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Bogatyrs. Painting by V. M. Vasnetsov Gay life in Russia has always been both a forbidden fruit and a terra incognita. Not that gays did not exist in Russia, but the society feigned ignorance of their existence. Homosexuality was not publicly mentioned, nor was it ever reflected in annals or chronicles. Same-sex affairs of prominent citizens were hushed up and treated as nonevents.

The official historiography stonewalled the gay side of the social life. The iron curtain that fell after the October Revolution did not allow any leakage of information on gay issues to Russia to the West. In Soviet times gays were criminally prosecuted, jailed and subjected to forcible psychiatric treatment - keeping track of gay events and gay history in Russia has become dangerous.

It was not before the perestroika that publications in the field of the Russian gay history have become possible. No information was readily available and the researches had to grope for knowledge on gay life in pre-revolutionary and Soviet Russia. Only the combined titanic efforts of prominent Russian and Western scholars - historians, sociologists, sexologists and many other specialists - contibuted to the reconstruction and portrayal of the gay life during all periods of the long Russian history.

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News on "History"

· 31/05/2008 15 years ago the prosecution of gay people was lifted in Russia
· 07/03/2004 Korzhakov’s Evil Genius: "I reinforced the chapter about "gay team"
· 12/01/2004 «Russia» forgot why Sergei Paradzhanov was imprisoned
· 23/10/2000 Ukraine: Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Conference Takes Place in Kiev
· 29/05/2000 Azerbaijan: New Criminal Code Has no Ban on Sex between Men
· 19/11/1999 Russia: Gays Dropped from Diseased List
· 27/12/1998 Ukraine: Gay and Lesbian Center Our World Founded in Lugansk
· 27/06/1998 Russia: Consent Age Lowered to 14

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All articles on "History"

· The Russian LGBT Network pronounces 2009 to be memorial year for the gay and lesbian victims of political repressions
75 years ago, the Soviet system began political repressions against gays and lesbians.

· Soviet Homophobia
Soviet punitive psychiatry was one of the main weapons of both legal and illegal repression. Sexologically ignorant psychiatrists were always ready to find some serious diagnosis that enabled persons so stigmatized to be put under lifelong medical and police observation or detained in a psychiatric hospital under conditions often much worse than prison.

· Moolight Love
This was the first book ever published in Russian that covered the controversial subject of homosexuality from a non-medical point of view. Moonlight has a light-blue color, and 'goluboy' ('a light-blue one') is a common Russian word to denote a male homosexual.

· Historical Prelude
Inconsistencies were inevitable, as the process of Christianization of Russia, which lasted over centuries - all the while involving new territories and peoples - was in many ways incomplete and superficial. Christian norms not only coexisted with pagan norms, but also frequently incorporated them.

· Struggle for Decriminalization
After 1987, the question of what exactly homosexuality was and how one should relate to "blues" - whether to regard them as sick, as criminals. or as victims of fate - began to be discussed extensively in the popular, especially youth, press.

· Repeal of Article 121
The principle of gender equality in sexual relations also presented difficulty. Because rape was believed to be a more serious offense than any other sexual assault, the rape of an adult woman or a young girl was punishable much more severely than any forced sexual assault or penetration inflicted upon an adult male or young boy.

· Changing Public Opinion
The social situation of sexual minorities is everywhere affected by public attitudes, which do not change overnight. Homophobia and discrimination against gay men and lesbians are still conspicuous in present-day Russian sexual and political culture.

· Problems and Prospects
The most obvious social change in Russia is the disappearance of the old conspiracy of silence and the appearance of same-sex love as a fashionable topic for newspapers, art, and salon conversation. Formerly suppressed and forbidden "gay sensibilities" and eroticism are gradually being recognized and integrated into the elite culture

· Introduction
In the Soviet era, domestic space for all was squeezed by unprecedented pressures. In such conditions, Muscovites were accustomed to appropriating public spaces, and constructing privacy in them through various devices.

· 1600-1861: Traditional Masculinities And Love Between Men
Until some time into the nineteenth century, it appears that masculine norms for the majority of Russians (i.e. peasants and lower orders of townsmen) included permission for some forms of same-sex erotic contact. There was no 'homosexual identity' discernible among a subset of Muscovite men, much less a corresponding subculture.

· 1861-1917: The Appearance of a Homosexual Subculture
The late tsarist decades were a period of rapid social transformation, and as might be expected, Moscow shared in that change. The transitional mentality characteristic of the era is illustrated in the attitudes of a Moscow merchant from the peasant estate, Pavel Vasil'evich Medved'ev, whose diary of the year 1861 describes his emotional and spiritual inner world.

· 1917-1991: Carving Privacy From Communal Space
The World War, revolution and then civil war brought sweeping and devastating change to Moscow in the years between 1914 and 1921. Combat, epidemics, migration and starvation decimated the urban population, and from a 1917 high of 1.9 million, the city's inhabitants dropped to only 1 million in 1921.

· Florensky on Brotherhood Rite
Father Pavel Florensky mentions adopted brotherhood in his classic work The Pillar and Ground of the Truth (Moscow 1914), in the context of a lengthy discussion of friendship. Without even attempting to summarise a book of such great depth or to convey fully the context of the mention of adopted brotherhood...

· Legal Position of Russian Lesbians and Gays
The Russian Criminal Code prohibits incitement to ethnic, religious or racial enmity, but this list is exhaustive and cannot be applied to homophobic hate crimes. There is no specific gay hate crime laws in Russia.

· Criminal Code of the Russian Federation
Adopted on 24 May 1996 by the State Duma
Approved on 5 June 1996 by the Federation Council
Effective as of 1 January 1997 (as amended on 8 December 2003)

· Gays Gather Quietly, Out of Political Spotlight
The founder and keeper of the Gay and Lesbian Archives is a middle-aged teacher who asked that she be referred to in this article by her English-language initials, H.G., as she fears being fired.