Homosexuality in Soviet Prisons and Camps

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On May 27, 1993, Russia repealed Part 1 of Article 121, which criminalized consensual homosexuality. This shameful article had existed for almost 60 years.

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The Revolution of 1917 abolished the equivalent Article 995 of the Tsarist Criminal Code, which had been applied extremely rarely. American researcher Simon Karlinsky notes that claims by some Western authors that the Bolshevik government deliberately legalized homosexuality, seeing such a step as "an integral part of the social revolution," are absolutely incorrect, as the abolition of the article against consensual sodomy was not the result of a conscious decision to legalize it.

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Simply put, in December 1917, the Soviet government abolished the entire Criminal Code of the Russian Empire, and for the next five years, until the introduction of its own criminal code, it was guided not by written law but by "revolutionary legal consciousness." Most likely, the Bolsheviks simply didn't have time to deal with homosexuals. But nevertheless, a law punishing consensual sodomy did not exist.

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Another American researcher, Vladimir Kozlovsky, author of "Argo of Russian Homosexual Subculture: Materials for Study" (Vermont, Benson, 1986), writes: "The prohibition of consensual homosexual acts between adults was a manifestation of growing intolerance of any nonconformity, from political to everyday life, of any difference in general, and it's unclear why they waited so long to punish sodomy."

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There are several versions regarding the formal reason for introducing an article similar to the abolished Article 995.

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Kozlovsky cites a theory once popular among Moscow homosexuals: Maxim Gorky's adopted son allegedly became a victim of homosexual seduction, and the outraged writer petitioned Stalin to ban any manifestations of homosexuality. On May 23, 1934, his hysterical article in the spirit of the times and in the style of a political sentence, "Proletarian Humanism," was published simultaneously in "Pravda" and "Izvestia," in which he wrote:

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"Not dozens, but hundreds of facts speak of the destructive, corrupting influence of fascism on the youth of Europe. To list the facts is disgusting, and memory refuses to be loaded with the filth that the bourgeoisie increasingly zealously and abundantly fabricates. I will point out, however, that in a country where the proletariat courageously and successfully manages the economy, homosexuality, which corrupts the youth, is recognized as socially criminal and punishable, while in the 'cultured country' of great philosophers, scientists, and musicians, it operates freely and with impunity. A sarcastic saying has already emerged: 'Eliminate homosexuality — fascism will disappear!'"

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Gorky primitively exploited a stereotype still popular among a certain segment of the Russian intelligentsia that homosexuality is a foreign disease, not characteristic of Russians. But the "storm petrel of the revolution" completely ignored historical facts surely well known to him: the process of the most severe political persecution of homosexuals in Germany began in parallel with a similar process in the USSR immediately after the fascists came to power. (One of the brightest documents on this topic is Heinz Heger's book "The Men with the Pink Triangle," soon to be published by the Moscow independent publishing house "Glagol.")

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Speaking of the persecution of homosexuals that began in the USSR, we deliberately emphasize the political nature of the repression against "sexual dissent and dissidence." In 1936, in his report, the People's Commissar of Justice of the RSFSR Nikolai Krylenko said:

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"Let a doctor decide in each specific case who is before the court – a sick person or not, but if before the court is a person whom we have no reason to believe is sick, and he still engages in such things, we say: 'In our midst, good sir, there is no place for you. In our midst, among the workers who stand on the point of view of normal relations between the sexes, who are building their society on healthy principles, we don't need gentlemen of this kind.' Who are mainly our clients in such cases? Workers? No! Declassed riffraff. (Cheerful animation in the hall, laughter.) Declassed riffraff either from the dregs of society or from the remnants of the exploiting classes! (Applause.) They have nowhere to go! (Laughter.) So they engage in... pederasty. (Laughter.) Along with them, next to them, under this pretext in secret filthy dens and hideouts, other work often takes place—counter-revolutionary work. That's why we put these disorganizers of our new social relations, which we want to create among people, among men and women, among workers, these gentlemen we bring to court and establish for them a punishment of up to 5 years of imprisonment..." ("Soviet Justice", 1936, No. 7).

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Well-known human rights activist Valery Chalidze writes: "The Soviet authorities, apparently, seriously considered pederasty a political crime—cases of this kind were investigated by state security organs. I don't know if this is still the case—this is what former political prisoners told me, and Professor Alexander Volypin expressed the opinion that perhaps state security was interested in these cases, hoping to more easily recruit informers among homosexuals" (Valery Chalidze, "Criminal Russia," New York, 1977).

