Russian gay community mourns the person who gave freedom to everyone
On Monday 23 April we lost first President of Russia Boris Yeltsin, a man who, risking his life, gave freedom to us, a man, who underpinned democratic values of contemporary Russia.
Russian gay community will always remember Boris Nikolaevich Yeltsin as a man who put an end to almost sixty years of criminal prosecution for male homosexual relations. The law that he signed in April 1993 came into force on 27 May 1993. This day entered into Russian history of LGBT movement. 27 May was chosen as the date for the conduct of the first ever gay pride march in Moscow last year.
Boris Yeltsin is a whole epoch in Russia’s history. He is a man who will always be remembered by our descendants, irrespective of the future development of Russia. His name is forever written into the history of free and democratic Russia.
When such people as Boris Yeltsin leaving this world everything is shaking inside. Democratic Russia is losing its best people. It is sad that noone is coming to replace them.
First President of Russia made enough mistakes during his long political career but he found strength to apologize to his country. Who else left the highest position in the country with his own will? Who else in Russia said sorry for the political mistakes? Boris Nikolaevich had courage almost alone not only to destroy totalitarian system but also to ask for forgiveness for everything that was not done properly, for the promises that were not realized.
It is frightening to lose such people, it is twice more frightening to lose such people in one of the critical turning points of Russia’s history, when the country is once again at the crossroads of democracy and dictatorship.
Boris Yeltsin gave Russian people freedom, but people, unfortunately, did not learn how to value it. And still there is a hope that Russia will not turn from the democratic way though it is becoming more and more obvious that the country reached some kind of irreversible point which the first Russia’s President, devoted to liberty, was not able to outlive.
Let him rest in peace! Boris Yeltsin will always stay in our hearts!
Nikolai Alekseev, GayRussia.Ru
