Nightclub, St Petersburg | Campbell: In the Mayak nightclub in St Petersburg, gays and lesbians flirt with an intoxicating and precarious new freedom.
| 12.27.13 |
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| Inside the club, they can strip off their daytime facades. Outside they would risk bashings and dismissal.
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| Volodja and Igor are two doctors working at the city's most respected clinics. But if any of their colleagues knew they came here, they'd be sacked.
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| Igor: I feel free and at ease here. I can talk to other people - and at work I can't do that.
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Igor | The people who gather here are gays like me.
| 13.11.02 |
Volodja | Volodja: The problem is that society does not understand who we are.
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Inside nightclub/Men dancing | Campbell: The emergence of a gay scene is an extraordinary contrast to Communism, which viewed homosexuality as a serious crime against the state and against nature.
| 13.33.05 |
| But for all the apparent changes, one legacy of communism remains. Homosexuals like Igor and Volodja still live in fear of officially-sanctioned persecution.
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| This was the human rights abuse the west never complained of.
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| These were the gulag victims Solzhenitsyn never wrote of.
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Gennady reading poem: | Gennady reading poem: I alone sang, as no one is allowed to sing of how we love without response the only one we need.
| 14.12.19 |
| Campbell: Gennady Trifonov spent four years in prison for the crime of writing homosexual poetry.
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| Trifonov: I got your letter, telling me that I'm a poet, which is dazzling. The is why my lofty star is not distinguished in the dark.
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Kresty prison | Campbell: Kresty prison in St Petersburg no longer houses homosexuals. In 1993, the law that saw gays liable to 8 years imprisonment was abolished. Now it's legal to be gay. But Gennady for one believes little else has changed.
| 14.40.03 |
Gennady | Gennady: The penal code does not change anything. In the mentality of the Russian people after 70 years of Soviet power, anti-Semitism and homophobia are deeply entrenched. These two things go together.
| 14.57.05 |
Statues/Park | Campbell: It wasn't always this way.
| 15.15.03 |
| Before the Revolution, a strong homosexual coteries thrived around the Imperial Court.
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| It included some of Russia's most honoured artists, among them the ballet master, Sergei Diaghilev and the composer Peter Tchaikovsky.
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| But in 1917 it fell victim to the Bolsheviks efforts to crush aristocratic decadence. The persecution went further.
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Pan down to Campbell in front of statue | The communists developed the ideal of superior socialist man, and nothing was a greater affront to Homo Sovieticus than a homosexual. For three generations, the party didn't just suppress them, it fostered a deep-seated hatred and revulsion toward men who would deviate so far. And these days there no need for a law to make it a crime.
| 15.50.05 |
Tchaikovsky Fund clubhouse | Today, a homosexual rights group called the Tchaikovsky Fund, are breaking into their own clubhouse.
| 16.13.15 |
| Last February, they took advantage of their new freedom to open a cafe here for gays and lesbians. A few months later some police decided to close it down.
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| Yuri: Damn, they've cut the power off!
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| Campbell: Yuri Yureyev is a long-time fighter against persecution. He also spent four years in a prison for being gay. But even in a city renowned as Russia's most liberal, he was powerless to stop police from behaving like criminals.
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| Yuri: They broke in here with automatic guns but the first one wore civilian clothes. We opened the door for the guy in civvies, and three policemen with automatic guns and full gear broke into the cafe. They ordered everyone to lay down on the floor at gunpoint. There were a couple of deaf boys, couldn't hear so they kicked them and threw them on the floor.
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Cafe | Campbell: In all, there were five raids on the cafe before it was closed.
| 17.27.24 |
| St Petersberg police refused to discuss the raids, saying they were under investigation. But Yuri believes they were ordered by the city authorities. The first three raids were made on the eve of the presidential election, shortly before Boris Yeltsin visited the city.
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Yuri | Yuri: In such cases they never produce any IDs so they can't be found if we file a compliant. They never show any documents. I think it was their intention to rob and destroy this place.
| 17.48.22 |
Military parade | Campbell: The police and the military don't just have the greatest power to do harm, they also bear the greatest animosity.
| 18.08.06 |
| Dmitri Issaev spend five years in the navy as a submarine doctor. He has since compiled the first detailed psychological research on Russian attitudes to gays.
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| The most hard line attitudes are in the military.
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Dmitri | Dmitri: Usually the consider that homosexuals are the worst group in the society and we know about cases in the army when gay men are killed by their neighbours.
| 18.36.22 |
| Campbell: A sign of the battle that gays are facing is that millions of Russians would like them dead. In 1989, nearly a third of Russians surveyed, said homosexuals should be executed. By 1994, a year after it ceased to be a criminal offence, almost a quarter still believed gays should get the death penalty. But Dmitri finds some comfort from the fact that attitudes are starting to change.
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Dmitri | Dmitri: In large cities like Moscow and St Petersberg, the attitudes towards gays change radically. And I think that mainly the change has existed among young adults. But not among olders.
| 19.25.02 |
| Usually, as we get more and more information from mass media about gay life in other countries, and in our country, we are so, more and more people know that it's not only among mental ill persons, but among normal people.
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Cafe in Moscow | Campbell: But even among the young, old attitudes can die hard.
| 19.54.04 |
| Vadim: I'm not interested in men.
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Vadim and friends in cafe | I'd rather go to a place where nice girls meet. Why should I stare at men?
| 20.06.01 |
| Campbell: Vadim is a producer with a rock music station. On Friday night he and his straight friends are out enjoying the late night sunshine. Vadim says he doesn't bother gays, as long as they don't bother him.
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| Vadim: I am easy about gays just like anyone else.
