Moscow (AFP) – In a city with a homophobic reputation and just a handful of gay bars, LGBT Muscovites and World Cup guests have found an unlikely new place to socialise — a match-screening area for gay and ethnic minority football fans.
As the England-Belgium game played through a projector on Thursday, a young crowd of mainly gay men and women were drinking beers, lounging on bean bags or sitting on the astroturf carpet in ‘Diversity House’ in central Moscow.
Even the Russian security service agents who have been assigned to monitor events at the house have on occasion got into the spirit of things — eating rainbow cake and sipping champagne at one recent party, according to organisers.
The temporary venue, backed by the international anti-discrimination network FARE, is located in what what is normally an alternative theatre space and hosts exhibitions as well as talks from activists.
“It’s actually a space where gay people can come and behave as they want, meet in a normal atmosphere, and I haven’t heard of any places like that in Moscow before,” said 22-year-old Viktor Tronin.
The business development manager said he was not normally a fan of football but had been bringing friends to the venue, which has become more popular with gay spectators as the tournament progresses and news of the house spreads on social media.
– What happens after? –
“There’s not so many spaces where you can come in, be yourself and watch football,” said Pavel Klymenko, the Eastern European development director for the FARE network.
“Essentially this is a space to celebrate diversity, we think the World Cup is an amazing opportunity to do so.”
Klymenko said up to 100 Russians and tourists a day were visiting Diversity House, where rainbow flags and posters extolling the achievements of ethnic minority and women players deck the walls.
But he highlighted the fact that some events at the venue had been monitored by officers from the FSB, the successor to the KGB, and he did not know what they might do with the information they had gathered once the tournament was over.
“It’s weird having them here, of course,” Klymenko said.
“Our main concern is what happens after the World Cup… how it’s going to turn out for the activists.”
A second Diversity House in Saint Petersburg was forced to change location at the last minute after the landlord of the building pulled out, in a move organisers believe was politically motivated.
from World Soccer Talk https://ift.tt/2tIcOAC
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