"Quirfest" without Milonov

In St. Petersburg, they tried to disrupt the opening of the Quirfest-2014 festival

On September 18, Quirfest began in St. Petersburg-the International Festival of Quir-Culture. Despite the provocations of homophobes and that the organizers had to urgently look for another site, about 200 people visited the opening ceremony. The deputy of the local parliament Vitaly Milonov was not allowed into the hall.

The uninvited guests represented by a deputy of the St. Petersburg parliament Vitaly Milonov, his assistant Anatoly Artyukha and a group of Orthodox activists, headed by the leader of the GODERE of the “God's VOLEA” public movement Dmitry Enteo, appeared at the opening ceremony of the Quirfest-2014 festival in the Nevsky Cafe, True, it was already the second venue for the evening-the ceremony was not able to do it. To start on time, because an hour before the opening of the site on Kazan, 7, suddenly found that the front staircase was ready to collapse and refused the organizers. They managed to quickly find a new hall in one of the cafes in Passage, but Orthodox activists came there. Not embarrassed by the presence of the Consul General of Norway Hadi Olufsen and the deputy general of the consul of Sweden Bjorn Kavalkov-Khalvarsson, they doused the guests of the event with a green and sprayed in the premises a certain gas, from which many became ill.

From head to toe in Zelenka was the adviser to the Commissioner for Human Rights in St. Petersburg Julia Volkov .

- Everyone who stood at the door turned out to be doused with this muck. I don’t understand how it happened that there was a lot of police below, including a police bus and a car carrier, and these people calmly went to the third floor in a cafe, where there was a closed event - after all, they were allowed there only at invitation. I think the police simply underestimated the danger of the situation: it is not just hooliganism, it seems rather, to extremism - they sprayed gas in a small room, where there were a lot of people, 200 people, and not only guests of the festival, but also cafe workers, I'm not talking about consuls of foreign states. The whole horror is that these "Orthodox activists" sprayed gas, and then blocked everyone in a cramped room: they hung a barn lock on the door of the main entrance, and another exit was blocked by the guard. 10 people suffered, in general it became bad for many, the situation was saved only by the fact that they guessed to open large windows, otherwise there would be much more victims. At some point, it became just very scary.

According to Julia Volkova, she managed to get through to the Commissioner for Human Rights in St. Petersburg, Alexander Shishlov, who in turn contacted someone from the police authorities, and then the police rose to the cafe. However, Orthodox activists, who also glued the doors with stickers with homophobic inscriptions, did not wait for the police and disappeared safely - none of them were detained.

The organizers of the festival continue to receive information about the new prepared provocations. Petersburg Ombudsman Alexander Shishlov turned to the speaker Zaks Makarov with a request to calm Milonov, who attacked the Quirfest. "As a result of hooligan actions, the rights of citizens were grossly violated. I believe that the active participation of the deputy of the Legislative Assembly in such shares will discredit the deputy corps, damages the reputation of St. Petersburg. I ask you ... take measures aimed at compliance with the norms of deputy ethics." The Ombudsman also turned to the head of the Main Directorate of the Ministry of Internal Affairs in St. Petersburg and the Leningrad region with a request to take under personal control the verification of the statements of the victims registered on this fact.