**
[speaking Russian]
**
[speaking Russian]
How did you guys meet?
Kids they were angry and they are ready to fight you.
It doesn't matter what.
And if they see that you are different.
When they see your voice let's say higher than normal,
so you are an object of the bullying.
On the breaks they used to beat me, they used to say
bad words and laugh so it wasn't
a very pleasant experience.
One day, I could only cry.
I realized that I was gay by the age of 13 I guess.
It was terrible.
I was sure I was only one gay in the world.
I was sure there were no gays before me.
I was sure I was sick.
I was sure it wasn't normal
and I didn't know what to do with that.
I used to try to date girls but it didn't work so...
-- and then I started looking for the literature,
but it was also in books where homosexuality was still
illegal and I was reading it and I was thinking that
okay, now I'm illegal as well.
Feeling shame when you are gay, it's pretty normal.
It's so normal we don't even think about it.
And I didn't think about it.
The opinion on gays is so strong in Russia
that even you believe in it,
even you believe that you are not normal.
Even you believe that you are sick.
**
I came to Russia in 1996.
I became acquainted with lesbian and gays
and they became friends and, you know, they told about
their life and it was clearly that, you know,
because of homophobia there is a lot of stigma
that they have being lesbian and gay.
They don't live openly.
They hide their sexuality from colleagues, from
families, from friends, you know, think up huge lies
about their life, get married.
For a long time I had the idea about, you know, a film
festival, and in 2007 I began working on it with a friend.
It's the first goal of the film festival is to inform
people about LGBT issues and rights.
**
From 2009 up to now, we've been able to hold the
festival relatively freely in some theaters...
But in other cities, for example, like Komarova,
one nationalist group didn't want to have us there,
so they sent a lot of threats to film festival's visitors,
to the organization team.
-What kind of threats?
So like we will, we will put you down,
we will get your venue in fire.
But the administration was on the side of this nationalists.
They didn't want, they didn't want to protect film
festival's visitors and us from these threats,
from this nationalist group.
And they basically said, well, you know,
this festival isn't wanted in Komarova.
We're not going to protect you.
And the following week we had a festival in
Novosibirsk and, again, we came up against
a lot of difficulties.
On the second day of the festival, a large picket
had been organized by a religious group.
There were around 20, 20 or 30 religious activists
picketing the venue.
And in addition to that, there were around
another 20 or so nationalist youths.
They were circling around.
They were shouting insults at us.
And it was clear from their behavior that they were
intent on doing something further.
We had to organize taxis to take away the audience
because it was clear that they were -- wanted to beat
people up and, you know, we addressed the police who,
again, weren't interested in, you know, overseeing,
you know, the safety for the visitors.
And then they were waiting.
Beringuela were there with another activist,
local activist. And they were specifically waiting for us.
They were on mopeds, in cars, and it was so clear
that they, you know, were going to follow us.
And it was just by luck that our taxi driver,
he was a young guy, and it was just by chance that he was able
to take us away at high speed from the venue.
**
[camera clicking]
**
Elena Kostyuchenko works for Novaya Gazeta,
one of Russia's only newspapers critical of the Kremlin.
I'm lesbian.
I live openly.
I have friends, I have job.
All the time I'm going to [inaudible].
Now it's part of Russia, and then people ask
me about who I am, where's my family.
I tell them about my girlfriend.
Do you think it's maybe easier
for girls as I hear from people?
Yeah, it is easy for girls because people are just --
they are not informed because there are not a lot
of open gays and lesbians in Russia.
And, actually, anybody in Russia has to know one gay
and one lesbian at least.
For example, just the day before yesterday, one guy
from very, very small town, I think even village,
in Siberia wrote me that he hates me, my life,
and he would kill me if he would be Moscow
and he send me some videos with some Nazi...
And he just tried to chat and through -- in two hours
he wrote me, do you understand that once on your
action you can be killed?
I said to him, I know that -- about with opportunity,
yes, it's may be once.
And he said, you nice person so it would be nice that you
can immigrate to Norway or somewhere
that you being safe there.
And I wrote him that two hours ago you wanted to kill
me by yourself so why you care about me now?
