Rainbow banners. Colorful costumes. Thumping music. Waving politicians. These are some modern-day trappings of a typical gay pride parade in any major U.S. city. But it’s a far cry from the scene of this year’s pride march in Moscow, where participants were ridiculed, beaten and arrested for daring to demonstrate publicly in a country where homosexuality was a crime until 1993.
Among those arrested this year was Nikolai Alexeyev, a founder of the gay rights organization Gay Russia. In the past two years, Alexeyev helped organize the first pride marches in Moscow, knowing he would face opposition from the hundreds of people who turned out to protest the events. The city government refused to issue official permits for the demonstrations, citing concerns for public safety, and the 29-year-old lawyer was beaten and swiftly detained by police both years.
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