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6. Conclusion The Eloquence of Flesh In novels, plays, films and other representations in dominant culture, the homosexual always dies. —Philip Brett and Elizabeth Wood (2002: 31) It was 25 December 2004, and I was waiting in the frigid weather in front of the building at 28 Kanal Griboedova in the center of St. Petersburg, the typically overcast sky compounding the cold from the gray pavement that seemed to seepupthroughthesolesofmywhollyinadequateboots.Overthecourseofthe next several minutes, five other men approached the space outside of Greshniki whereIstood,allsixofuswithfiststhrustdeepinpockets,hatspulledtightover ears, and shoulders hunched, our jittery, bobbing, back-and-forth movements futile attempts to fend off the chill. Perhaps because I was a stranger to them, and so obviously a foreigner—marked visibly by my features (and invisibly by the fact that I was the only one for whom the day was Christmas, the Russian holiday still thirteen days ahead)—the men, some of whom knew each other, regarded me with what appeared to be a bit of suspicion, and stayed a slight distance away from my place by the door. On the other side of the canal, three more men were waiting, clearly for the opening of the club’s doors and also clearly not wanting to be seen in too close proximity to an establishment for golubye, one whose very name—“Sinners”—unabashedly announced the dissolute , immoral nature of its guests. Indeed, if their fear had been risking the opprobrium or mockery of passersby, they had acted shrewdly, because the six of us on the “wrong” side of the water were repeatedly glared at by those on the street, one group of three giggling, whispering (with their hands over their mouths), and pointing, ultimately surreptitiously (they thought) taking out their camera and crossing the footbridge to get a wider shot of the pedovki in front of their natural habitat. Shortly thereafter Aleksandr Kukharskii arrived, and after some time the manager of the club (forty-five minutes late) took out his keys, brusquely 168 chapter 6 opened the doors, and allowed the ten of us inside—not for any sort of “tea dance,” but for the monthly meeting of Kryl’ia. One of the oldest gay social/ political group active in St. Petersburg,1 Kryl’ia was founded in 1990 after much maneuvering through the Russian political system, and is run by one of its original founders, Kukharskii. Advertised on its website2 as a pravozashchitnyi LGBT tsentr (the first word literally meaning “rights-protecting,” but translated on the website—and in general—as “human rights”), Kryl’ia has in the past been involved in political actions;3 however, its main function is, according to Kukharskii, “the help and support to LGTB people in crucial moment[s] of their lives.” This could include anything from answering letters from gay men in the provinces seeking information, to helping track down (through a community “grapevine”) an assailant who had beaten and robbed a gay man, to the running of monthly social-informational meetings such as the one we were attending. The first subject on the agenda that day was a discussion of an exhibit then currently at St. Petersburg’s Èrmitazh museum, Robert Mapplethorpe and the Classical Tradition: Photographs and Mannerist Prints, in which the artist’s nude photographs were juxtaposed against classical works that also took the nude body as their subject matter. Kukharskii extemporaneously translated a review of the show, a joint effort between the State Hermitage Museum and the U.S. Solomon Guggenheim Foundation, from the English-language newspaper The St. Petersburg Times, offering his somewhat negative critique of modern art in general. The second agenda item was a report from a member of Kril’ia who had recently traveled to the ILGA (International Lesbian and Gay Association) conference in Budapest. When it came time to ask questions about this subject, it was clear that most of the men did not know what ILGA was, and the vast majority of questions posed by the attendees had nothing to do with politics; rather, most of the men’s questions focused on such things as “how much does a cup of coffee cost in Budapest?” “What happened at the party [after the conference]?” “Is Budapest beautiful?” and “Are Hungarian men beautiful?” The meeting concluded with food and drink supplied by one of the members and a toast to Kukharskii from one member, who said, “to Aleksandr Aleksandrovich, without whom we would not have access to this information—I am very, very grateful to him for...

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