"On the rainbow flag we wrote - to hate boring"

Elena Kostyuchenko tells how she was a LGBT activist in Putin's Russia. This is a fragment of her book “My Favorite Country”, which is published by Medusa Publishing House

In October 2023, the Medusa publishing house was published by the book “My Favorite Country”. She was written by Elena Kostyuchenko, one of the most famous Russian journalists. This book is about how Russia slowly slid into fascism and war. In it, Kostyuchenko’s reports for Novaya Gazeta are intertwined with a story about her own life under Putin's regime. We publish an excerpt in which she writes about the history of her love - and the struggle against state homophobia.

Elena Kostyuchenko’s book can be bought in the main Russian -speaking bookstores outside of Russia. And also - read completely free in the Medusa application. Be sure to tell about this to your loved ones living in Russia. Here is the instruction - how to download our application. It knows how to bypass locks.

My love (invisible and real)

We met Anya at the lesbian club - then they were still in Moscow. This was my second trip to this club. I recently realized myself with a lesbian, fell in love, admitted that they rejected me, I cried and googled how to recover from lesbianism. It turned out that nothing. There were enough tears for a week and two days. I gathered my strength and decided to establish life - how the strollers, deaf, diabetics, and sick HIV establish life. I had to learn to be a lesbian. To this end, I went to the club.

We watched Lost and Delirious, then there was a discussion. After the discussion, they played the game - each was assigned a number, and on a piece of paper it was necessary to write the numbers of the women you liked. If the rooms coincided, the club promised to send each other's phones. They didn’t send anything to me.

Somehow it turned out that we are going to the subway with Anya. They talked about politics. Anya was obviously older, but asked very naive questions. It seemed to me that she was making fun of me so much, I frowned more and more. They went into the car in silence. After a couple of stations, it was time to go out, she went to the platform and shouted - give me the phone! I shouted the numbers. She wrote SMS. I answered.

We quickly gathered. These were my first serious relationships. It was funny. I got up two hours earlier to iron her shirt and cook her eggs with a Dutch sauce. A month later it turned out that she walks in a mint and loved pasta with a sausage. Anya endlessly bought cheap products, and also washed, dried and folded bags. She was older than me and remembered not only the nineties (banditry, poverty, horror before the future), but also the eighties (shortage of everything, cards for products, a premonition of the collapse of the country).

We lived poorly, rented a corner in a one -room apartment. Then the editors added my salary, and we began to rent a one -room apartment ourselves. On the weekend we slept and watched the movie. Sometimes we went to the park. Sometimes - if summer is forces - went to small cities near Moscow. In one of these cities, I saw a picture with lilac, and Anya bought it to me. We hung lilac over the bed.

Ani has dark skin burned with the sun, and brown laughing eyes, front teeth with a house. Blue favorite sweater, gray from time. Four higher educations - physicism, translation, economic and legal. He works as an oil and gas analyst. Once in the blue winter I woke up and thought that my stomach hurts. I could not understand where it hurts. I was lying on my back, led my hands over my body and suddenly realized that I love Anya very much, my whole body, really. From this day I began to think about the future. I began to think that we would have children.

On February 14, Alfa-Bank announced that he would help all lovers find their home. It doesn’t matter if marriage is concluded - couples can take a joint mortgage at a good percentage. I learned about this at work, from pop -up advertising. I immediately dialed the bank and asked - right? Is it true. I was asked - how much the relationship you have, I said - a year and a half. Wow, ”the girl was surprised,“ and are you ready to buy real estate? ” Yes, ”I said,“ we love each other very much. ” Let me write you to the manager, make a preliminary calculation, ”the girl said. - We need your names. And I said our names. And the girl said - no, nothing will work out. A couple is a man and a woman, not like yours. Such a policy of the bank. While I was thinking what to say, she hung up.

I didn't believe it. I called other banks. It was so strange for me that I did not even think to go out into the corridor. I called from the common office. I felt that I was falling. I said - we both work, we have a higher education, we live together, and they answered me - it doesn’t matter, no matter, goodbye. One bank said - 18.9%. I asked - how much? And the man said - and no one else will consider you, you yourself understand.

Then I read about marriage and about the rights that marriage gives. Then I read about marriages in other countries and how these countries decided that marriages can be all. I read about LGBT activism and googled about LGBT activists in Russia, and they seemed ugly, impolite, crazy. Further for another year I ached my best friend that Russia has bad LGBT activists and they poorly protect my rights. A friend was silent. I was ashamed, everything is more embarrassing and embarrassing, but I could not explain where the shame came from.

A year later, on February 14, Anya and I sat in a cafe. I wanted to say that I love her. Instead, I said-Anya, you know, we must go to the gay parade. Anya said - I also thought about it, yes, we should.

Gay parades then passed like that. Activists - there were no more than ten of them - went to the center of Moscow and lifted rainbow flags. They were beaten by nationalists, Cossacks and Orthodox, who came to a place in a pre-declared LGBT activists. The cops were waiting for the activists to be beaten, and they detained them - beaten, not beaten. Journalists shot and laughed. I was already on a gay parade as a journalist. To go to a gay parade for a journalist meant to have fun.

Anya and me went to the gay parade. In the rainbow flag, we wrote - to hate it. We turned the flag and stood ten seconds. I was hit in the temple. Anya was detained. I ended up in the hospital and began to lose his ear. Journalists called for comments. It was funny when they beat gays, but it turned out to be not funny when they beat a colleague - the same as them.

We went to gay parades every year. We were beaten, then delayed. Once they broke a dress on me - and I stood naked in the middle of Moscow. I made friends with LGBT activists-they were not crazy, just very tired.

Then the State Duma decided to adopt a law on the promotion of homosexuality . It wrote that we are socially unequal. That I am socially unequal. I decided that I no longer want to stand with a poster and a flag. I said that I would go to the State Duma to kiss Anya. And she called there everyone who also wants to kiss.

There were four days of kisses. We were beaten and delayed, beaten and detained. Orthodox activists brought urine and rotten eggs, threw us with shit. They brought their children to beat us. You can’t fight off the children, they are small, they can harm them. The State Duma adopted this law.

When Russia took the Olympics , I decided to go to Red Square and sing the anthem of Russia with a rainbow flag. I and everyone who came with me was detained and beaten in the police department. The cop spit in my face. I wiped myself with my palm, wiped my palm on my pants. The drool of the cop is on my pants, wow, - and I laughed.

There was a lot more.

All this time Anya was next to me. And I was next to her. Our forces ended, but we did not understand this. And once the forces ended completely. And we stopped loving each other.

I felt this because in my stomach - where love used to be - it became empty. We lived together a little more. Then Anya left. So my love was gone, and our future children were gone, and I did not want to fight for the general happiness. I stopped being an activist. Now they beat and delayed me not. They didn’t kill me.

I thought - what did I spend my love on?

And what is love for? She burns and burns until she goes out. Sometimes she manages to illuminate a piece of life - for example, a branch of lilac, and life comes out of the darkness, turns out to be colored. But then the darkness returns.

Elena Kostyuchenko