When Russian President Dmitry Medvedev fired Moscow’s bigoted Mayor Yuri Luzhkov and replaced him with Vladimir Resin (pictured below), there was no guarantee the successor was going to be any friendlier to the gays. Especially when Resin told reporters that while “I treat everyone equally,” in the case of a planned gay rights demonstration by recently detained activist Nikolai Alexeyev (pictured top), “I do not support this.” And yet the rally came and went Friday, with Alexeyev leading about 10 people in protesting Swiss International Air Lines for its role in helping Russian authorities detain Alexeyev at Domodedovo airport last month.
And while the demonstrators managed to avoid arrest this time, they were greeted by members of the Georgiyevtsy Orthodox movement, which released roosters (for the Russian word, pédik, is a gay slur) at the rally.
Oh, and there were a dozen or so hood-clad neo-Nazis firing water guns at Alexeyev’s clan — and two of them were arrested.
Let’s see how long the good times last.
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[Note Alexeyev’s name is sometimes spelled “Alexseev” in English-language reports.]
hephaestion
Alexeyev is also sometimes spelled Alekseyev and Alekseev, too. “Alekseyev” is the best spelling for helping non-Russians to pronounce the name properly.
Like Tchaikovsky, Chaikowskii and Tschaikowsky, they are all acceptable spellings. Just different ways of transcribing a name that uses Cyrillic letters in Russia.