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| Campbell: But his friend, Sergei, a 21-year old student, proudly admits he's a gay basher.
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| Sergei: I beat up two guys because their behaviour in our club was indecent.
Woman: In fact, it's very sexy. It's beautiful - it turns you on. If they do it nicely, it really turns you on.
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| Sergei: They kissed next to the bar. We warned them not to, and they didn't stop so we had to apply force.
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| Campbell: Sergei's unashamed homophobia isn't shared by his friends.
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| But they all agree that gays should keep to themselves.
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Sergei | Sergei: Gays are only noticed when they show off in public. It they sit quietly and shuffle their papers it's no one's business - no one cares - but they shouldn't come out or go to the bars where normal heterosexual people gather.
| 21.10.22 |
Igor's flat | Campbell: And that's how Igor has decided to lead his life - in secret. In his small flat on the outskirts of the city, he sometimes takes the risk of holding a small party with gay friends.
| 21.27.06 |
Igor | Igor: This is a photo our New Year party. We organised a small show - just mocking our pop stars. Here we're singing with Volodja. We just dress up and have fun. It's only for seven or eight people, not more. It is for close friends only. Few people know about it.
| 21.44.22 |
| Campbell: But when Igor goes to work at the hospital, he must be careful to give no sign that he's gay.
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| Igor: They would sack me. They can take a note of it - and it would be hard to find another job. In some professions you just have to hide it - lawyers, for example. Otherwise you'd have no protection. That's how it is - two different lives - one at work, the other when we get together with friends - to go to a disco. In a small circle of friends, one feels more at ease - but at work there are limits you can't cross.
| 22.27.13 |
Igor walking along street | Campbell: And when Igor leaves work, he continues the charade. In the street he is careful to act like everyone else. He has found it safer to be alone than to be different.
| 23.05.01 |
| Igor: It is too early to come out in the open here in Russia. Some people just can't understand.
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Men walking at sunset | Campbell: The dilemma for activists like Yuri Yureyev is how far to push their new legal rights when there is no redress if they're violated.
| 23.23.14 |
| With the cafe closed down, the Tchaikovsky Fund now meets in his one room apartment. Tonight he is trying to persuade his friends who were beaten by police to file complaints.
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| Yuri: It will happen until they stop considering gays as outcasts - and this is still the general opinion.
| 23.45.08 |
| Vitaly: We had a legal company - so what? It didn't make any difference. Remember how they beat the shit out of me. Remember?
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| Yuri: I don't know why no one filed a complaint.
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| Vitaly: I will not sign anything. If I was alone, I wouldn't give a shit - but I have a mother and a nephew.
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| Campbell: Vitaly's fear is based on a common tactic from Soviet times - police victimising families to force dissidents to toe the line.
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| Vitaly: If I filed a complaint to the police they'd ask me to withdraw it, or force me to. If I don't do it, they'll make the relatives do it.
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Gennady climbing stairs | Campbell: Gennady Trifonov has little to do with activists, and he avoids the gay night life.
| 24.51.16 |
| Gennady: I live with my writing, I see almost no one, and I live as if in a prison cell.
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| Campbell: He believes it will take generations before any minorities can feel truly accepted.
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| Gennady: I think our Soviet democracy, just like Soviet capitalism, is like fascism. Nothing every changes here. Nothing at all - just the signs. But nature is the same. We are constantly in search of an enemy to be blamed for our failures in economics and politics. First they blamed the Jews - now they can blame the gay - tomorrow, business people - it doesn't matter. What matters is the situation of hatred that's maintained in the country - and that's frightening.
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Nightclub | Campbell: Russian gays do have a freedom now that would have been unthinkable just six years ago.
| 24.51.20 |
| They have places they can go where they can do anything they want.
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| They have a legal right to lives as they wish.
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| But their freedom can only be guaranteed with the walls of places like this.
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| Outside, moonlighting police are hired to provide security. Part of their job is to ensure the clubgoers can leave safely.
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| At 5 am it is time for the last of them to return to their normal lives and to pretending their not gay.
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| Their weekend freedom may be the first step toward leading more honest lives outside. But it may also be a brief time of openness before the intolerance of Russian society rebounds. Their freedom a false dawn before the darkness returns.
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Negus | Negus: Moscow correspondent, Eric Campbell on the travails of being gay in Russia. And that's it for this week, but join us again at the same time next week for another Foreign Correspondent. See you then.
| 26.58.13 |
| Series music |
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CREDITS: |
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| BEDOUINS
Reporter GEORGE NEGUS Camera TIM BATES Sound VIACHESLAV ZELENIN Editor ANDREW BARNES Research MARK GLEESON Producer WAYNE HARLEY
| 27.11.02 |
| RUSSIAN GAYS
Reporter ERIC CAMPBELL Camera TIM BATES Sound VIACHESLAV ZELENIN Research ROBERT GUTNIKOV
| 27.17.05 |
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| Presenter/Editorial Adviser GEORGE NEGUS
Titles Music RICK TURK
Studio Cameras RICHARD BOND BRENDAN READ
Studio Sound STEWART BURCHMORE
Vision Mixer ANGUS MILLAR
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| Operations Assistant VANESSA REIDY
Lighting Director RAY MILLS
Graphic Design ANN CONNOR
Production Assistant TRACEY ELLISON
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| Director SUSAN O'LEARY
Supervising Producer MARK DAVIS
Associate Producer MARTIN BUTLER
Producer RUTH DEXTER
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| Executive Producer DUGALD MAUDSLEY
Foreign Correspondent Australian Broadcasting Corporation ©1996 |
27.55.03 |