Marcel Winatschek

Two Guys Holding Hands in Moscow

Russia in 2015: organized groups of young men who coordinate online to find gay men, corner them, film the confrontation, and post it. Not a metaphor—an actual leisure activity. And the state’s position, with Putin having compared gay people to pedophiles in a widely reported exchange, makes clear that official protection isn’t exactly forthcoming.

Gay and bisexual people in Russia don’t hold hands in public. They hide, or they perform heterosexuality well enough to pass, or they maintain a low-grade sustained anxiety that most people in Western Europe have the considerable luxury of never having to think about. That same-sex marriage became federally legal across the United States in June 2015 made the contrast sharper, not softer—two realities coexisting, one of them receding and one of them hardening.

Against that backdrop, the YouTube channel ChebuRussia TV ran a simple social experiment: two guys, holding hands, walking through Moscow. The reactions are exactly what you’d expect, and still somehow alarming when you see them. What stays with you isn’t the outright anger—it’s how casual the hostility is. Less rage than reflex, like swatting something away. Rage at least means someone had to think about it first.