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The very definition of "sexual minorities" carries significant ideological content. It encompasses the entire position of the Soviet authorities towards people of non-traditional sexual orientation (this includes not only homosexuals but all other "perverts"). In the "country of victorious proletariat," there could be no class dissent; the "minority" had to unconditionally submit to the "majority"; ideally, assimilation was to occur—the absorption of the "minority" by the "majority," its dissolution within it. And since Soviet ideologues perfectly understood that this was not feasible by natural means, violence was necessary to cure the "declassed riffraff" and "dregs of society" of their harmful habits.

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The "homosexual" article immediately became a powerful tool for reprisal against dissent. John Lauritsen and David Thorstad in their book "The Early Homosexual Rights Movement (1864-1935)" (New York, 1974) write that as early as January 1934, the first mass arrests among homosexuals were carried out in Moscow, Leningrad, Kharkov, and Odessa. Among them were many actors, musicians, and other people in the arts. The authors also report numerous suicides in the Red Army and the general panic created at that time among Soviet homosexuals in connection with the introduction of the new law.

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Vladimir Kozlovsky recounts the words of former prisoners, according to which in the mid-1930s, a flood of thousands of homosexuals poured into the camps, the number of which, apparently, did not decrease throughout all 60 years of the notorious article, which Solzhenitsyn called "dirty little."

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It should be noted that in "The Gulag Archipelago," dedicated to "all who did not live long enough to tell about it," there is not a single word of sympathy for the repressed homosexuals. The same is true in Varlam Shalamov's "Kolyma Tales."

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The fate of homosexuals in Soviet prisons and camps is unprecedented in its tragedy and cruelty. Not only because the number of repressed homosexuals is enormous, but also because homosexual violence is a phenomenon inherent in every Soviet camp without exception and every prison. The category of the "degraded" (a concept that exists only in Soviet reality and lexicon) included a colossal number of people who had not previously experienced any homosexual inclinations. The Soviet repressive machine not only did not cure the "foreign disease," it multiplied homosexuals in geometric progression, crippling people's destinies and their nature.

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Even when exposures of Stalinist repressions began to be conducted at a serious research level, not a single human rights activist, scholar, or politician, either in the Soviet Union or in emigration, seriously addressed this problem.

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In dissident literature, there are episodes describing the stay of homosexuals and the "degraded" in the camps. The most detailed account on this topic is contained in Eduard Kuznetsov's book "Mordovian Marathon" (Jerusalem, 1979).

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"According to seasoned people, nine-tenths of criminals are homosexuals," he writes in the chapter "Strange People." "But proper pederasts (also known as 'goats,' 'roosters'), according to camp perceptions, are only passive pederasts, who approximately account for about 10 percent of all criminal offenders. Being an active pederast is such an ordinary norm that there isn't even a special name for them. Only the most passionate adherents of same-sex love are called 'goat-lovers,' 'rooster-lovers,' 'clay-mixers,' or 'stove-makers'—mockingly, contemptuously, ironically, or respectfully (depending on the context and the degree occupied by the 'chimney sweep' in the camp hierarchy), but never with contempt. It's a different matter for a 'faggot,' 'goat,' or 'rooster'..."

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In Andrei Amalrik's book "Notes of a Dissident" (Ann Arbor, 1982), considerable space is devoted to camp homosexuality:

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"Passive pederasts are not only and not so much inmates inclined to this, but weak-willed, intimidated by others, those who have lost at cards; in general, each time a fall from grace is preceded by, and often engineered through, a violation of criminal ethics, and once getting this reputation, it's impossible to get rid of it; it follows each person from camp to camp. Some then make it a source of income, giving themselves for butter, sugar, cigarettes, or a bowl of soup. To turn someone into a pederast is called 'to make someone a faggot.' Older inmates try to act not by beating but by cajoling, persuading and buying boys; stable couples even form, while younger criminals use threats: 'Choose, bastard, either you'll sit on a knife, or you'll sit on a dick!'"

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[Image caption: Convicted of rape. Tattoos of Soviet inmates]

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Prison homosexuality begins even in colonies for juvenile offenders ("in juvenile detention"). Former Leningrad teacher G. Ryskin tells in his "Pedagogical Comedy" how boys who are weaker are subjected to homosexual rape in the juvenile section of Leningrad's "Kresty" prison. "Or they force them to perform oral sex," one of his students told the author. "There are boys called 'wafflers.' The waffler goes under the bunk, gets a penis in his mouth: 'Come on, suck, bitch, or else—in the kidneys!'"

