Putin goes to war on gay rights

When I moved to Rostov-on-Don, in the south of Russia, in 2018 for what was to be four happy years, (ending abruptly on 24 February) there was a baker’s shop, one among many, on the main thoroughfare of the city. I wandered past it countless times before noticing a pair of signs hanging outside, one in English, one in Russian. The Russian one, picked out in pokerwork, simply said ‘Pederasti zaprishonyi’. Beside it, its English translation read: ‘Faggots not allowed.’

The effect of noticing these words for the first time was like a punch to the stomach, a reaction which never quite wore off however many times you saw it. People harbour all sorts of hidden prejudices, but the brazenness with which the owner of this shop exhibited his own reminded me that, however comfortable I felt in the city, I was nonetheless in a foreign country. Yet it wasn’t, at that time, quite as hostile as one might have feared.