I left Russia to avoid going to war and because of the persecution that members of the LGTBI community suffer; Because you are gay, in the army they can do anything to you,” says Alex (not his real name), in Barcelona.
“I want to tell my story because there are many people who are not aware of how it is to live in Russia, and how the population is immersed in a bubble of misinformation. Every day the Government’s speech is that the whole world wishes us harm, that everyone wants to appropriate our resources, that they want to sink us… Life there is very hard and that is why many people believe it. It is not so easy to deceive the most open minds, but it is easy to deceive those who have always been subjected to propaganda…”, reflects Alex, who before fleeing worked as an interior designer and as a yoga teacher in Saint Petersburg.
In September 2022, thirty-year-old Alex crossed the border into Finland by car and in Helsinki boarded a plane to Barcelona. “A friend had fled before for the same reasons and from Valencia he helped me. “I requested asylum for reasons of sexual orientation,” he details slowly.
In November last year, the Russian Supreme Court issued a ruling in which it described the international LGBTI public movement as “extremist”, which in practice implies the prohibition of activities related to this group, Amnesty International has denounced. It should be remembered that in 2013, the Duma already approved the so-called law against homosexual propaganda.
“A gay person like me is exposed to violence if he shows his homosexuality. Only by being dressed in a more striking way can they tickle you and stop you,” she explains delicately. But day-to-day life in a city like Saint Petersburg was much more bearable than in small, closed towns. Discretion was the best safe conduct to avoid problems.
Alex didn’t have it easy, but thanks to the support of his family and the anonymity that comes with living in a big city, he was able to weather the oppression. He says that yoga has been one of his escape routes from tension and fear.
The Russian invasion of Ukraine ordered by Putin two years ago brought everyone to a breaking point. Months passed and Alex saw that sooner or later he would be called up and that, with all certainty, would be the end of him. “A gay in the army! I feared for my life and my family. If they hadn’t killed me before, they would have surely sent me to the front line of fire. I didn’t want to be another victim of Putin’s madness to dominate the world; My only way out was to flee.”
Alex offered his testimony this Tuesday, a day after confirming that the body of the man riddled with bullets last week in an urbanization in La Vila Joiosa, in Alicante, was that of Maxim Kuzminov, 28, a Russian pilot who defected to Ukraine. Kuzminov landed last August aboard a combat helicopter at a military base in Kharkiv to the humiliation of the Kremlin. The murder of Kuzmínoz increases the anxiety of the people who have escaped from Russia to avoid war. “Putin has shown that he can reach everywhere, that no one is safe,” murmurs Alex, whose situation, however, is very different. In his case, he cannot be considered a deserter since he left before being called up.
In Barcelona, ??she has rented a room, signed up for a Spanish course, is part of a support group of LGTBI people from Russia, Ukraine, Belarus and other former Soviet republics, and continues with yoga classes. His biggest concern is that his people are safe, especially his mother, who subsists on a pension of 120 euros.