And he wrote, I see you a nice girl and I had
opportunity to speak with you, but people who going to
go to you action to beat you is they didn't.
So I just want you to be safe.
Please tell me that you're going to leave.
You cannot talk to each person for two hours a day
and change peoples' minds.
Yes.
No, I can, actually.
And I do it.
So, but it's will be -- it's a bit easier that as the
gays, lesbians, more as the gays and lesbians going to be open.
**
How did you go about finding characters?
You're a straight man.
Mm-hmm.
Why did you decide to speak for the rights of homosexuals?
**
I was around 23 years old when I came out
to my mother.
I was absolutely sure before 15 minutes she couldn't
speak and she kept saying like how come, how come?
And she brought me to a -- not to a psychologist, but
she brought me to a witch, a real witch.
**
You can see Anton Krasovsky here, hosting a
Russian TV show.
Earlier this year he came out on air in front of
everybody watching, including his bosses.
It was a hugely controversial decision and
one that cost him his job.
Because somebody should to -- and I, you know,
I decided that it's time to be open and it's time
to be open for me.
This is probably my biggest fear that my parents and my
relatives will feel ashamed about me.
And I think my worst fear would be because of
prejudice that I face here that I would have to leave
and return to England, to leave my friends, you know,
the people that have almost become my second family to me.
It sends a very clear message.
The law says that homosexual propaganda is the goal
directed and uncontrolled distribution of information
that can cause harm to the spiritual or physical
development of children including forming in them
the erroneous impression of social equality between
same-sex and heterosexual marital relations.
So that's a very -- that phrase, you know,
the erroneous impression of social equality, is key.
It establishes second-class citizenship.
It makes it a offense [background laughter]
to claim social equality.
If I tell my kids that we're just as good as the
neighbor's family, [baby sounds] I'm an offender.
You know, I've committed an administrative offense.
It's a pretty standard Russian law which is written
in such a way that it can be used to harass anybody,
anytime, for any reason.
Conservative values, it's new Russian trend.
So this law is one of, part of this trend.
You have to consider that Russia is a country that
went from almost a fervent and imposed atheism,
where belief in God was not allowed under the Soviet Union,
to suddenly the pendulum swings back after the
Soviet Union ends and you have the recrudescence
of the Orthodox Church and it gaining enormous power.
This homophobic law is result of this conservative
atmosphere and conservative opinions leading -- led by
the Russian Orthodox Church and other conservative
or nationalistic groups.
Would you say Russia's becoming a conservative religious state?
No.
I hope not yet [laughter].
I would not feel comfortable working with minors anymore.
What's going to be with gay children who go to school?
So it means that they are propaganda.
Just being who you are, you're doing something wrong.
I am an English teacher.
Well, it's nonsense.
The propaganda law will drive me out of a job
that I love to do.
It probably even increases the hate.
When people start to talk about these things at a
government level, I truly do believe that it doesn't stop.
Now we can officially hate them.
I think ignorance, intolerance, racism, and
homophobia in every way is almost like a cancer.
Of course, first of all, it means that you cannot kiss
your partner on the streets because children can be there.
And that's so important because if you love someone
you want to show it.
And imagine that you used to live a life where you cannot
show your feelings.
I guess the best explanation would be that when you show
your feelings in Russia you feel yourself like a thief.
You feel like you're stealing something.
The largest criminal psychiatry institute in Russia,
the Serbsky Institute, tells people --
it's organized a whole series of courses for local
psychiatrists to help them identify pedophiles.
And one of the ways that they're told that they can
identify pedophiles is by identifying gays because
homosexuality and pedophilia go hand-in-hand.
That's what they're taught.
So I think we're much more likely to see, and it's
probably happening already actually, we're much more
like to see a series of people -- gay men who are
framed for statutory rape.
Can you speak English?
Definitely.
In Soviet Union, as in every other country, a number of
that people was around one, two person, not more.
I guess it was much less than one person.
But, frankly speaking, now in many countries where gay
propaganda is officially allowed, especially among
minors, a number of that people is increasing.
This is like a disease.
You can call cancer as -- you can call cancer to be a
friend, you know, but cancer would kill you.
And since they would kill the society,
they will destroy the society, and I really...
Like homosexuality is a cancer.
