What It Means to Grow Up Gay Rsia

Contents:

• GAY DATG VLADIVOSTOK
• INSI THE IRON CLOSET: WHAT IT'S LIKE TO BE GAY PUT'S RSIA
• EXPLORE GAY ROOMS & RENTALS

GAY DATG VLADIVOSTOK

Normally my acplishments would be a source of pri for iends and fay Rsia, except that I'm gay--which puts me the same tegory as crimals, dg alers, and universy I was fally able to fd my own circle of iends, but even there I didn't have the nfince to open up: not to my parents, not to my iends, certaly not to the whole world.

I wasn't ready to accept that I might be I was 24 and out of school, I fally admted to myself that I was gay and started to look for other people like me, but wasn't easy. Two or three bars existed Vladivostok that people lled "gay bars, " but a lot of straight people hang out there too--boys and girls who like unrground plac. It's hard to tell who's gay and who's straight the plac, but 's also hard to feel nfint and safe that environment.

INSI THE IRON CLOSET: WHAT IT'S LIKE TO BE GAY PUT'S RSIA

Even Grdr, one of the most popular gay apps the world, only showed about six people the Rsian far east.

I eventually found one gay guy who I started to chat wh.

We went the entire meal discsg non-gay topics, and wasn't until we asked for the check that he found the urage to talk about "gay" thgs, groups, clubs etc. That's when I realized if I was gog to be gay Rsia, Vladivostok, that's what my life would be like. Fally I worked up the urage to tell my two bt iends that I'm gay.

EXPLORE GAY ROOMS & RENTALS

He was the first guy I ever held hands wh met at a popular gay bar on December 1, and he was talkg to a Spanish guy that I was checkg out. I hope I'll eventually say y but 's weird, for some reason I never thought about how beg openly gay, I'd have to make those kds of cisns, 's new.

I'm still dancg, but I've also started wrg for a uple of Rsian magaz and newspapers, and gradually wrg about gay issu Rsia. The ont-page story was "Gays USSR, " and was wrten by Pl himself, almost 30 years ago, unr a psdonym he ed, David Stone. He scribed his experience meetg gays the Soviet Unn durg his many trips there, and how this "visible" group of people lived their daily liv unr the iron curta.

Here's what Pl wrote 1986, about gay life the former Soviet Unn:"Homosexuals the Soviet Unn, as any other untry, exist large numbers and have next to no voice a society that is hostile to them. Soviet moraly officially nmns homosexualy and ems a crime punishable by imprisonment of seven years or more, pendg on the particular offense. In the Soviet Unn gay polil groups or parti are illegal sce they would terfere wh the state's monopoly on polics.