In St. Petersburg, people dressed as Cossacks with whips came to a lecture by the AIDS Center.

In St. Petersburg, a group of people dressed as Cossacks came to a lecture on "Sexual Health of the LGBT Community," according to the website of the AIDS Center Foundation.

“Before the start of the lecture, aggressive people in military uniforms, who introduced themselves as Cossacks, and several police officers burst into the room,” the report says.

"Mediazona" writes that people in the clothes of the Cossacks brought a child with them to "show rear-wheel drive." Infectious disease doctor and AIDS.Center project manager Nikolai Lunchenkov, who was announced as a lecturer of the event, told the publication that during a lecture on the health of LGBT people and people with HIV, he had to be “very careful in wording, to speak as scientifically as possible.”

He connected this with the opinion of people in the form of Cossacks, who believe that the lecture is intended only for an adult audience and should only take place behind closed doors.

According to Fontanka , the policemen who came with them held the passports of those present. The newspaper notes that people in the form of Cossacks do not interfere with the lecture, they simply occupy part of the room. During a conversation with the owner of the coffee shop, one of them, according to Fontanka, took out a whip, but did not use it.

The AIDS.Center website says that during the lecture, Nikolai Lunchenkov was supposed to talk about how to maintain his health and what risks members of the LGBT community face every day.