Unseen

by Reggie Yates

  I joined Kiril, a meek-looking man in his early twenties with a reputation for causing trouble. With a video of his one-man rainbow-flagged protest going viral, he was on the radar of the police and every homophobe in town. Taken down aggressively by the law on camera, Kiril had become well known online. Kiril was defiant and refused to allow new rules to stop him being heard. Freedom of speech laws didn’t seem to hold much weight regardless of the issue and for Kiril, he saw his future being one of three things: leaving Russia, going to jail or being killed.

  We don’t deal with lesbos here

  Back at the Queer Fest offices, Albert was busy searching for new venues as, after the public and reported clashes on opening night, all of the other secured venues cancelled their contracts with the festival. Unsupported and fighting for themselves, the team battled to get their ten-day festival back on track.

  But unbelievably, with hooligans attacking people as they arrived and left on the opening night, nobody had been arrested. The Queer Fest team was frustrated by the level of protection they received from the authorities, which they saw as minimal, and Albert believed fighting back was the only option. He maintained that defiance and perseverance would leave those who’d chosen to ignore the existence of LGBTQ people in Russia no choice but to wake up.

  Visibility for the community had its positives, but in a country like Russia there continue to be unavoidable risks associated with it. With several homophobic websites publishing the names and addresses of the most vocal protesters, to use your voice would put you at risk. Albert showed me one such website and images of a young woman called Darya kept coming up. Looking no more than fifteen, the baby-faced twenty-something had moved from the centre of town to the outskirts of St Petersburg after being viciously attacked.

  Now living in an entirely new corner of the city, Darya invited me to the flat she shared with her girlfriend and two massive dogs. Cradling a cup of tea, she showed me around their home as I clumsily avoided huge dog toys and laughed at awkward school photos. She was friendly, welcoming and strangely didn’t look much older than her framed teenage photographs.

  Quietly she shared her story in all of its graphic detail; her undeniably teenage looks making the attack all the more menacing.

  A group of men wearing masks and waving knifes confronted Darya outside her flat, their name-calling quickly escalated to violence and she was stabbed in the stomach and left for dead. She spent several days in intensive care but the police didn’t look into her statement and no one was charged or arrested for the crime. After recovering, Darya was sent home by the police and told, ‘We don’t deal with lesbos here.’

  Confident the government was doing everything to make things worse, Darya felt unprotected and victimised. Darya believed the recently passed anti-propaganda law encouraged homophobia and I could see why she felt that way … and why her pets doubled as protection.

  Reconnecting with Kiril I decided to attend a protest. He was meeting with other activist friends at a protest about the war in Ukraine. With police everywhere, tensions would be high as the police, anti-war and LGBTQ activists shared the same space as skinhead nationalists. This was going to be a long afternoon.

  The demonstration was illegal, which meant that any obvious protesting would lead to arrests. With so many people in attendance, I had no idea how it would work without everyone being carted off in meat wagons.

  It was a short walk from the station to the site of the protest and once Kiril had found his friends and we were on our way, we quickly picked up a shadow of sorts. Either this bloke was the worst secret agent ever or he was obsessed with the likes of Kiril and his protesting friends.

  It was the guy in the blue tracksuit from my first day at Queer Fest. His bright blue trackie top and bottoms helped him stand out like a sore thumb. His brilliantly broken nose caused his sunglasses to keep slipping off his face as there was no nose bridge for them to rest on. He carried a tablet and was constantly taking photos and making notes. The geezer was strange and I needed to find out who the hell he was.

  Kiril was convinced he was from United Russia, the current ruling political party. I thought he was just another nutjob with too much time on his hands. Walking just behind us the whole time, I dropped back and asked him what he was up to. He quietly avoided any real conversation mumbling monosyllabic answers to everything I threw his way. I was getting nothing out of the weirdo so I left it at that.

