Date: Wed, 24 Apr 1996 15:32:27 -0700 (PDT) From: Rex Wockner Subject: ARCHIVES - FIRST SOVIET PRIDE - ARTICLE #1 FROM THE ARCHIVES FIRST GAY-PRIDE CELEBRATIONS IN THE SOVIET UNION 1991 G A Y G L A S N O S T PART ONE IN A SERIES MOSCOW/LENINGRAD PRIDE EVENTS CALLED SOVIET 'STONEWALL' by Rex Wockner MOSCOW -- When the final tally was complete, it was estimated that nearly 20,000 people participated in the Soviet Union's first gay/lesbian-pride events July 23-Aug. 3 in Moscow and Leningrad. American organizers and several of the 70 North Americans who joined in the celebrations dubbed the two weeks "the Soviet Stonewall." Scores of Soviet gays and lesbians said their lives had been changed forever. "We have much new information on what it is to be gay," said Arunas Dainauskas of Vilnius, Lithuania. "It is very difficult to speak of what your visit means for us." "This is the first time in the history of our country when gay people have come together," said Leonid of Moscow, who did not want his last name published. "It will do much to change the public attitude," Leonid said. "My parents and most people--well, I think everybody in the Soviet Union--think there are no gay people here. But now they will know." "One year ago, it would have been incredible to think of events like this," said Roman Kalinin, founder of the Moscow Gay and Lesbian Union and, in essence, of the Soviet gay movement itself. "We will remember this forever. "I want to say to our American friends, you have infected us with the will to be free," Kalinin said. "I think we're sick with it now. Thank you. We owe you for the fact that when we started coming out, we were not alone.... I want to say to the Soviets in this room, we have received help from the West; now it's our turn to do our part to advance the movement." Similar sentiments were expressed over and over by the hundreds of delegates who attended the four-day gay/lesbian symposiums in Moscow and Leningrad, the thousands who crowded into the Soviet Union's first gay film festivals, and the brave 200 who staged the country's first gay-rights demonstration. American organizers were repeatedly stunned at the turnouts for the events, saying they had no idea so many Soviet gays and lesbians would risk being known as homosexual. The events were heavily--and objectively, translators said--covered by the Soviet media. "The response...was far beyond our expectations," said Jim Toevs of the San Francisco-based International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission, which co-organized the pride events with the nascent gay/lesbian organizations in Moscow and Leningrad. "We were completely prepared to find 50 people in Leningrad and 75 in Moscow," Toevs said. "This is truly the fulfillment of a dream." With only minor exceptions--all in the past two years-- Soviet gay-male life has consisted of careful cruising in parks and toilets, and Soviet lesbian life has been all-but-non- existent, delegates said. Now, the possibilities seem unlimited, some overwhelmed delegates suggested. "I think very often we ourselves exaggerate the danger of being known as gay," said Leonid Frolovy of Leningrad. The Moscow film festival attracted 16,000 people, organizers said, making it the fifth-largest gay film festival in the world. It was staged by Frameline, which organizes San Francisco's film fest. There were several screenings each of Coming Out (East Germany), Desert Hearts, The Times of Harvey Milk, Maurice, My Beautiful Laundrette and November Moon. "The films provided the first visual exposure to lesbian and gay relationships on the screen for the audience members and they've been extremely moved--beyond the point of being able to speak--at seeing men kiss each other and women kiss each other on the screen--and the loving relationships depicted in the films," said Frameline's Tom DiMaria. About 1,000 people attended the Moscow symposium July 29- Aug. 1. In Leningrad, 300 people participated in identical events July 23-28, and an additional 150 showed up for the films. Workshops focused on gay culture, coming out, sodomy-law repeal, the gay press, anti-gay violence, AIDS treatment, Marxism, and scores of other topics. A member of the Leningrad City Council addressed the opening plenary session there, telling Soviet gays and lesbians that the only way to win their freedom is to come out of the closet. Condom-distribution events in downtown Leningrad and Moscow attracted more than 100 participants. In Moscow, activists made a hasty retreat in tourist buses after traffic police called for 800 back-up officers in response to a kiss-in initiated by a group of suddenly radicalized lesbians from, of all places, Siberia. The Soviet Union's first planned gay-rights demonstration took place the next day on the steps of Moscow's Bolshoi Theater-- attracting 200 activists, a horde of reporters and about 500 onlookers. The protestors demanded the repeal of Article 121.1 of the Russian Republic Penal Code, which punishes male-male sex with five years' imprisonment, and called on Soviet authorities to move immediately to stave off a Western-type AIDS epidemic in the country. Officially, there are 654 AIDS cases, according to Dr. Irina Eramova of the All Union Center for AIDS, who admitted that the figure is inaccurate. (A detailed report will appear in a future issue of NAME OF THIS PUBLICATION). The North American delegation featured several major figures in the gay/lesbian