulina into the Magnitski list. What do you think we should do?
- Recently I am getting lost in the number of the Russian authorities' initiatives. I believe that we need a democratic power shift in Russia. Then even the "mad printer" (the Russian Parliament) would stop and Mizulina together with Milonov would become just a nightmare. Me personally, I do participate in protest actions and vote against "bloody regime".
- If you were invited to a meeting with Obama what would you tell him?
- I think it would be foolish to give him advice. I would just shake hands and tell that when I were reading the news from America (on progress in protection and promotion of LGBT rights) I felt myself like I was living in a third world country.
NB: After taking that interview, the news came that Alexey Zhouravlyov, the United Russia parliament faction deputy, had prepared amendments to the Russian Family Code which approve the termination of parental rights to those parents who follow "non-traditional sexual relations".
English translation presented by Yerdna Bananes
Dmitry Voltchek (VoltchekD@rferl.org)
Radio Svoboda
Published on Gay.Ru on September 6, 2013.
Radio Svoboda
Published on Gay.Ru on September 6, 2013.
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