  When we finally arrived, it might have been the strangest protest I’d ever attended. There were no banners, no chanting but people were everywhere and standing still. As the police were in among the crowd, anything could lead to arrest. Before I’d had any real time to take it in, Mr Blue Tracksuit showed up and he wasn’t alone. Ushered through the crowd, the anti-gay politician Milonov made a beeline for Kiril. The two men instantly traded insults. ‘Careful of this AIDS-ridden thing,’ snapped Milonov. The politician astounded me with his brazen use of hate speech.

  Milonov left and Mikhail replaced him, instantly flaring up the group as it emerged he’d attacked them physically a few months prior and hadn’t been charged. We were on what was being called a peace march and insults had begun to fly from all angles. Mikhail referred to Kiril and his friends as repulsive scum. The police walked by demanding rules be adhered to as ‘violators would be physically harmed’.

  I really was a long way from home. I’d never heard the police threaten protesters publicly, let alone through a megaphone. The rules here were different and I definitely didn’t want to end up on the wrong side of the law. My desperate attempts to grasp the reasoning behind so many people consumed by hate and totally unwilling to understand left me drained. I was honestly glad my time making the film was coming to a close, as the relentless rollercoaster of fear and anger I saw in the people I’d meet was taking its toll.

  A traditional Russian man is a warrior

  With the collapse of the Soviet Union in the early nineties, suddenly gay life found a confidence and swiftly became visible and decriminalised. But at the time of filming, a recent poll had 72 per cent of people saying being gay was unacceptable. Still confused as to what could be driving this level of homophobia in the average normal Russian, I decided to spend time with Mikhail.

  Planning to show me how real Russian men spent their weekend, we were taking a tram out of town. On the way we got chatting and some of the things that came up left me silenced. Telling me he ran a recent referendum against homosexuality, Mikhail proudly announced that, ‘If it was decided to burn or hang them, that’s what we’d do.’

  This was a guy who saw himself as a real man. Mikhail believed in traditional Russian values and he was taking me to meet a friend who felt exactly the same way. We were headed to the beach to do some boxing training and Mikhail’s opponent was a lump. Introducing himself with a voice so deep it could have been a joke, Victor looked and sounded like a caricature but was entirely for real.

  I genuinely thought he’d been invited down in an effort to cheer me up. He felt like one of Sam’s bad jokes, especially as he was head to toe in full traditional Russian gear, right down to the hemp slacks. Wearing with pride the height, frame and icy blond hair of Ivan Drago from Rocky IV, this guy couldn’t have been more of a man’s man if he’d tried.

  The ‘training’ they’d planned was a boxing-led workout on the beach. Taking a seat and sending as many signals as possible that I wasn’t even remotely likely to get involved, they got stuck in and it was a total mess. The wild and undisciplined few rounds of boxing were brilliant to watch as they clearly had no idea what they were doing. Thank god they were wearing gloves because, even though their punches were mostly missing by miles, when they connected, it was brutal.

  Mikhail started to explain that fighting had always been a huge part of Russian culture, but I was distracted as Victor started to wave a knife. Pulling it from his belt, Victor showed me the blade. Admitting he carried it everywhere, Victor didn’t see anything wrong with such a weapon
. Victor and I were just as confused by each other and in his efforts to help me understand his world better, his deep voice boomed, ‘Above all, a traditional Russian man is a warrior.’

  Let the record show I didn’t want to get on the wrong side of this warrior. He was a size and a half. Victor continued to explain his way of life in the context of a traditional Russian man, which in his own words demands him to be an ‘Extreme homophobe, just like most of the sane Russian population.’ Admitting he wouldn’t use his knife if approached romantically by a homosexual, Victor preferred to use his hands. ‘I would smash his face in.’

  As difficult as it was to spend so much time with these guys, the more they spoke, the more their attitudes towards homosexuals revealed themselves to be based on not much more than fear. This strange new community operated in a whole new way and – they thought – endangered what was so dear to them as proud Russian men. Traditional values were at stake and the change represented by the LGBTQ community was seen as a threat, not progress.

