Moscow's 'Gay Olympics' Are Off to a Nightmare Start

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Police officers walk out of the building where the Russian Open Games were set to open in Moscow on Wednesday, Feb. 26, 2014. The opening was disrupted on Wednesday after a bomb threat.

Image: Alexander Zemlianichenko/Associated Press

By Sam Laird2014-02-28 22:31:15 UTC

Outraged by the 2014 Winter Olympics being held in Sochi despite Russia's harsh anti-gay climate, LGBT activists there and elsewhere had a dream they hoped would counter their disappointment.

The first Russian Open Games — an Olympics for LGBT athletes meant to also promote LGBT equality in Russia — would feature more than 200 athletes from more than 10 countries competing in Russia's capital city of Moscow from Feb. 26 through March 3. Hotels were booked, as were sports venues, and the Open Games looked set to fill an attention gap between the Olympics' closing ceremony on Feb. 23 and the start of the Paralympics on March 7.

Two days in to the Open Games, that dream is looking more like a nightmare — one that so far exists largely beneath the radar of mainstream Western media.

See also: Goodbye Letter to Sochi

The day before the Open Games were set to begin, four sports venues and a Hilton hotel in Moscow abruptly reneged on promises to host events, according to Russian organizers and their co-workers in the United States. A bomb threat — one of Russian anti-gay activists' favored disruption tactics — struck fear into the gay nightclub that was supposed to host the LGBT Olympics' opening ceremony on Wednesday. And a Friday morning smoke bomb attack canceled swimming and basketball competitions scheduled for later that day.

The spate of last-minute cancellations comes as little surprise yet makes many organizers and allies of the Games nearly certain Russia's notoriously anti-gay government pressured participating venues to bail, according to Bruce Cohen, a co-founder of the gay rights group Uprising of Love who has been working closely with Open Games organizers in Moscow.

"The hope was partly that the international media would still be paying attention to Russia, so surely the government wouldn't just try to cancel the entire games," Cohen tells Mashable. "But it seems like that's exactly what they're trying to do."

Particularly troubling is Hilton's reported last-minute cancellation as a major international brand, Cohen adds. Hilton media relations had not replied to Mashable's request for comment at time of this writing.

Activist and Open Games organizer Anastasia Smirnova shared this link to photos of Friday's reported smoke bombing:

Gay Russians' many challenges

Russia's tough atmosphere for gay people took a harsh turn on June 30 of last year, when president Vladimir Putin signed into law legislation banning "propaganda of nontraditional sexual practices" that can potentially be seen by anyone under age 18. The law is not technically an outright ban on homosexuality, but its vague definition of "propaganda" has been used to essentially prohibit discussion of gay life in public arenas like schools and media.

It's also the reason the Russian Open Games' site has a disclaimer reading, "The information on this site is intended only for the use of those aged 18 and over."

OpenGamesWarming

For many, the line between Russian homophobe and politician can be tough to decipher. In mid-January, Putin was widely criticized for saying that gay people were welcome to attend the Olympics - as long as they "leave kids alone." Ten days later, the mayor of Sochi told a BBC reporter that his city of 343,000 people did not have a single gay resident. Also in January, a newspaper editor was reportedly fined after printing an interview with a gay teacher.

Familiar tactics in Moscow

Cohen traveled to Russia in November to present the film Milk at an LGBT-themed film festival in St. Petersburg. More than half of the nights of the week-long festival, he says, telephone calls and other messages threatened bombings at screening venues. No attacks were ever executed, but each threat caused a lengthy delay not unlike Friday's cancelled Open Games swimming and basketball events.

That's why, according to Cohen, this week's bomb threat, smoke bomb attack and AWOL venues in Moscow come as a letdown, but not a huge surprise, to Open Games organizers.

Hazy affiliations make it unclear who exactly Open Games activists in Moscow are dealing with. Simple independent scofflaws, Putin-backed agitators, harassers who aren't backed by the Russian government but have its tacit approval — all are possible opponents.

"They're having the same feeling in Moscow right now that we had in St. Petersburg, where the organized anti-gay movement, the hooligans causing violence and the Russian government all sort of blend together," Cohen says.

Nonetheless, Cohen recalls an inspiring Friday morning email blast to Open Games supporters from one of the event's chief Russian organizers, Konstantin Yablotsky. It's the Russian mentality that the harder things get the more determined they become, the email blast implored — that's how Russia won its share of World War II and how the country's LGBT community will eventually prevail in the 21st century.