Homosexuality is a virus, is a virus.
Is a virus for society, is a virus for morality,
and society which underlines the necessity to
legalize sins is going down.
We should remember the historical experience of
very tolerant cities called Sodom and Gomorrah.
They were so tolerant that God showed all his tolerance
to this very modern at that time and very liberal cities
with burning sulfurs going from the sky.
And now, unfortunately, I'm sorry, but it's proven even
by the scientists, that these cities were destroyed
when they leave faith, country, family, church,
is all basic values and it cannot be crushed.
What is the value of homosexual living together?
What is the -- what, what,
what's the purpose of this living?
I remember my father kissing my mother,
which is natural, you know.
And I don't want our Russian kid to be raised by two
homosexuals kissing each other.
But what's worse?
Worse?
What's worse?
Yes. What is worse?
To grow in an orphanage or to be adopted
by two mothers or two fathers?
No!
What -- how can you say two mothers?
Mother is only...
Two women.
- Let's say two women. - Two women.
Two women living abnormal, sin away, no, of life.
He said the Americans want us to allow -- to let them
take kids out of Russian orphanages and bring them up
in perverted families like masochists.
When that kind of politician mentions you in that way...
...it's a direct threat.
So that was like a red flag.
We're going to go after you.
So I contacted an adoption lawyer.
So I wrote him a letter and asked him whether he thought
this was a threat.
His response was, the answer to your question
is at the airport.
Talk to Volva, tell him not to talk to strangers.
If somebody tries to grab him, run.
And the most important thing you can tell him is, run.
And don't open the door to Social Services or to anybody.
So we actually had to have a conversation
specifically about that.
I feel kind of scared because a lot of Russian
people hate gays and they can do something to my
family not really good.
And the cops and all that stuff, they're
-- all of them, they hate gays.
And, yeah.
You're worried about his new law?
Yeah, because my fam...
-- because I live in a family with gays.
And they can do something bad to us.
I like living in Russia because it's the place where I live.
It's my home.
And even there's, there's not a lot of good stuff
going on here, but I like it because I live here.
And I sometimes I get worried for my parents
because a lot of -- some people, like, are against my mother.
When they started passing laws on adoptions and saying
that they're going to pass laws on -- I mean banning
same-sex adoption -- adoption by same-sex couples,
and saying that they will pass laws to take children away
from same-sex families, it was difficult not to
take it personally.
I mean, there isn't another out family in Russia.
There just isn't.
We're it.
In social situations where people are saying that their
family's weird, you're kind of thinking about what's
happening with -- now I never, like, ever feel like
why are they feeling like that.
Do these laws, do they worry you?
Yeah.
I'm kind of scared that something's going to happen
but it's not like -- it's not in my mind like really
bothering me because I don't believe that's real.
There is a driving force behind this promotion of
homophobia in the Russian Federation.
There's a concerted hate-mongering campaign
that's launched by the Kremlin,
that's run by the Kremlin.
It employs the entire propaganda machine.
And this negative opinion is because of the lack of
proper information and also because of the very strong
propaganda of homophobia, which is now going on
through State TV channels.
So we can see in every week something
terrible about LGBTs, something manipulated about
how it's going in the West,
and some -- it creates something like panic.
You know, it's a war rhetoric.
And at this -- it's this war rhetoric that makes it clear
that the enemy's less than human.
And the other part of war rhetoric that they have to
employ is making sure that the enemy's very scary.
So they also have to establish danger.
It is very reminiscent of Nazi rhetoric in the 1930s
where they also did this double thing, where Jews were
portrayed as being dangerous to the Aryan race,
and as being less than human and undeserving of living in
close quarters with Germans.
Putin sees his constituency shrinking.
He needs to consolidate his base.
In order to consolidate his base he needs to, again,
show that there's an enemy.
He truly, really believes that protests are inspired
from abroad, that it is the other, and nobody represents
the other better than gays and lesbians.
Most Russians continue to believe -- I mean, the
absolute vast majority of Russians continue to believe
that they've never met a gay person in their lives.
People perceive that the enemy is someone abstract,
not as someone that they know.
That creates a dangerous situation because that
creates a situation where scapegoating is very,
very easy, and hate-mongering is very, very easy.