  With another round of sparring coming to a close, Mikhail stumbled away after taking a few to the face. To be fair to him, he did catch big Victor a few times who was now bleeding from the nose, while I was stood to the side waiting to see when the fun part of their workout would start.

  From out of nowhere the police showed up and we were told to stop filming. It was strange and sudden but became less of a surprise as it became clear our friend in the blue tracksuit was leading them over. He was back and for some reason didn’t want us shooting. All I could think about was whether he had several of the same outfits on rotation or if he just kept wearing the same set? Either way, he was dedicated to the look, or had lost a bet, one of the two.

  Cleared off the beach and with not many options, Victor invited me for some real Russian man time. Led by the man in hemp, we arrived at a dark archway and wandered into an underground men-only sauna. Towels grabbed and quickly undressed, we stepped out of the changing room and I stopped dead. In Victor’s hand was what looked like a tree branch wrapped in herbs and dried leaves. He called it a ‘sauna whisk’. It was apparently intended for beating the body in the sauna and he wanted to whisk me.

  Going to a sauna in the UK with a tree branch to whip other men wouldn’t go down particularly well. But we were in Russia and this was apparently what real men did, so I was in. Unfortunately for Sam on the camera, that meant he was in too. Victor wasn’t shy or retiring and dropped his towel without batting an eyelid. I, on the other hand, had on swimming shorts that weren’t coming off. For some reason, Sam was sweating like a rotter before we even got in the wooden box, and it was only when we’d all stripped down and he was in the biggest pair of dad pants did I realise why.

  Victor kept throwing water on the magic hot rocks making the room unbearable. The sauna felt like the devil’s waiting room to hell yet we kept shooting. Sam’s camera rig was metal and kept burning his arm with a fizz every few seconds. Victor started whipping my back with the branch as it was apparently good for me, but I didn’t see the fun nor benefits in the whipping.

  There was a moment in that sauna when I stopped, looked around and had one of those internal conversations quietly in my head. I was lying on my stomach while a naked Russian dude called Victor was whipping my back with a tree branch. It was 80 degrees and my director was burning his body every few seconds on his scorching metal camera frame. Just in case I ever questioned the event actually happened, it was all being filmed for national TV. Lots of people would see it. Brilliant.

  Bonding out of the way, I’d won Victor’s trust (and seen his penis). It was all a bit much in the sauna, but thankfully he called time and we took our leave, diving into the icy cold plunge pool.

  I pushed Victor to open up on his dislike of the gay community, and what came out as his reason was surprising. Victor tied homosexuality with depravity; he saw them as one and the same. Believing Western propaganda was the main cause of homosexuality emerging in Russian communities, he believed it was something new that hadn’t existed in the days of the Soviet Union. Victor saw same-sex relationships as undermining the foundations of Russian values and culture.

  With culture so important to Victor, he invited me to a night of traditional dancing which he attended regularly. I accepted the offer because anything at this stage wouldn’t be weird after what I’d just been through. The club was packed with men, women and children all in traditional dress practising and learning group dances accompanied by live accordion music.

  Being roped in, I shook a leg during a couple of the group dances and suitably embarrassed myself but had a giggle while doing it. Victor was over the moon I’d joined him and his dance group and I was too as it was all starting to make sense. Victor was protecting and continuing the values he held dear in every aspect of his life. The LGBTQ community simply didn’t fit into that ideal and the values that meant so much to men like Mikhail and Victor had no room for gay rights.

  The state-funded dance group was another opportunity for the government to encourage the likes of Victor to invest in traditional values, which connected quite conveniently to the greater message of the ruling party. Traditional values weren’t just good for Russian people, they were being encouraged as they were good for politics and spoke to policy.

  It was the last night of Queer Fest and the closing party was at the one place that wouldn’t get shut down, a lesbian bar. As I approached the door a familiar face appeared surrounded by giddy kids excited at the slim chance of conflict. It was Mr Blue Tracksuit, who’d finally found a red pair of jeans. He was mixing it up but would his behaviour be any different or was tonight another case of linger and intimidate?

