From August 18 to August 24, the Russian LGBT Network and the St. Petersburg Public Organization Coming Out, with financial support by the Swedish Helsinki Committee, conducted Summer School for LGBT activists of Russia. In addition to the representatives of St. Petersburg, the Summer School was also attended by representatives from the Petrozavodsk LGBT Organization Krug-Kareliya, the Tyumen Public Organization Rainbow House, the Moscow LGBT Organization LGBT Rights, the Krasnoyarsk LGBT Organization SDG, and by initiative groups from Kemerovo, Voronezh, and Kazyan.

The main goal of the Summer School was to increase professional competence of the regional LGBT activists, to consolidate the Russian LGBT movement, and to develop strategic planning and tactics for the work to be done in the nearest nine months.

This Summer School was one of the steps in the process of preparations for the Russian National Conference of Civil Organizations for the Development of LGBT Movement, planned for this fall. Various seminars on human rights, sexual rights, the Yogyakarta principles and their implementation in Russia, the history of LGBT movement in the West, fundamentals of gender theory and psychology, feminism, the principles of influencing public opinion and their application to the LGBT in Russia, and interaction with the mass media, were conducted. Issues of gay and lesbian identity, the process of coming out, the heterosexual cultural matrix, the inner homophobia, and the strategy for the development of the LGBT movement in Russia, were studied.

As a result of the Summer School, knowledge and experience were exchanged between regional organizations, agreements for collaboration were reached, and contacts were established for future interactions. The Summer School provided the necessary momentum for future development of the Russian LGBT Network and the Russian LGBT movement as a whole.