On September 13 Coming Out conducted a seminar on rainbow culture in St. Petersburg dedicated to the cultural life of St. Petersburg LGBT community. Despite the fact that participants were few, the discussion turned out to be quite lively: everyone who came, did come not by accident, but rather interested in the discussion.

The art of rainbow Piter penetrated the heart and soul of SETA (the main LGBT organization in Finland). Johanna Pakkanen, the secretary general of SETA listened very attentively to presentation on St. Petersburg, asked questions and took along our brochures and information materials.

The seminar gusts had lots of different questions. They wondered why people are shy with public display of their feelings, why, given the high level of entertainment culture, LGBT is still invisible at social and government levels, why many LGBT people in Russia are apathetic and do not believe in benefits of activism, and other similar topics.

The seminar was a part of the annual LGBT culture festival, The Day and Night Tribade Festival. The festival program included international annual conference conducted by ILGCN (International lesbian and gay cultural network). As Bill Schiller, the secretary general of the information secretariat of ILGCN explains, the main idea of the conference was �?culture as an instrument of fighting homophobia, don’t-ask-don’t-tell policies and narrow-mindedness, which puts the financial profits above the solidarity and common goals».

As a result of its participation in the conference and conducting the seminar, Coming Out has received an invitation to join the ILGCN network and the Nordic Rainbow Council, as well as conduct the next international ILGCN conference in 2009 in St. Petersburg. Additionally, there was organized the Swedish-Finnish-Russian Culture and Human Rights Project, under the auspices of which, joint events will be conducted in the future.

The participation in ILGCN conference has also demonstrated to Coming Out the correctness of the chosen strategy of its work in St. Petersburg targeting the social climate change in relation to LGBT. The idea of culture and arts being interconnected with politics was actively discussed at Tribade festival and the conference, and in our seminar. Our western colleagues have stressed that while Sweden, Norway and Finland have very progressive legislations which protect LGBT rights, and the discrimination is illegal, people still face homophobia in their everyday lives: the social mentality is running behind the progressive laws. It becomes clear how the transformation of cultural values could well become the basis of positive transformation in social consciousness. Arts is a universal language needed no interpreters. It crosses the borders, touches people’s souls and reaches far, where words, protest and street manifestations would probably never make it.

We would like to extend our special thanks to Bill Schiller, whose active contribution made the seminar possible in part. We also thank Anna Jaakselainen, the organizer of Tribade festival for cordial welcome and to Johanna Pakkanen, the secretary general of SETA, and to all seminar participants.