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Amalrik has such an episode: "The cell where they gathered those being transported to Irkutsk was still empty, a man was sitting at the table, and on the floor in the corner was a boy, still quite young, with very clean and regular features. Then with whoops and shouts, juveniles ran in—and for them, this boy presented no mystery, he was a passive pederast, and had become one just recently and against his will; there was some kind of horror in his eyes. In the previous cell, I had noticed a young man, older than this one, with a hunted-angry look, insolent and timid, and suddenly saw how he was washing socks and shirts for the criminals in the sink, and understood that he was a 'Mashka'—the most despised 'suit' in the camp hierarchy...

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The juveniles who ran into the cell with the cheerful noise of frolicsome schoolchildren immediately wanted to use this boy, they even argued about how to have him—through the rear or through the mouth, and with threats forced him to climb up to their upper bunks. From above, heavy panting and threats could be heard: 'Unclench your teeth, bitch, it'll be worse!' This unfortunate boy both resisted and yielded silently. It's hard for me to remember this scene also because I could have prevented it. But an older inmate later told me on the train that here you can't help these people, and the story of this boy will end with him either coming to terms with his position or stabbing someone with a knife."

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In Igor Guberman's autobiographical novel "Walks Around the Barracks," he describes his acquaintance with one of the victims of camp violence:

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"In this transport, there were also several 'roosters.' They slept separately from everyone else on the floor near the latrine bucket and sat there all day, not daring to move from their place. Two were already older, but one—a tall guy with a sympathetic large-browed and large-lipped face—was probably just over twenty. There were about 60-70 of us, and when everyone settled in and found their places in the cell, a free space was found in the corner. They covered it with a tattered blanket, threw a filthy mattress on the floor, and in the evenings, two or three would call this guy with a short call, like a dog, and he would obediently and hurriedly go. For this, he received 2-3 cigarettes, sometimes a piece of sugar or a cookie—someone apparently still had remnants of prison care packages...

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I thought about him all the time, making up his past life in my mind and realizing with horror that I couldn't help him in any way. These people are doomed. Even if he once, arriving somewhere where no one knows him, conceals his prison status, it will be discovered sooner or later. The ways of communication between camps are inscrutable. And then punishment is inevitable: collective retribution with a very frequent fatal outcome. I saw this myself later...

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Our transport, crowded tightly, filled the holding cell to capacity. But in the corner, there was still room; a group of young guys enclosed it themselves. Standing side by side, with their backs to the rest, and people went there one by one, some leering slyly, some with businesslike frowns. The chain of those standing broke from time to time, and once I saw my fellow traveler-singer. He was kneeling in the corner, leaning his back against the walls. Naturally, I noticed his mouth with bright red inflamed lips. I turned away and squeezed closer to the air flowing through the grate. I never met him again."

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In the book "Sex in the USSR" (New York, 1979), Dr. Mikhail Stern writes that during his imprisonment, they often heard the cries of victims of group rape in his barracks. There were usually five attackers: four held the victim by the arms and legs, and one raped him. In the morning, the freshly minted passive pederast would move to the section of the barracks designated for "roosters," sit with them at a special table in the dining room, and begin using the sink allocated for them in the washroom. For work (usually the dirtiest, heaviest, and most dangerous), he would also go out with them now.

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Stern calls passive camp pederasts "untouchables." V. Markman, author of the book "On the Edge of Geography" (Jerusalem, 1979), quotes his fellow camp inmate nicknamed Ambal, pointing to a sitting pederast Pasha: "Don't think about drinking from the same mug as this person. You're new here, you might not know the rules. And the faggots here are insolent. No wonder they say: as insolent as a pederast."

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Pasha's story illustrates one of the models of "faggotization":

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"Pasha was a thief—brave, angry, and cruel, but the constant hunger from childhood had tired him, and he began to steal in the camp. At first, he robbed a kiosk—which was treated leniently, because this is state property, not that of the camp inmates. And then he started going through lockers. Several times he was caught and severely beaten, but not raped, they pitied him, because he was, by camp standards, not a bad guy. But in the end, he played his game too far. And afterward he became humiliated, fawningly polite, and even more angry."

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"The life of a pederast in the camp is truly horrible," writes Markman. "He is not allowed to eat from common dishes; it is considered a grave disgrace to drink from the same mug as him. He is often beaten, often driven to sleep out of the common section into the dirty washroom, insulted—in a word, it is impossible to imagine a more humiliating and disgusting existence. Because of young pederasts, hostility sometimes flares up between camp inmates, while old pederasts wander around the camp, degraded, obscene, and stinking, offering themselves for tea or cigarettes. Those who have fallen into the caste of 'untouchables' for a transgression adjust to their new status with great difficulty, but can do nothing about it."

