And as for the DJs, I would mention Popoff Kitchen residents Kirill Shapovalov and Raumtester, who play in Europe often, as well as Nastia Reigel from St Petersburg.” The latter is also the co-founder of Grahn, the city’s much-celebrated queer rave, as well as the face behind post-industrial, post-punk and noise music alias Rosa Damask. I like and follow Shortpartis and Angel Ulyanov. A few years ago, it would have been hard to even imagine things as they are now. ”LGBT+ artists are starting to appear, and they are young and open. “I wouldn’t call Russian queer music scene big yet, but it’s definitely growing,” says Nikita. Perhaps the largest of its sort in the country, Moscow’s queer rave Popoff Kitchen, started by Nikita Egorov-Kirillov in 2016, has played a significant role in providing a physical space to experience a queer techno subculture, not unlike London’s Chapter 10 or Berlin’s Herrensauna. In its fluidity, it aptly reflects the young members of the country’s LGBT+ community, whether found in the intimate safety of their bedrooms or underground gatherings at queer-friendly bars, gigs and raves. And we speak a lot about inclusivity, freedom, visibility, and sexuality,” they explain.Ĭontemporary Russian queer music doesn’t subscribe to a single genre: it rages from experimental post-rock and indie to avant-pop and more club-influenced sounds. Our music is a mixture of disco, house, funk, and electro. We are a queer music band performing live in makeup and costumes. Originally from St Petersburg but based in Berlin, Sado Opera is another example of an act that weaponises performance in its fight for equality. Band Shortparis fuses experimental post-rock with theatre, poetry, performance art and sensual choreography staging visual discussions of toxic masculinity, rigid gender stereotypes and violence in Russian society. In my songs I share my emotions and thoughts which are often connected to love, relationships and childhood memories,” they admit.Īt the same time, certain queer musicians rely much more on performance and theatrics - tools to expose the surreality of their oppressed existences. “My queerness is definitely important for my creativity. Identifying as non-binary, they see their identity as crucial to their creative process - their debut album, for example, was dedicated to all the women they ever loved. In the video for “Slova” (Russian for “Words”) we see a desolate place, somewhere between a building site and a dystopia, which gradually becomes a space of love, touch and affection beyond age or gender. Through his own radical expression of masculinity, Angel, who is openly gay, aims to create music that transcends the boundaries of the queer community - and that seeks to dismantle those that lie beyond it.Īn artist that muses on confronting harsh realities in a more gentle way is Hristina. Here, though, violence is replaced with voguing - the original fearlessness of a culture born in the ballroom scenes of NYC becomes a power which dismantles homophobia.
When they encounter a neon-haired singer in a deserted underpass, we naturally expect confrontation. We follow a group of tracksuit-clad lads through bleak urban surroundings - with their buzzcuts and Adidas stripes, they project the threat of violence so often coded into the concept of Russian masculinity. One of its finest and most outrageous examples is Angel Ulyanov’s “Davai Zamutim” video from 2019. Protest, however, is not always so quiet. When society and the state claim that your love is ‘not normal’ and you can’t show it anywhere, it results in a quiet protest”. The main themes for Russian LGBT+ musicians are love, intimacy and feelings. It’s clear that it’s important for them to be incredibly open with their audience. ”With the rise of social media, especially Instagram, hundreds of openly queer bloggers emerged, and young musicians started speaking out too. “I think Russia has always had great queer musicians, but they were more cautious about being openly queer” says Dmitry.
Founded in 2018 by Dmitry Kozachenko and Sasha Kazantseva as a space for queer Russian youth to showcase their creativity, O-zine is one of them. Undeterred by this, however, members of this new generation are keen to create spaces where they can thrive - often online.
Under the infamous “gay propaganda law” passed in 2013, there is legally no space for queer voices in the mainstream media or public sphere. But there’s also an indirect violence involved - the refusal of representation. Russia is an undeniably hostile place for LGBT + folk, who live under the constant threat of direct violence in the form of attacks, harassment and discrimination.