movement, including Canadian member of Parliament Svend Robinson, comic Robin Tyler, former Human Rights Campaign Fund Executive Director Vic Basile, HRCF board co-chair Randy Klose, Mattachine Society founder Harry Hay, New York City gay liaison Marjorie Hill, San Francisco activist Jean Harris (who works for gay Board of Supervisors President Harry Britt), San Francisco health activist Pat Norman, Bay Area Reporter publisher Bob Ross, Philadelphia Gay News publisher Mark Segal, openly gay San Francisco Chronicle reporter Dave Tuller, World Congress of Gay and Lesbian Jewish Organizations Executive Director Barrett Brick, and Parents and Friends of Lesbians and Gays representative Laurie Coburn, among others. Asked if Soviet gays and lesbians have a gay sense of humor, Tyler said: "Absolutely. They got my jokes, even with the translation. And I made fun of them and they laughed at themselves. There is a gay sensibility--a very campy sense of humor." Robinson addressed the closing plenary session in Moscow, wearing a "Silence=Death" T-shirt. "If my friends two years ago had told me that conferences such as these would be taking place in Leningrad and Moscow with participants from literally all over the Soviet Union, I would have told them they were mad," Robinson said. "We are sending a powerful message...that we will accept nothing less than full equality. The greatest barriers that face our community are invisibility and silence. And as the slogan suggests, silence equals death and action equals life. Thank you for breaking the silence. Thank you for making our community in the Soviet Union not only visible, but strong and proud. We stand together today in pride and solidarity, as family. We shall overcome." Hay, a committed Marxist who some activists consider the father of the U.S. gay movement, said he was terribly disappointed by his first look at the Soviet Union. "I am hopelessly sad when I look at this workers' state and realize what a shoddy piece of work it is," Hay said. "I am just shocked at what I see and shocked to think of people having to live in such intellectual and mental shambles for 70 years. "People who I saw [on TV throughout the years] marching on Red Square poured all their love and pride and joy into this country," Hay said. "To realize it was such a shambles and such a mockery all the time--I weep for the people who now know the mockery that it was. They looked at it with such shining eyes of idealism and it was not there at all. To me, it is just an incredible tragedy." Most North American delegates were shocked at the social and economic "shambles" that surrounded them during their visit. The basic food groups are not consistently available (and there are no vitamins). The special food reserved for mid-level tourist hotels was sometimes inedible. The bottled mineral water had rust and other, unidentifiable material floating in it. Good food was available only in special, dollars-only restaurants, at which a few U.S. delegates guiltily indulged. Long lines were seen outside near-empty stores. Routine goods were unavailable--such things as clothes, watches, toiletries, lighters, pet food and hundreds of other ordinary items. However, many of the goods Westerners take for granted were available in special hard-currency shops--a sick joke for the average Soviet, who makes $10 a month at the current exchange rate. A package of cookies in a hard-currency shop would cost the average Soviet the equivalent of $700 for the average American. Dinner in a dollars restaurant would cost three months' salary. Conversely, most items bought by U.S. delegates during the trip--such as ice cream, Pepsi, record albums--cost them 1 cent to 4 cents U.S., or less. Classical compact discs cost $1.20--there were three available at Moscow's largest department store. Most U.S. delegates experienced first-hand numerous instances of corruption and service workers on-the-take. Most phone calls to the U.S. went through only with bribes. Taxi drivers demanded hard currency in excess of 100 times the ruble rate shown on the meter. "It's more Third World than the Third World," commented one American delegate. During the Moscow conference, the government announced that foreign passports will henceforth cost 1,000 rubles. That's more than three months of the average Soviet worker's salary. Several American delegates left money with their new Soviet friends, who hope to visit the U.S. Ultimately, said many Soviet and American delegates, the success of the Soviet gay/lesbian-rights movement will depend on whether the Soviet Union survives the seemingly impending social- economic collapse. If the country achieves democracy, a market economy and human- rights protections, then the gay movement will mushroom, they said. If the present decline is irreversible or if hard-line Communists re-gain the upper hand, as in China, then gay lib may have to wait for another era. Some delegates wondered about the propriety of spending energy on an "advanced" issue like gay/lesbian rights in the midst of the squalor of the daily lives of Soviet citizens. But then they observed the pure joy in the eyes and faces of the Soviet gays and lesbians gathered publicly for the first time-- and remembered that freedom is as fundamental as anything. Follow-up reports on AIDS and other aspects of the Soviet gay movement and the goundbreaking pride events will appear in later issues of NAME OF THIS PUBLICATION. -- END --