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In addition to violations of intra-camp ethics and theft, there were a number of reasons why people fell into the category of the "degraded." Mikhail Heifetz, in his essay "Political Everyday Criminal Nikolai Serov" ("Echo," No. 1/79), writes that "according to thieves' laws, those subject to forced pederastization are: first, camp 'activists' (that is, persons already pederastized by the administration), second, prisoners serving time for the corruption of minors, earlier—for rape, but now in connection with the huge increase in the number of people serving time for rape, moreover often questionable, there has been a reassessment, and candidates for mandatory pederasts are designated as a narrow group of undoubted rapists, that is, corruptors of minors."

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[Image: Drawing of a nude female figure with a snake coiled around her body. Caption: Tattoo of a passive homosexual. Applied forcibly on the back]

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The camp administration often initiated rapes. In most cases, this measure was the most effective way of blackmailing and dealing with unwanted prisoners, particularly political dissidents.

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In some republics, especially in Georgia, this was a mass phenomenon. V. Kozlovsky refers to the brochure "Torture of Political Prisoners in Georgia" ("Posev," 1975), which provides numerous examples of how Georgian investigative bodies used homosexual rape to process the arrested.

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External attractiveness and the youth of the prisoner naturally became a reason for turning them into a passive pederast. In dissident memoirs, there are almost implausible stories about real homosexual harems and brothels, the existence of which is perhaps the most eloquent testimony to the tyranny of the Soviet repressive machine. Amalrik recalls that the head of the canteen in the camp "even set up a harem of boys he fed."

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Stern tells about a homosexual brothel that was kept in the camp ITK-12 by a criminal nicknamed Volga, who had several prostitutes bearing female names (Zhenechka, Svetochka) or affectionate nicknames (Yagodka) and receiving for their services sometimes a ruble, sometimes a can of preserves, and sometimes a pack of cigarettes. The most popular pederasts charged their clients 5 rubles, and those who agreed to accompany anal intercourse with oral (the so-called "waffle in chocolate") received even up to 10 rubles.

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"None of the newcomers, especially the young ones, is insured against the heavy 'female' fate," writes Eduard Kuznetsov. "But even in other, more openly knife-like times, no matter how passionately a thief burned with passion for some pretty 'beauty,' he did not rush to use force—it was 'more legal' and safer to compel the passion to 'voluntary' cohabitation, first somehow demoralizing her, cunningly driving her into a hopeless corner where one could choose only one of two knives—iron or leather. Professional criminals are sometimes penetrating heartthrobs. They know how important it is to stun the victim, cause moral confusion in her, impose a sense of guilt on her, make her justify herself: who justifies themselves is no longer a fighter, who explains themselves is half-defeated..."

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"How many times before my eyes not just for a piece of lard, for an extra ration people sold friends, became pederasts, informed, and even killed!" writes Vadim Delone in "Portrait in a Barbed Frame" (London, 1984).

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Leonid Lamm, a former prisoner of a camp in the 70s, claims that young peasant boys mainly turn into passive pederasts: either for "heating" (that is, for food), "when they were dying of hunger," or for violating unwritten camp laws (usually for stealing from their own, "rat-like behavior," for snitching or some other cooperation with the administration, with reprisals against informers-"stool pigeons" being particularly cruel), or for losing at cards (even in Tsarist prisons there was a popular expression "to play under the ass," which later migrated into Soviet everyday lexicon).

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(To be continued in the next issue) Drawings from E. Maksimovsky's book "Empire of Fear"

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Delone has an episode where the author tries to help someone who has lost. "The man must be rescued," he tells another inmate. "The man will be killed or made into a pederast, you understand, a pederast. They'll pierce his bowl, no one will even shake his hand, he'll sleep under the bunks. And if he gets out to freedom, bad fame will follow him."

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Lamm also tells about a pederast who gave himself to a cellmate for 9 packs of makhorka tobacco (the author, who was present, was delicately asked to turn away). According to Lamm, in the camp, they drilled holes in the bowls of the "degraded," did not allow them to eat in the dining room with everyone else, and placed them last in formation.

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The administration took into account the laws of the camp and did not send pederasts to general work, but made them do dirty work: "roosters" carried potatoes for the economic staff, cleaned up garbage. When Lamm began to beat a pederast for stealing sausage, the deputy political officer noted that only the administration has the right to beat "roosters" with hands, whereas he should beat them only with a stick.

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E. Kuznetsov gives a detailed description of a colorful camp character—the "rooster" Lyubka, who "has been in prison for so long that the camp has completely lost its meaning as punishment for 'her'": "The authorities try to avoid 'her,' as 'she' is a nervous, hysterical 'lady,' who can hit with whatever comes to hand, and upon seeing some stranger who has accidentally wandered into our camp, a supervisor, 'she' immediately drops 'her' pants and, bending over, displays tattooed blue eyes on 'her' buttocks. Lyubka has hypertension, heart disease, and in addition, instead of normal arms—just palms (the fingers 'she' cut off, saving 'herself' in those years from work), and therefore 'she' is recognized as disabled."

