No one gives you a place under St. Petersburg sun. You have to take it yourself.

2009. Summary of LGBT-activists work in St. Petersburg.

In 2009 St. Petersburg saw a record number of different events and actions aimed at fighting homophobia and discrimination of LGBT community - lesbians, gays, bisexuals and transgenders.

Events of LGBT activist life in 2009 - their number, focus and quality - may be called unprecedented: in total about 10 thousand people took part in them. All these significant events and changes in social and cultural life of the city enjoyed almost no attention from the media. But this is not surprising anymore.

What is surprising is that when you look back and think through this year you start to realise how many changes took place both for the St. Petersburg LGBT community and for cultural and social life of the city in general. You start to realise that the point of no return of dissociation and apathy of gays and lesbians is finally behind. You realise that the growing social movement gives birth to activeness around it and gives strength to those who are ready to pursue the own special way not sticking with the general current, this movement gives confidence that all efforts are not worthless. As they used to say during Perestroika, process started.

But let’s follow the events…

2009 started with a campaign for rehabilitation of the victims of the 121st article that persecuted homosexuals in USSR. At the moment over 1 000 signatures are collected in many regions of our country. This work will be continued next year.

Every movie show and workshop of the ComingOutCinema and -Info excited unfailing interest with full house, with visitors sitting in the aisles or lying in front of the screen.

In March came the Week Against Homophobia. The organisation of the Week  accompanied other actions of the “Xenophobia-No!” coalition, which was joined by several LGBT organisations at once. During the week the following topics were discussed: homophobia in politics, the first openly gay-politician Harvey Milk, up-bringing children in the homophobic society and many others.

“The Week Against Homophobia” showed that St. Petersburg LGBT community tends to join with other social organisations and to stand up against xenophobia together. The whole campaign “Xenophobia-No!” was successful and highly attended.

In April the two street events - flashmob and “Day of Silence 2009″ - gathered about 100 people. In the whole about 7 000 flyers were distributed in the very centre of the city. People who went along the Nevsky prospect remembered the groups of energetic young activists with red tape over their mouths for a long time afterwards.

May 2009 gave birth to the first largest street LGBT event in Russia: on May 17 RainbowFlash gathered over 250 rainbow activists. The flashmob went along Ligovsky and Nevsky, passed the Palace square and stopped on the Spit of Vasilevsky Island. There the symbolic rainbow balloons were let fly into the sky. It is not an accident that this event was reffered to as a gay-pride, though it was rather a lesbi-pride, considering that most of the participants were women.

RainbowFlash was an event that was hard for the media to ignore, and the TV channel “100” responded with an absurd and obviously sponsored program with a title that spoke for itself “Homosexuality - a crime against childhood?” The hosts of the program tried, as it unfortunately became common in Russia, to “soak in the joint” an LGBT activist and a feminist, but they clearly failed and the program had an opposite effect to the intended one.

Activist Maria Efremenkova stood up against the homophobic policy of the channel by making a single-person picket in front of the editorial office of the “100″ TV channel.

In September 2009 the First International Queer Culture Festival in Russia took place. The Festival gathered over 30 photographers, 25 musicians and rock groups, two theatre studios and other artists, as well as 3000 spectators. The organisational committee led by the LGBT organization Coming Out was made up of 9 human rights and social organizations. Besides the photo exhibitions and performances in new fashionable art space at the former factory “Red flag” the audience could participate in discussions about social responsibility of an artist, listened to the poetry readings, had a good time at the concerts of “Iva Nova”, “Colibri”, “Snega” and the world-known rock-group “Bettie” from USA.

Social and cultural QueerFest accomplished its mission proving that diversity is beautiful, that diversity gives everyone a possibility to be oneself, to fulfill one’s unique ’self’ while being understood and accepted by others.

In October during the 10 days of the LGBT film festival “Side by Side” its movie shows and discussions attended about 2000 people. During the whole year the festival organized events and gained popularity and recognition from its audience, cultural organizations, NCO. As a result it was supported by the notable scientist Igor Kon, director of the Moscow Helsinki Group Nina Tagankina, art-director of the Open Cinema festival Tamara Larina, a number of human rights and social oragisations of St. Petersburg, local business representatives, foreign diplomatic missions and many others. “Side by Side” became a bright and significant event in the cultural and social life of the city.

This year LGBT activists gained attention of civil right groups and LGBT issues started to enter Russian civil right domain and partnerships were established: in summer Ombudsman Vladimir Lukin met with the chairperson of the Russian LGBT Network Igor Kochtkov (Petrov). And in autumn St. Petersburg ombudsman Igor Mikhailov followed this example by inviting LGBT activists to a meeting and offering partnership. In December members of the Civil Rights Council of St. Petersburg attended a workshop on gender and LGBT issues. In autumn 2009 also took place workshops for journalists and workers of educational system.

During the whole year work of another sort has been carried out as well. It has been extremely important and necessary, and it would be possible to assess its results only years later, that is consistent support of the LGBT community on different levels. This work includes psychological service, legal advice service for LGBTs, trainings on organizational development and schools for LGBT activists, gatherings for same gender families with children that turned out to be highly  in-demand. Regular editions of books and pamphlets on gender and sexual education for various target groups. In these circumstances new and so far small projects “Drag King Studio” and “Open Radio” are thriving.

It can be sad with certainty that LGBT community of St. Petersburg is coming out of its cellar where it had stayed so far. This coming out is not yet so visible.

But one thing is a clear fact: for LGBT persons there is now a little larger place under St. Petersburg sun.

Let’s look ahead.

Author Uglya Solntseva

Translated by Olga Lenkova