The ink was barely dry on Russia’s decision to outlaw what it called the “international LGBT public movement” as extremist when masked police raided a bar in central Moscow where Vasili gathered with his friends on Friday nights for an LGBTQ+ party.
“It was a regular Friday evening until suddenly we saw the police storming in,” Vasili, who asked for his name to be changed because of safety concerns, recalled.
Vasili described how, along with about 100 others, he was ordered to face a wall while police searched visitors for drugs and photographed their passports.
“The police claimed it was a drug raid, but everyone understood they raided the club because it was a queer night,” he said. “Standing against that wall, you realise how little rights you have as a gay person in this country.”
At least two other LGBTQ+-friendly venues in the Russian capital were raided on the same evening of 1 December, less than 48 hours after the country’s top court, in a landmark ruling, banned what it called the “global LGBTQ+ movement” as an extremist organisation.
While sexual minorities have faced a long history of social exclusion and prejudices in both the Soviet Union and its Russian successor, the Kremlin first opened its legal attack on Russia’s LGBTQ+ community in 2013, when Vladimir Putin signed the notorious law that banned “propaganda of nontraditional sexual relations” among minors.
But in big cities such as Moscow and St Petersburg, gay Russians and their allies still found ways to express themselves despite existing laws, with a vibrant LGBTQ+ party scene blossoming, one to which authorities largely closed their eyes.
“Before the [Ukraine] war, there was an understanding that inside one’s home or at a queer party you could still be yourself,” said Karen Shainyan, a prominent Russian gay rights advocate and journalist.
“We actually thought that attitudes towards sexual minorities were improving as more people were talking openly about queer topics,” Shainyan, who launched a popular LGBTQ+-themed YouTube channel in 2019, added.
Opinion polls also indicated that positive attitudes towards the queer community were gradually improving over the past five years, progress that Shainyan fears risks being undone.
“The war in Ukraine changed everything,” he said.
Ever since Putin’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, the Russian leader launched a fresh effort to promote what he called “traditional values”, making anti-gay rhetoric one of the cornerstones of his political agenda.
The Kremlin is directly linking the crackdown on LGBTQ+ expression with its justification for the war, said Shainyan, telling its citizens that Russia was not only fighting Ukraine, but was involved in a broader, existential battle against western liberal values it often describes as “satanic”.
Last year, Putin signed a law that banned “LGBT propaganda” among adults, a bill that criminalised any act regarded as an attempt to promote what Russia calls “non-traditional sexual relations” – in film, online, in advertising or in public. In the aftermath of that law, bookstores and cinemas withdrew all content containing LGBTQ+ themes.
The on-the-ground consequences of the “extremist” label imposed on the “international LGBT public movement” at the end of November are yet to be fully felt.
In the past, the authorities have used the extremist label to prosecute human rights groups, religious groups and political opposition, including allies of the Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny and members of the Jehovah’s Witnesses, some of whom have received lengthy prison sentences.
Human rights activists said the wording in the ruling – targeting the “international LGBT public movement,” which is not an entity but rather a broad and vague umbrella term – allows Russian authorities to persecute any individual or organisation it considers to be part of the “movement”.
There will be less visible consequences as well, activists said, with institutional oppression harming the mental health of the queer community.
“It is hard to comprehend the speed at which the crackdown is happening,” said the Russian queer performance artist Gena Marvin.
Before the war in Ukraine, Marvin challenged the gender norms of the Putin regime and the Russian state’s homophobic attitude through a series of daring public performances, which have been recorded in the critically acclaimed documentary Queendom.
In her last performance in Russia shortly after the start of the war, she walked down the streets of Moscow wrapped in barbed wire in a powerful statement against the war.
“We are now in a dark new era in which some Russians are outlawed the day they are born,” Marvin said.
Both Marvin and Shanian left the country after the start of the war and are residing elsewhere in Europe. On the day of the 30 November extremism ruling, Shanian co-founded a LGBTQ+-focused media outlet called I Just Got Lucky to “unite Russian queers and provide them a platform of support”.
Many others from the queer community are also looking for a way out of the country, said Evelina Chaika, who heads the NGO Equal Post, which helps queer Russians relocate.
Chaika said her group registered a sixfold increase in requests for relocations since the supreme court’s “extremist” ruling.
“We now receive an average of 12 requests on how to leave Russia an hour. More than 100 a day,” she said.
Those deciding to leave for the west often face an uncertain and difficult journey. “The asylum process for Russian LGBTQ+ members in Europe is very challenging and can easily take over a year,” said Harlem, who heads LGBTQ World Beside, an organisation specialised in helping queer people navigate the asylum system in the Netherlands.
Harlem, who changed his name after his arrival in the Netherlands because of safety concerns, was speaking to the Guardian at the funeral in Amsterdam of Mikhail Zubchenko, a 24-year-old queer Russian who killed himself while waiting for his asylum application in a Dutch refugee camp.
Zubchenko was the fourth Russian LGBTQ+ asylum seeker to kill themselves in the Netherlands last year, which Harlem said points to the particularly precarious situation of sexual minorities in refugee camps.
“LGBTQ+ refugees are extremely vulnerable, many had to flee the country in a rush out of safety reasons, leaving everything behind,” said Harlem, a gay man who himself left Russia seven years ago.
“We see that many in the community are in great mental distress because of the lengthy asylum process, the harsh living conditions and the growingly oppressive situation back home”
Moscow’s latest extremism ruling will add further stress to those awaiting a decision from the host country.
“You realise just how crucial these interviews are,” said Dzam, who left a Muslim-majority region in Russia where he said he faced threats to his life. “If you fail the asylum process, you can’t just return home. There is no life there for you,” he said.
The majority of Russia’s LGBTQ+ community, however, are unable or unwilling to leave their homes.
“This is my country. I don’t know where else to go,” said Vasili, who was still recovering emotionally from the police raid.
Vasili decided he would stop going to queer events and would only discuss his sexuality with his closest friends.
“Many in this country don’t support the war in Ukraine but decide to stay quiet so they don’t get into trouble,” he said. “It will be the same for my sexuality. I will just pretend not to be me.”