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Gennady Trifonov was the first of the convicted homosexuals who dared to tell about himself. In December 1977, from the camp ITU 389/35 UITU UVD of the Perm Regional Executive Committee (Western Urals), he sent an open letter to the editorial office of "Literaturnaya Gazeta":

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"I have experienced all the nightmares and horrors; it is impossible to get used to them. At present, when my name has become known in the West, they treat me less barbarically. But for a year and a half, I have seen daily what a convicted homosexual is in a Soviet correctional institution. In comparison with his position, the position of his like-minded people in the death camps of the 'Third Reich' is child's play. They had a clear perspective—the gas chamber; we have a semi-animal existence, doomed to starve to death with a secret dream of any, even the most severe disease for the sake of a few days of rest on a hospital bed in the camp infirmary.

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I know people who either completely forgot about the end of their term or physically did not last until the day of their release. Their corpses were removed from the electric wire ('forbidden zone'), they were found hanged in prison cells, tortured to death by brutalized criminals or beaten by the convoy, gone insane. I know their names, I have written testimonies of eyewitnesses!

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The administration of places of deprivation of liberty, based on the national concept of 'attitude' towards homosexuals, leaves without any attention any of their protests and complaints, allowing other prisoners to torment us with impunity. The overwhelming majority of homosexuals (unless they are young and attractive, and not scoundrels by nature) are forced to eat food scraps from garbage dumps; they are forbidden to approach common tables in camp canteens; in prisons, they generally starve.

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I, for example, during the three months of preliminary investigation—while I was being transferred from cell to cell, where I was severely beaten by prisoners and slept on a cement floor for half an hour a day—did not eat hot food at all for about a month and a half...

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Food parcels in the camp—this rarest joy of a Soviet prisoner!—are taken away from homosexuals, in addition to this, the person has his kidneys beaten or other serious bodily harm inflicted. Many of the imprisoned homosexuals are generally deprived of sleeping places and at any time of the year are obliged to be outside the living barracks, plus be severely punished by the administration for this. Medical help is usually denied to us. Truly tragic is the position of a homosexual if, in the opinion of other prisoners, such a person cannot be used to satisfy their base desires. This applies to elderly people or the disabled.

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In the medical anamnesis of imprisoned homosexuals, there are frightening diagnoses: reactive state of hypertoxic schizophrenia, MDP, Bleuler's disease, cancer of the rectum, throat, esophagus, stomach, prostate. In the 1.5 years of my existence in this hell, I have read and closely studied 22 sentences and judicial determinations regarding homosexuals in the USSR.

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If this information gets to the West, I will be accused of slander and physically liquidated, especially since it takes very little for this—they will set criminals who have lost their human appearance on me and subsequently formalize my death in the 'known manner.' Suffice it to say that under the sign of such destruction I have already been for 1.5 years out of the four years of punishment intended for me.

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I would consider my mission successfully completed if the 'Literaturnaya Gazeta,' recalling the call for real humanism and humanity in the treatment of homosexuals in the USSR by the Nobel laureate French writer André Gide, showed goodwill, thereby putting an end to the revival of ordinary fascism in relation to people whose sexual exclusivity gave the world the genius of Michelangelo, Oscar Wilde, Paolo Pasolini, Shakespeare, Socrates, Thomas Mann, Sappho, Mikhail Kuzmin..."

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Naturally, this letter was not published in the USSR, as this document could serve as the most severe indictment of the inhumane police system. But the regime was not very concerned about the reputation of its repressive organs, and they simply could not act otherwise.

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Trifonov is one of the few who left a chronicle of his camp life. But how many more such broken lives and destinies! Until very recently, only the victims of state tyranny themselves thought about this.

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Pavel Masalsky was convicted in 1984 under Part One of Article 121 together with his friend. Now he doesn't like to remember this. But he doesn't want to hide anything:

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"A neighbor wrote a denunciation against us, in which he reported that we had lived together for a year and a half. The witness was his wife, whom he had divorced but continued to live with in the same apartment. When she was asked if she had seen us having sex, she answered—'no, I didn't see, but I guessed' (it was recorded in the protocol just like that). They didn't need any evidence of the presence of a homosexual sexual act. It was enough that my friend wrote a sincere confession that he is gay.

