The Future Is History: How Totalitarianism Reclaimed Russia

lyosha's idea of "social networks as the new closet" had a connection to his own life, much of which was happening online. Soon after he broke up with the other Lyosha, a man named Mitya wrote to him on VK. They had seen each other once, during one of those big Perm "cultural revolution" events. Mitya had an incomprehensible- sounding job—he was a marketing coach—and an exotic Moscow lifestyle. He meditated, rode his bicycle for exercise, and watched what he ate. He was driven and ambitious, and he pushed Lyosha to seek recognition by entering his poetry in competitions. He also demanded that Lyosha start taking care of his body, especially because Lyosha's kidney problems—the aftereffects of that playground gay-bashing in Solikamsk—had been flaring up. They messaged about everything—what they did, what the world was like, and what love was. They did not see each other, though. More than a year after they started messaging, Mitya invited Lyosha to spend a couple of days in his native Nizhny Novgorod. It was a great two days and three nights. The weather was brutally cold, but they went for walks anyway. Talking to each other was easy and fun, as was the sex. But then they did not see each other again for about a year, and then another year after that. In between, Mitya sometimes disappeared for weeks or a couple of months at a time, only to pop back up on Skype as though he'd never been gone.

Andrei showed up during one of Mitya's absences. He had graduated from Perm State University the same year as Lyosha. Lyosha had had a crush on him during their first year, but they never really talked: Andrei came from a wealthy family and traveled in different circles. Now he was a lawyer in Geneva. They ran into each other when he was visiting Perm and soon started Skyping every day. Lyosha talked about the pressure at his department.

"What are you still doing there?" asked Andrei, meaning, What are you still doing in Russia? "You've got to get out. And you've got to start learning English."

Andrei kept complaining about his girlfriend, who lived in New York, until one day he confessed that this was actually a boyfriend.

"I knew that," said Lyosha.

After that, Lyosha spent a couple of months coaching Andrei through his coming-out process.

Maybe it was not exactly a closet, but Lyosha's social and emotional life was neatly compartmentalized. In Perm, he had his work and a close friend and collaborator in Darya. His romantic life happened in messages, and, during the periods of Mitya's disappearance, in his imagination. His emotional support came from Andrei via Skype.

In the fall of 2012, Lyosha swung by Geneva to visit Andrei after delivering his paper on "social networks as the new closet" at a conference in Basel. He had just arrived back in Perm when he went to meet a friend for dinner. The friend brought another friend, and Lyosha could not stop talking—about the conference, his paper, Geneva. He might have felt self-conscious afterward, had he not heard from his friend's friend immediately. His name was Ilya. He messaged Lyosha that he was impressed.

Ilya was a few years younger, a recent chemistry department graduate working as a waiter. Dating him was easy. There was none of the anxiety, competition, or obsession that Lyosha had experienced in his previous involvements. There was no talk of love. They did not move in together. They just enjoyed each other.

on January 25, the parliament took the first of three required votes on the "propaganda" bill. A couple of members, including Masha's former boss Ilya Ponomarev, questioned whether the measure was necessary.

"You shouldn't treat this issue so lightly!" objected Mizulina. "Just two years ago seventy percent of all sexual crimes were committed against girls. Now many of them are committed against boys! Think about why that is!"

In the end, only one parliament member abstained from voting for the bill and one voted against it—although this member, a novice who had just recently been called up to fill an empty seat, soon said that he had accidentally pushed the wrong button. Three hundred eighty- eight voted in favor. Several, including Ponomarev, left the hall to avoid the vote.¹⁴

At the entrance to the parliament, LGBT protesters were outnumbered by thugs who threw Nazi-style salutes, tossed eggs and excrement at the protesters, and beat them. A protester's nose was broken. The police watched for a while and then arrested the protesters, not the thugs. A small group of supporters stood to the side of the protesters—they had no banners or pink-triangle buttons, and they kept the physical distance necessary to avoid beatings and arrest. One of them, a biology teacher from a prestigious Moscow high school, was caught on camera trying to reason with one of the thugs. The following day, the teacher, who was straight and married to a woman, lost his job.*