For Putin specifically, the goal is find a population
that he can intimidate.
It's laughable that Putin cares about children
let alone the education of children.
Putin is hell-bent on doing one thing -- staying in power.
And in order to stay in power he needs to suffocate
civil society, shut down freedom of expression,
and in the case of this law, the slow, but noticeable
slowdown in the economy and people's upset,
he needs to find something to blame.
What's he going to focus on?
The weakest, who he sees as the weakest,
the ones who are not going to rise up.
Gays are a very fresh target.
They're like low-hanging fruit, if you will.
Every moment that this law and the homosexism,
homophobia, education, children, is discussed,
is a moment that is not focused on Putin's looting the
country and the abhorrent human rights violations
occurring all across Russia as it descends further and
further into a dictatorship.
He pretend that Russian demography problems is in
gays, not in low level of life, not about
-- it's impossible to buy your own flat
if you are a young person.
I think, yes, gays, gays is easy enough... All shit.
One is to judge people, not just on what they say,
but on what they do.
And in the case of Putin, every time he says he's going
to do something, he usually doesn't do it.
If he is to say that the gays are going
to be okay, it's simple.
Let's actually look at footage.
[screaming]
Certain people are going to be second-class citizens.
Certain people are not going to be allowed to be who they
are or who they choose to be.
What you end up with is a circumstance where they --
the other people are going to start beating them up.
The amount of private violence that occurs in
Russia today against gay youth, it's -- I mean,
you have to be blind not to see it.
Sometimes people put up personal ads,
no different than personal ads that heterosexual couples
meet through, and someone will show up
or will meet and suddenly they'll be picked
up and kidnapped for four or five, six hours,
and beaten up and essentially tortured.
And the government does nothing about this.
[Newscaster]: Later, just down the road from the Parliament,
gay-rights campaigners were attacked
[background shouting].
Only a few days ago, President Putin had called
for more tolerance in Russia and less aggression.
It's such a vulgar exercise in petty nationalism
from a leader who clearly sees himself as
lacking some kind of machismo.
Especially if you've lived here all your life,
it's unusual for you not to have been gay-bashed.
Near the center, near the Kremlin, a gay bar,
and I got in a taxi...
...the taxi driver drove me somewhere.
When I got out of the car someone hit be around the
back of the head with a baseball bat.
They beat me up quite badly
and I was in the hospital for some time.
And all they seemed to want to do was get me
to sign a few documents saying that
I don't want the police to investigate.
I want to forget all about this.
And they wanted me out the door and to go home.
When I was trying to engage with someone through the
website, we had decided to meet and I was trying a
place to be as public as possible so it was a square
in the middle of the city.
And when I showed up three guys came to me
and they asked my name.
I said yes.
And they started beating me.
So it was a trap.
It was kind of trap when they teach gays,
when they fix gays, when they correct gays.
And police saw that and they didn't do anything about it.
And, yeah, I was pretty damaged.
It was hard to walk.
It was hard to move.
Teenagers, gay teenagers, commit more suicides than
anybody, any other, any other groups.
And this is happening because they have no hope.
They don't know what's happening to them.
I know this "chewing gum" about the committing
of suicide by gay youngsters...
But then, what do you mean propaganda? This is fact.
This is - this is not a fact.
The fact is that...
That gay young people do not commit suicide?
No. Don't tell them -- call them gay or not.
A young person, a young individual, has unbalanced,
unbalanced psychology, psychological state.
He's trying to realize himself and he is trying to,
trying even different deviations to find himself.
And he feels himself so uncomfortable that he refuse
from a normal life and he's becoming to be a homosexual.
And -- but this cannot stop him from moving down.
And for us Christians, the answer is absolutely clear.
In case a person follows the words of demons,
you know, this person goes to the demons.
**
Now the society started speaking about this.
[Crowd cheering]
Do you feel that you have been effective?
[Crowd chanting].
I just decide to go to Parliament
and kiss my girl there.
[Newscaster]: She's also a gay rights activist
who created a protest called Kiss Day.
I wrote Boston Journal and say any people who want to
go with me they can.
So even one person they can hug anybody.
