Gays in Russia have never been part of society.
Then they started to beat my friend.
Me and my friend we tried to escape but the group split up.
Some catched me and some ran after my friend.
Recently, I noticed people shouting at me:
"Lesbian. You shouldn´t be like that."
It evolved into heated arguments and physical insults.
You try to escape such situations immediately,
so you don´t get to feel the hate physically.
Perhaps, my parents know that I am gay.
But, to be honest, we never talked about it.
When I was 21 years old I decided to move to Moscow.
So my parents wouldn´t find out that I am gay.
My parents live in a different town.
We only talk to each other rarely.
Lately, I haven´t had any contact to my family at all.
Now, they understand that there is nothing to talk about with me.
I will never take their position -
neither about the things happening in Russia
nor about on my private life.
And I will never be fully accepted by them.
He has got a family, a wife,
and children.
A Russian woman is pressured by her
parents to get into university or
to get an apprenticeship training position,
a job, to get married and to be a mother.
When I was a kid I always got to hear
that it is very bad to be gay.
I even got depressed
when I realised that I am gay.
I didn´t know what to do about it.
The Russian Orthodox Church is very bad. 
They are discrimnating against at every turn.
In church they say that it is a great sin.
That is the worst.
Their behaviour towards men is quite aggressive
- they are ready to beat them up.
When it comes to women, they try to re-educate them
- by beating or group-raping them.
If my neighbours had found out that I am gay,
my parents would be devastated.
It would be a shame for them.
Before I was accepted at college I had a
medical investigation with a psychiatrist.
I worried about him asking questions or digging deeper.
His first question was: "Are you married?"
I replied: "No."
He: "Are you planning to get married?"
Me: "No, I don´t want to get married."
Then, he asked me about my tattoo. I didn´t want
to lie and told him that I am lesbian.
His first question wasn´t something like:
"How are you?
Do you have any psychological problems,
living in Russia and being homosexual?"
No, he first said: "Don´t you know that it
is against religious rules?"
The Russian police is homophobic, and
I don´t know any Russian
who would ask the police for help
if he gets assaulted.
Somehow, you don´t ask Russian
police for help in our case.
The idea for a national law came up in St. Petersburg.
They realized that they had to pass the national law.
And so it was passed after
the regional law in St. Petersburg.
The law is against propaganda of homosexuality amongst children.
But, that is mentioned nowhere.
Now, most people think that propaganda of homosexuality is a criminal act.
Since they passed the anti-gay law,
there is no honest and public discussion anymore.
Neither about our problems nor about us being
ordinary people or about us not being any different.
We think that we have to tell the people that we are normal.
If you tell somebody that you are homosexual,
their eyes widen and a lot of questions come up.
For example:
"How can you live with that?"
Yelena Mizulina, the initiator of the law,
is a very crazy person,
and I am sure that she has mental problems.
The same applies for Russia´s president Vladimir Putin.
Actually, they turned me into a criminal.
They made me become active.
I can only talk for myself.
You fear to lose your job.
You fear the indiscretion
that your relatives might find out about you.
And that someone beats you up in the streets.
I was simply afraid. Because I know that there are
these type of people in the Russian society.
These people believe to have justification
to molest or to beat me.
It was a group of people who allegedly
fought against paedophiles.
They got to know gays on the internet. They always
had a fake-profile presenting themselves as gays.
Then they tried to get in touch with a person.
It was terrible for them,
when they met these people in person.
It all starts with an unconventional provocation.
They say, they are 17 years old and
want to have sex for the first time.
Due to carelessness and some other reasons
someone agrees to meet with them.
Instead of a 17-year-old boy he stands
in front of a group of unabashedly,
unsightly people, who force him to record a video.
In these videos they are making him say
that he is a disgusting person.
They abuse him, pour urine over him and beat him.
Afterwards, they upload the video on the internet.
To be honest, I wish that his prison term
won´t be reduced again.
I hope he will be imprisoned for the whole five years.
And I hope that all his former crimes
will be investigated.
For example in the Third Reich it existed an idea,
why they were prosecuting
homosexuals, blacks, and Sinti and Roma.
But here, it is without any idea.
It is just stupid.
I don´t want to wait until they beat me to death in Russia, to go to Europe and to seek asylum.
That is why I decided to move to the USA.
They have got a lot more understanding for that.
In Russia I had some gay friends.
We always had to be careful on the streets
because at any time someone around us might
have noticed us talking about something "gay".
So you talk about all the things
that happened in Russia with a lawyer.
You gather all your documents
which prove you had problems in Russia.
For example: I was constantly depressive.
My doctor in Russia gave me a
document which proves that I was depressive.
That also serves as evidence
that my life wasn´t good in Russia.
And you collect all the documents
to write your curriculum vitae.
What I would wish for myself?
I just want to be happy. Enjoy my life.
I want to live my life the way I want to.
I want to be equal.
Equality.
