The 17th of December became the Homophobia Victims Memory Day, by the proposal of Russian LGBT-Network.

On this vary day in 1933 the Decree of All-Russia Central Executive Committee was published which voluntary sexual relations between adult men recognised as a criminal offence. This decree became a law on the 7th of March 1934 as the article 121 of the Russian Criminal Code. Thus, political repressions against gays and lesbians in the Soviet Union began.

Various actions devoted to that date were taking place in several Russian cities on this day.

In Petersburg on the day before more than 100 people participated in an event organised by the local LGBT group. The poet and musician Olga Krause, the chairman of the Russian LGBT-Network Igor Petrov and Vyacheslav Larin, who was named by the organisers of the event as the person with whom the whole age of Petersburg life is associated, discussed the article 121.

People in Arkhangelsk, Kazan, Krasnoyarsk, Perm, Petrozavodsk and other cities also commemorated this day.

Let us remind that the Russian LGTB-Network has declared the year 2009 as the Year of Memory of Gays and Lesbians - Victims of political repressions.