Hromadske Telebachennya conducted an impressive broadcast of the Kyiv Equality March in Ukraine (thanks to the journalists for the objectivity and friendliness of the coverage, and to the city authorities and activists for the excellent organization of the event and its safety). This was the largest gay pride in Kiev in its entire history , and judging by the picture of a huge column in the city center, there were probably more than eight thousand participants declared by the organizers.

On Monday, June 24, ex-editor of the AIDS CENTER portal Lev Smirnov was buried at the Mitinskoye cemetery in Moscow. Many of those who had never met Lev in person knew him from very frank posts on Facebook, in which he wrote brightly and bitingly about sex, his HIV status and his life. Leo was one of the most open people you can imagine.

Co-founder of KyivPride and leader of the Gay Forum of Ukraine Svyatoslav Sheremet about how he saw yesterday’s march in the center of the Ukrainian capital. This year’s KyivPride is the eighth , and the Equality March is the sixth (it was not held in 2012 and 2014). The first feature is progress in the number of participants. This year, independent observers give us a figure of 6,301 people.

An interesting episode at Kyiv Pride: a mother, in an interview with a television channel, talks about why she decided to support her son and came to the Pride. (Whether this can be presented on Russian television is a superfluous question). “I know that orientation is an innate quality,” she says, “people are born this way, and not something that is imposed on us by some West.