I can hug them, too.
I just wanted to make some nice and nice form of protest.
First time it was like 10 people there, not 10, 15.
And second time it was 25,30 people.
And third time it was like 30 people again.
[Newscaster]: What began as public kissing ended
in public violence as the protestors came under attack
from homophobic Muscovites.
**
[Commotion]
And then I wrote another journal that,
okay, two my friends have broke once broken bones
and my girlfriend was attacked and she has some brain trauma,
so I cannot ask you to come with me again.
But I write -- but I say that I will be there again,
be in Parliament, because then we're going to discuss this law.
So I was there and people who are ready to be there,
be there, too.
And people came again and it was wonderful because I saw
some people, some strong young men and women and they
just make like a chain and they stand between us
and these crazy Orthodox people.
And they did in fact arrest us.
I never saw anything like this.
But police decide to arrest us first, and they arrest us
very soon then they put us in police station
and there they beat me a little bit.
I mean policemans because they know I'm like kind of
leader of this kissing protest and they want me to stop.
Are those actions that you go for, are they effective?
Do they change anything?
No.
Why did you keep going?
Because I don't want to sit at home.
Then they change my life.
**
Me and my friends, we make website...
We just ask people, if you want to say something about
this law to our deputies in Parliament, you can send us
your photo and your text, and we will publish it on
this site and then we will bring these photos
and bring us to Parliament.
And we did it.
And now it's more than 1,000 photos there.
**
And people with open faces tells about the gays and
lesbians and the parents of gays and lesbians,
or they're straight, they say what they hate, haters.
**
I know that it's my country.
It's actually my... So I have to fight.
I don't have any [laughs] choice actually.
Do you think that gay people should leave,
LGBT people should leave the country?
Gay people should leave.
**
The biggest fear is having my kids taken away.
I mean, to be honest, I've been writing the story for
more than 20 years.
And I'd stick around just to see how it unfurls.
It's -- I mean, I think this is the agony.
I think things are going to get a lot worse before it's over.
I would love to write it but -- and so, I -- if it were a
question of only my personal safety I'd stay.
When Mizulina, the head of the Committee on the Family
in the Parliament said, we're going to create a
mechanism, a legal mechanism for removing children
from same-sex families, that clinched it.
I didn't even feel like I could stick around
and wait to see if they actually passed those laws.
The Russian Government does not have any secrets.
The Russian Government tells you exactly what it's going
to do and then it goes ahead and does it.
And they've told us that they're going to take
children away from same-sex families
and they're going to do it.
The question, you know, before this international
campaign is, are they going to do it in a month, two months?
Will they wait a year?
My daughter was at summer camp, summer school,
in the states so I came to visit her.
And we were having dinner and I said,
I think we're going to leave.
And she just broke down crying.
She said, I don't understand how it can
be so dangerous when it doesn't feel dangerous.
And I said, oh, well, as a former war reporter,
I can explain this to you.
This is the weirdest thing about war is that you,
you know, you walk away from the front line and there are
like cafes and restaurants and you have fun,
and then you go and look at the shooting
or take part in the shooting, again.
And that's just how it works.
And it's really dangerous.
One day you realize that you have to do something about
that and you're trying to find the ways you can be active.
You can try other ways, you can do something about it,
not only for yourself but for the others as well.
I was looking for the way to participate through any
pride activities, so I just showed up at the place
and police came.
It was more police than activists
and some of them were arrested.
Some of them were beaten up.
I was among them.
Next question.
They grabbed a few people and, I guess, those who were
more active, and others they just left laying on the
ground after they used tasers and sticks.
I guess the right word is batons.
I was bleeding.
I was dirty.
So, yeah, I took some time to get rid of the blood
and get clean again.
So it was pretty bad.
I decided to leave Russia when I was 25,
and by that time I won a scholarship at
New York Film Academy.
And that was my ticket.
And when I came here in July in 2010,
I immediately applied for asylum.
A significant number of males and females that I've
met in the United States have come as asylum seekers
due to the discrimination against gays and lesbians.
Now this has been going on for decades.
This is not something new.
So should they get asylum?
I don't see why not.
I saw movies about like gay life in New York.
I just didn't have money to go.
