Contents:
GAY THE USSR
Rsia is not an easy place to be gay.
AN ARTIST INVTIGAT THE DIVI BETWEEN RSIAN JEWS AND RSIAN GAYS
Though homosexualy is no longer outright illegal -- and has not been nsired a mental disorr sce 1999 -- a stubbornly homophobic stra of natnalism persists, as evinced most recently by an anti-homosexual "propaganda" bill that is gag momentum the State Duma. Though homosexualy is no longer outright illegal — and has not been nsired a mental disorr sce 1999 — a stubbornly homophobic stra of natnalism persists, as evinced most recently by an anti-homosexual "propaganda" bill that is gag momentum the State Duma.
Rsians are at least talkg about homosexualy today a way that wasn’t possible durg the Soviet perd — a silence that left a gapg hole Rsia’s historil rerd. In his latt work, Fiks unveils a particularly well-hidn piece of that history: gay cisg unr munism. The artist’s new book, Mosw, is an evotive but unembellished medatn on gay cisg the pal cy, featurg photographs of the public toilets near the Hermage Garns; the stairs to the riversi embankment by Mosw Universy; the Bolshoi Theater; and many other inic lotns.
Fiks said much of his rearch om historians who wrote about gay life the Soviet Unn om the 1920s to the 1970s.