Russia: Faggots not allowed

There is this scandalous Russian blogger – Lena Miro – who I love to read once in a while, purely because her style of writing is very different from anyone else – she is straightforward and not afraid to voice her opinion, which I love.

Some people call her a bully, but I don’t particularly care about people getting offended by what she writes – if you don’t enjoy it – don’t read it – simple as! The main reason I read her blog on a regular basis, is because she sheds some light on current affairs in Russia and she writes about things that are interesting for an average Russian.

She’s posted the below photo, that has been making circles around Reddit, and expressed her opinion, that regardless of current culture and legislation, signs like these, especially in English, are unacceptable, as they strengthen the mood of ‘unsafety’ when visiting Russia, not just for gay people, but for everyone, and tourism is important.

Guess what happened next?

Obviously, she got a lot of hate. She always gets hate, but this was different.

This was just a straight reflection of the perception of ‘an average Russian’ – thousands of people felt the need to leave horrible and degrading comments, to show that they will never tolerate any sexuality that isn’t approved by God and the church, with some even suggesting that homosexuality is just a mental illness. Most supported the cafe owner. WTF???

I was disgusted when I saw that picture, and that sign, but I was horrified when I read through her follow-up post and all of the appalling comments. Why is there so much hate on the subject? Russians are forever proud to have beaten the Nazi, yet feel absolutely okay with discriminating a person for the way he/she was born?!

But we can’t blame the people.

It’s not their fault, that their government has the strongest skill-sets in the world when it comes to propaganda…

It’s not their fault that homosexuality was illegal back in the Soviet times, for majority or good part of their lives…

It’s not their fault that Russian Orthodox Church keeps getting more money and power, warning people that ‘Smartphones are paving way for the Antichrist’ and gays should be eliminated from the society…

But we can. We CAN blame them. 

They are not being forced to post those hateful comment, they choose to. They have access to majority of the world wide web, but they choose to spend their time in the comment sections. They choose to promote hate, not love.

Just sad.