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[Image: photograph of a man in a suit and the headline "THE GAY Gulag" with the tagline "A survivor recalls his nightmare years in a Soviet prison". Caption: "Valery Klimov, former convict under Article 120. Now calls himself the coordinator of the movement for the rights of sexual minorities in the Ural region"]

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I denied everything and kept saying that I don't consider what we were doing to be criminal, but I had been on file at Petrovka for a long time, where there is still a special department collecting information about homosexuals. At the trial, in my final statement, I defended myself in every way, tried to protect myself. Everyone listened very attentively, with understanding on their faces, but nevertheless declared me socially dangerous.

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The medical conclusion was complete nonsense: they inserted a finger into my behind, moved it around, and wrote that my pressure increases, temperature rises, pulse quickens, breathing—there is general excitability. (I think if you do this to anyone, the same thing will happen to them—from discomfort!) At the last session, there was not a single witness; the trial was closed. They wanted to imprison us—and they did. We both served time, but in different places. I wrote complaints—the answer came that the sentence remains in force.

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I spent 9 months in prison, then in the camp. In prison, I could somehow conceal my article, make up another one; in the camp, this is impossible, the administration itself will tell. The 'camp telephone' works well, and if a person has concealed that he is 'degraded,' he can be severely beaten or even killed. In our zone, the 'degraded' lived together with everyone else, but we had a separate table, separate dishes, a separate place in formation—at the very end.

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Among the 'degraded,' there are few homosexuals. Before me, there was one convicted under Article 121, and at the very end of my term, another one came. We had 1,500 people, 10 detachments, in each of which there were at least 3 'degraded,' and in total, there were about 200 'roosters.' If there were absolutely no people in the zone who agree to engage in homosexuality, they would be forced to do this. Therefore, prison prostitution is widespread.

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Living free, a person never engaged in this, but having fallen into prison and becoming 'degraded' either because he was convicted of rape, or for losing at cards, or because he is young and beautiful and someone liked him, he prefers to engage in prostitution rather than rot, perish, get poked. There is some respect for people who have sex. Of course, not everyone accepts this and, if there is no defender, they can severely abuse.

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The administration looks at the 'degraded' with the same eyes as the prisoners: it rarely helps them, doesn't give them the opportunity to work in good jobs. Sometimes, when the administration sees that the abuse of a person is already crossing all boundaries, it transfers him to another zone to get rid of him. No one knows whether it will be better for him there or not.

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The administration treated me worse than anyone else, it seems to me that they were even interested in mocking me: they watched me, called me to headquarters—and this is the worst thing in the zone, because everyone thinks you're ratting on someone. They offered me to become an informer, but I immediately said that I would not engage in this, so I had to spend about three months in total in disciplinary isolators. Then they left me alone, I began to rise in the eyes of the convicted and began to engage in prostitution. This was the only way out; otherwise, it was simply impossible to live!

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Why does a person start doing this? It's an opportunity to smoke, to eat more or less well ('the degraded' are fed very poorly), to find calm work, good clothes. At first, I had to fight for this: 'Either you give me something, or don't come to me for sex.' There were big scandals, it came to fighting, because people wanted to have sex for free.

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The currency in the zone is tea, from which they brew chifir—very strong tea (20-30 grams per half liter). The body quickly gets used to it. I acquired clothes, shoes for tea—all of this is low quality, tears quickly, but you need to wear it for a whole year. People noticed that I want to look better and began to help me with this.

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And sometimes the 'degraded' begins to morally kill himself, thinks—'well, okay, they beat me, humiliate me, rape me, but what can I do?'—that is, he doesn't even try to help himself. For the last year and a half, I felt that they began to treat me normally. Most people forced to engage in camp prostitution could not fully understand what they were doing. But I understood everything, and the other prisoners liked that I knew my place; they even found it interesting to communicate with me as a gay—it made them happier, they distracted themselves from their black life.

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Of course, every day there was a fear for me—unknown what would happen next. I was saved only by the fact that I had protectors who didn't let me be offended. People understood that I am a normal person and I just need to serve my term..."

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The case of Pavel Masalsky, who went through all the circles of prison and camp hell, intended by Soviet legislation for innocent homosexuals, is characteristic of most of those convicted under Article 121.

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Yury Ereev from Leningrad did not experience all these horrors, but fully felt the tyranny of the judicial system. On May 9, 1985, a theft was committed in his apartment. When the police arrested the suspects, unexpectedly for the victim, they turned into accusers:

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"They stated that I, Ereev, am a homosexual and tried to rape them a year ago, and in revenge for this, they robbed me. When the investigator told them that they would have to undergo a forensic medical examination for residual traces of rape, they refused their testimony, saying that there were no acts of sodomy between us—only alcohol and advances.

