Moscow Pride '08  : June 1, 2008

2008 marked the third Moscow Pride. The initiative group was not enclined to repeat the event in a similar format than in 2006 and 2007. Organizing a festival with several events requires an important logistic. In addition, the Moscow Swissôtel which accepted to host the event the previous years finally denied to rent one of its meeting rooms to Moscow Pride. The hotel initially accepted to make a preliminary booking but later, a change in the management motivated a new decision to cancel this booking.

The intiative group applied to the city authorities for the permission to hold five marches and public protests every day during the month of May. The 155 applications were all turned down by the Mayor of Moscow. Yuri Luzhkov did not change his view neither on Moscow Pride nor any other public actons organized by the LGBT community. Each ban was judged lawfull by the Russian justice and as a result, the organizers appealed the cases in a combined complaint at the European Court of Human Rights. The aim of the organizers was to show the utmost hypocracy of the city authorities which by forbidding all the 155  events showed that LGBT people cannot express themselves any day, anywhere in the city.

The major challenge for the organizers was to be able to stage a symbolical public action avoiding any arrest. The initiative group prepared in secret two public actions. Officially, the organizers announced that the Moscow Pride protest would take place for the third consecutive year in front of the city hall on June 1 at 12pm.

At the same time, a picket took place 500 meters from there, near the statue of Chaikosky, the famous gay composer. The organizers gathered a group of journalists one hour ahead in a different location and took them by bus directly on the spot of the protest where a group of 25 activists unveilled the Moscow Pride banner and started to chant slogans asking equal rights for sexual minorities. After 10 minutes of standing near the statue, the group started to walk in the street during 200 meters and later had to disperse when the police finaly arrived in the area.

At 1pm, near the city hall, where the police, the protesters and media were located, a banner was unveiled from the third floor of a building facing the city hall. "Rights to gays and Lesbians - Homophobia of Mayor Luzhkov should be prosecuted"  could be seen from the streets by the media, the protesters and the police. At the same time, the four gay activists who unveiled the baner also released 100 balloons from the balcony. The initiative group had secretely rent the flat two days in advance. After 30 minutes, the police managed to pull down the baner from the appartment in the lower floor. It took six hours to the police to break the door, enter the appartment and arrest the four gay activists who had locked themselves. They were taken to the police station, held overnight and judged the next morning. Each of them were sentenced of conducting an illegal action and had to pay a fine of 1'500 Rubles.

Video of the action organized near the Statue of Chaikowski (© Nikolai Alekseev, GayRussia.Ru)

Video of the action organized in front of the Moscow City Hall (© Nikolai Alekseev, GayRussia.Ru)

In May 2008, Russia won the Eurovision Song Contest Finale in Belgrade (Serbia). Dima Bilan, a Russian popstar gave Russia its first victory in this international competition. The organizers of Moscow Pride immediately understood the symbolic of having the Eurovision organized in Moscow the following year. The competition is very well followed by the gay community and several contestants are often openly gay or lesbian. In 1998, Dana International made history as she was the first transexual singer to win the competiton. The initiative group announced that next Moscow Pride would be organized on the same day that the Eurovision Song Contest Finale in Russia.