  I asked directly if he’d ever get tired of behaving in such a way, or if he would ever see his behaviour as juvenile? He started to explain himself but I’d heard it all before and it was bloody freezing.

  Cutting the dry conversation short, I left Mr Blue Tracksuit and his mates outside in the cold, making my way into the party as I was over conflict and wanted to enjoy myself. Inside were Darya, her girlfriend and so many other faces I’d met during the week. For Darya, the festival was a success, not because the organisers were able to still throw events regardless of venues pulling out, but because no one was hurt or even worse killed.

  I left the party and city with mixed feelings. I hadn’t discovered any breakthroughs in progress, as every turn spoke to Russia going backwards when it came to gay rights. That being said, I’d met a gay community that were willing to stay and fight regardless of the conditions or the laws.

  CHAPTER 6

  KNIVES AND YOUNG LIVES

  It’s become increasingly rare to find a Londoner born and raised in the capital and I’m proud to be a card-carrying member of the minority. Lauded for the endless list of positives, the big smoke has so much going for it but we all know the city isn’t perfect. Knife crime in the capital is one of the many problems that seems to keep rearing its ugly head.

  When I was a teenager my school life was dominated by bravado. I attended Central Foundation Boys’ School in east London, which was a twenty-minute bus journey from my block of flats in Holloway. With that many teenage boys in one building it’s a wonder the testosterone alone didn’t blow the roof off the place. Looking and acting tough was essential for survival as gangs dominated the playground.

  It was the mid-nineties and gentrification was only just beginning to hit my area and definitely hadn’t swallowed east London yet. Populated by working-class kids from the neighbouring London boroughs of Islington and Hackney, my school sat just behind Old Street roundabout and was full of runts like me from council estates.

  In my early teens it was impossible to go a day at school without encountering gang culture, as it was rife in the areas my classmates and I were from. Daily we’d deal with racist gangs like the White Cross boys and the Junior National Front, as well as the expected butting of heads that happened regardless of race.

  In my first few years at Central,
I saw my journey to and from school as the best and potentially worst part of the day. On my way in, sharing the top deck of the 43 or 271 bus with the burgundy-skirted girls from Elizabeth Garrett Anderson Girls’ School was a dream. They smelt better than us boys and occasionally smiled back. Occasionally. The worst part was the journey home. Remember, this was a time before smartphones and iPods so distractions were minimal.

  If it wasn’t a fight on the bus, it was the emergency alarm being set off. If it wasn’t the alarm, it was a window being smashed. I’m definitely guilty of moaning about today’s teenagers being obsessed by their smartphones, but for anyone reading this commuting into work on the 43 or 271 bus, be thankful kids today are staring at screens and not smashing bus windows like my mob.

  In my first couple of years at school, the thing to carry making you instantly tougher was a glass hammer. The plastic tool would be clipped to the internal walls of the public bus I’d ride to and from school as a safety measure. Within the first few weeks of term, every bus had theirs stolen. By the time I was thirteen, the thing to carry stopped being a glass hammer and overnight graduated to a knife.

  I stayed out of trouble but was always around it as, whether you welcomed it or not, violence was a part of school life. Things were so racially charged that games of blacks v whites football at lunch break became a regular occurrence.

  By my mid-teens, knives were increasingly present, as they’d fast become the accessory of choice. This unfortunately wasn’t just the case with the harder kids that always seemed to be in some kind of trouble or have some rival hard nut ‘after them’. Some of the quieter, normal boys who happened to live on a bad estate would see the weapon as a necessary evil, just in case something happened on the way home.

  I never carried a weapon in my teens, but I definitely saw so many that now, with hindsight, I see just how dangerous those times were. Getting older and taking more of an interest in the changing face of the place I call home, to see knife crime as an ongoing problem particularly with teenagers haunts me.