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They spent about ten days in the police, they were released, and while the investigation continued, they found a friend who had numerous homosexual contacts with unknown people before this. First, there was a trial for theft, and, naturally, they were acquitted, and according to Soviet legislation, once they were released, it meant I had to be imprisoned, which they did.

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In the materials of my case, there is no evidence, no proper examination, no serious witness testimony. The process was supported by the head of the workshop where I worked, because he noticed anti-Soviet statements from me, and he was, of course, a communist himself, so he also acted as an accuser.

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I received 4 years, half of the possible term under this article. My lawyer said that my guilt was not proven, otherwise I would have been given the maximum. I was in Leningrad's Yablonevka, notoriously known for its lawlessness. At first, there was a large contingent of thieves, many murders occurred, then police lawlessness began. Administration pressed from one side, the inmates themselves from the other. I was in Yablonevka with an American television group, and they told me that the same thing happens there.

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At the time when I got to prison, the authorities decided not to make special detachments for the 'degraded' so that everyone would be together. I was the first who ended up not in a special detachment, but in a general one. Violence and beatings began, and that detachment was gathered again, but as I was in the general one, so I remained. My only goal was to survive.

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Everyone was outraged that a gay was transferred to them, and all 120 people abused me in various ways. My bed was constantly littered with garbage, they woke me up earlier than everyone else to clean the toilet, they stole my things, newspapers, letters, cigarettes, food. Regarding sex, there were no offers, since I was an open gay, and anyone who would have contacts with me would get a very bad reputation and could fall into the category of 'roosters.'

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I was in confinement for 3 years. Under Gorbachev's amnesty for Victory Day in 1988, I had a year taken off. This amnesty was for a wide contingent; many women and teenagers were released, those who had not very serious articles..."

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Pavel Masalsky, who is now engaged in the rehabilitation of illegally repressed homosexuals, says that during the perestroika years, prisoners under Article 121 were several times subject to amnesties (the most numerous was announced on June 26, 1992), but not because homosexuals ceased to be considered socially dangerous elements, but because of the catastrophic situation in the zones. The crisis of the repressive system became the reason for the release of a huge number of prisoners, including many recidivists and criminals.

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Valery Klimov from Nizhny Tagil, who now calls himself the coordinator of the movement for the rights of sexual minorities in the Ural region, is one of the few rehabilitated homosexuals who believes he was convicted fairly. In 1983, at the pioneer camp "Artek," where he came with a group of teenagers, the management learned about his sexual orientation. A scandal broke out, and Klimov had to return to Nizhny Tagil:

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"They began to follow me, anonymous letters and denunciations started coming in, which were given attention by the prosecutor's office. Unfortunately, at that time I was in a relationship with 15-year-old adolescents. I myself was then just over 20 years old. We were inexperienced and were not prepared for the fact that we could be turned in. When I was called to the prosecutor's office, the investigator said: 'You, Klimov, cannot withstand all the interrogations. Wouldn't it be better to take and hang yourself? There are plenty of sheets here! Better confess to everything than we'll drag your boys in, and they will see such things that they will be disabled for the rest of their lives!'

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They played on the fact that they could do something to my boys, and I decided to take all the blame on myself. There was a trial, I was given 3 years of general regime under Article 120. I could stand up for myself both in prison and in the camp. But before my eyes, homosexuals were killed. There were about 10 cases. One was beaten to death, killed. This was also in the prison in Sverdlovsk. In our cell, there were 100 people, and every day he was raped by 3-4 people, after which they threw him under the bunks. It was brutality, a nightmare! Ten of them raped him, and then jumped on his head with their feet. I experienced a state close to insanity, I turned gray there. This is exactly how people go crazy, many are released absolutely mentally ill. God forbid anyone to experience this!

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Homosexuality in the camp exists at all levels. Both those who work in headquarters and simply the 'degraded' engage in it. All prisoners experience homosexual desire. Another thing is that our vicious system gives rise to fear of openly expressing one's feelings, so people suppress them in themselves, hide them under the guise of rudeness, cruelty, violence.

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It can be easily seen that in conditions of unfreedom, a heterosexual way of life easily transitions to homosexual. Before my eyes, everyone engaged in homosexuality. And this is not just a physiological attraction, but a conscious feeling. I met displays of love and affection between partners in the camps. The senior sergeant of our detachment, Viktor Popov, declared his love to me and asked to be with him, and I was active. Before that, he considered himself a one hundred percent heterosexual. Now he's married, he has children. But sometimes he comes to visit me..."