I saved it.
And one day I was beat up and it was like in smoke.
I like...
I thought this the moment like they kill me.
I decided to leave.
I just -- I bought tickets and left.
So, basically, in August I was already at Immigration Equality
door knocking and telling them my stories,
how they took me, they found me the lawyers.
I got my lawyers from Immigration Equality.
They gave me lawyers for free.
And now I'm waiting just for interview.
They just go through your story and they ask you the
questions about your story so they can see,
they can feel that you are telling the truth.
The case consisted of the incidents,
what happened to me because I was gay.
Going through that case was going through...
For my life, which I never did before
and I don't think I'm going to do again, ever.
If I don't get it, I don't know what I will do.
I got asylum right on the interview.
I mean, after the interview.
You are waiting now for asylum, right?
Yes, I'm waiting for asylum.
I was just trying to get an asylum in the country just
as far from Russia as possible.
I miss my mom and my grandmother because my
grandmother now she is sick and I really miss her.
And I hope my mom will come
and visiting me when I get asylum.
Do you think you will see your grandmother?
I believe.
When I came to New York I was very surprised
by people holding their hands.
I mean, two men, by gays holding hands on the streets.
Do you hold hands in school?
I don't -- when I first fell in love -- I just can't
imagine the life living without holding -- I want -- sorry.
I feel here for 100% like this is, this is me.
I'm here.
Like I waited for this moment to be happy,
to be who I am, all my life.
I'm sure I became a better person.
I became more empathetic because when you are totally
open, when you have nothing to hide, when you have
nothing to lie about, it's much easier to live.
It's much easier to exist.
Three years in New York were the happiest in my life.
It all relates to being gay.
As a gay, I am much more happier than ever,
then I could ever imagine.
**
I think we will have this anti-discrimination law
for LGBTs and we will be a social group.
I have hope on the civil society.
Right.
That we are strong enough and we will do it.
If you'd asked a European that 45 to 50 years ago,
if they ever thought gay marriage would be a
possibility in Europe, I think they would have almost
laughed at you and said, of course, not.
I don't think it's going to happen in Russia in my lifetime,
but I do think and hope that
one day it will become a reality.
I think gay marriages will never be allowed in Russia,
at least for my generation.
It's not a question of the Russian LGBT movement,
it's a question of the Putin regime.
Things will be a lot worse the longer it goes on.
We can change people mind actually, but if we
-- if we will have right to speak, you know?
But now they want to close this right for us.
It's up to every person who actually believes in human
dignity because at the end of the day it's about this
is wrong, and we should all stand for it.
If the death of the regime comes relatively soon,
I think this horrible fear that we're living through
right now will actually have served to unite and mobilize
and strengthen the movement.
But if it goes on for any length of time, more than a
couple of years, then I think it will be scorched earth.
Most people think they have to have a big vision.
No, think small.
And some people are simply putting little, little,
little cards and they're writing a message and
they're putting it on their Facebook,
and then they're sending it to people in Russia.
That's something you can do.
That you're, you know, a 14-year-old girl somewhere
in mid-Ohio that cares about this, or your son, your son,
young man in Belfast who is interested and is watching them.
Write to the Russian Embassy locally.
Protest outside the Russian Embassy
even if it's only for a day.
Write a letter to your Congressman.
Talk about this at your school.
Show this documentary to other people.
Have them wake up and participate and get involved.
Ideas have consequences.
And when you don't put good ideas to work and you don't
start spreading good ideas, then bad ideas take hold in
that vacuum that's created.
You're absolutely wrong if your view is that,
well, 86% of Russians are against gay
rights or rather in favor of this law.
So we should just give up.
What happens if 90% of Russians believe that Jews
should be executed or that Muslims should be executed?
Does that mean we should execute Muslims?
No.
The state exists to safeguard the rights of
minorities and that includes gay minorities;
that includes sexual minorities.
You know, that includes women who decide to live
with women and have children.
They should have equal protection under law.
And until they have that, Russia will not be a free
country for everyone.
And what would be your advice for Russian,
for Russian heterosexuals?
Let new issues go into your mind and don't have fears.
When you accept homosexuals,
you accept more freedom for yourself.
It enrich you.
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