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Valery Klimov became one of the first to seriously engage in the rehabilitation of illegally repressed homosexuals. Thanks to this, he became known in the West; in Germany, his book "The Humiliated and Insulted" is to be published:

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"I realized that I didn't need to wait for any appeal, and I should unite around me guys who had served time under Article 121 and know why we are subjected to violence, discrimination, and genocide. Since 1986, I have been doing this work. Then it was impossible to use the mass media to search for these people, so I had to limit myself to personal connections. In principle, for this, they could even punish, imprison. The prosecutor of Nizhny Tagil, Mikhail Otmakhov, swore to imprison me. Since 1989, it became easier, we placed an advertisement in the newspaper 'Soviet Youth,' and information began to come to us from all the republics of the former USSR. Our main goal is to provide moral and material support to guys who have served their time."

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Klimov has numerous egregious facts of human rights violations in relation to homosexuals in the former USSR and in present-day Russia, as well as the application of Article 121 already in camps, at the initiative of the administration, not to rapists, but to their victims. In addition, as Klimov testifies, for decades there existed a practice of "treating" Soviet lesbians in psychiatric hospitals (as such, lesbianism was never punished by law).

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Unfortunately, issues related to the rehabilitation of Soviet homosexuals and the protection of their civil rights interest activists from international public organizations much more than the current Russian authorities, and, what is especially tragic, most Russian homosexuals, who have finally become emboldened after the repeal of the 1st part of the notorious article.

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A representative of the international commission for the rights of gays and lesbians, Masha Gessen, who was born in Russia and now lives in America, came to Moscow from San Francisco in order to monitor the release of homosexuals who are still serving their sentences. She talks about her work:

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"The system for releasing people under repealed articles simply does not function. There is no centralized data bank, no nominal list of convicts. In the colonies themselves, there is no classification of prisoners by articles—only alphabetical card files. Thus, the administration of each colony is tasked with leafing through the entire card file, finding those who are serving time under this article, sending their cases to the local court, which should already release these people. But local courts don't work, and people who served time will continue to serve.

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In 1992, 25 people were convicted under Part One of Article 121, but one cannot be sure that this number includes people convicted of consensual homosexuality already in places of deprivation of liberty. The practice of extending the term under this article was quite widespread, and we have already identified such cases. In addition, within the competence of local administrations is the prosecution of prisoners under the unrepealed second part of Article 121 in cases where it comes to consensual homosexual contacts. If the administration believes that consensual homosexuality does not exist, people have their terms extended for homosexual violence, moreover in a special way.

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The most tragic case is the boys who get into juvenile detention and continue to serve time, and serve under Article 121. We already know two such cases: they were not tried for homosexuality, but their terms were extended under Article 121.

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We have hardly encountered any refusal to provide information. We already have a well-established system for obtaining it. When we closely approach the administration of some colony, it, fortunately, already begins to stir. Even with telegrams, you can already stir things up.

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Our current activity is only part of a large program to change the situation of homosexuals and the 'degraded' who are in confinement. At the end of August, we will disperse to the zones to meet with the 'degraded' and for the first time in the history of Russia systematically study their situation.

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Our task is not to seek the release of people convicted under other articles and who have become 'degraded,' but to prove that if a person is sentenced to, say, 7 years, then these should not be 7 circles of hell, and he needs to serve his term in the same conditions as everyone else, and not 10 times worse because he is a homosexual, or he is young and someone liked him, or he has transgressed in some way. It is necessary to change not so much the legal system as the prison and camp system, in which human rights violations occur daily. It is necessary that in this country everyone, from orderlies to heads of administrations, understands that prisoners also have rights..."

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Masha Gessen, referring to her statistical data, claims that "as a rule, under Article 121, the term was extended to young guys, although there are exceptions: one served a total of 43 years, 7 of which—under Article 120. Mostly simple people serve time; cases of the intelligentsia being convicted are extremely rare. Vadim Kozin, Sergei Parajanov—these are rather exceptions. As of December 1992, a very young boy was still serving—a violinist from Moscow..."

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60 years of genocide and discrimination against homosexuals, 60 years of homophobia that became state policy in the USSR, and then in Russia, have borne their fruits: society's attitude towards any manifestations of sexual dissent bears a pronounced criminal character. Therefore, there is nothing surprising in the fact that even the repeal of Article 121 caused in most people attacks of animal, physiological hatred, dictated by the most monstrous ideological dogmas of the times of the "heyday" of the fascist regime in the USSR.

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The experience of Germany shows that immediately after the overthrow of Hitler's dictatorship, the persecution of homosexuals ceased; in our country, they continue to this day. But it's not only "Den" that shouts endless homophobic slogans. In Russia, there is not a single democratic publication defending the rights of homosexuals, except for those pitiful sheets that homosexuals themselves are able to publish for now.

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