The family that registered the first gay marriage in Russia told how they fled the country

Evgeny Voitsekhovsky and Pavel Stotsko in January 2018 were forced to flee Russia, fearing for their lives and freedom. The pressure started after the men announced that their marriage in Denmark was unexpectedly confirmed in the multifunctional service center (MFC) in Moscow. In fact, their union became the first gay marriage officially registered in Russia, writes Currently,.

Photos: Facebook
Pavel Stotsko

The reaction of the authorities was immediate: an administrative case on the damage of documents was brought to the men, their passports were annulled, and the police raided the apartment. Because of the threats received in social networks and by telephone, Wojciechowski and Stotsko decided to flee Russia - they sought asylum in Holland.

Gogol Center playwright Valery Pecheikin spoke with Pavel Stotsko and Evgeny Voitsekhovsky about how they managed to escape the country and what is happening to them now.

- At the beginning of the year, the whole country spoke about you: The first channel and Danila Transverse in an interview with Dudu. Everyone knows “those dudes who stamped gay marriage in their passports in Russia.”

Pavel Stotsko: Not themselves set, and authorized police officers in the MFC.

— In January, you got married in Copenhagen City Hall, then returned to Moscow and applied to the MFC. There they stamped your passport. You called me as your friend, and I called the Dozhd TV channel.

Pavel Stotsko: What happened then is rather a detective story. But let's order. Having entered into a marriage in Denmark, we wanted to return to Russia and live in accordance with Russian laws.

“And the stamps were set up for you by the law.”

Pavel Stotsko: Specifically, in accordance with paragraph 1 of Article 158 of the Family Code, paragraph 5 of the Citizen Passport Regulations and paragraph 157, part 3 of the administrative regulations of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Russian Federation.

“And you thought: “This is it!” The triumph of law in Russia!”

Pavel Stotsko: That is exactly what they thought. It seemed that gays in the country now have nothing to fear. Just live by the law, and you will be fine. We are confident that the historical meaning of marriage is precisely a public statement that a new family has been created.

- therefore you gave interview with Dozhd. And the next day began.

Pavel Stotsko: It all started on the same day, January 25th. The news about the “recognition of same-sex marriage in Russia” became a sensation. Especially for Russian politicians who began to read the Family Code and look for a ban on same-sex marriage, which is not and cannot be in the law.

The first official reaction of the authorities came on the same day late in the evening from the Moscow MFC. There awake said that all this is fake. A bit later, the civil registry offices responded, which traditionally made a barrel organ that same-sex marriages do not enter into Russia.

Not finding the legal grounds for not recognizing our marriage, the authorities decided to break the law themselves.

First, the police came to my parents' house, where I was registered. According to his brother, they were officers of the operational department in civilian clothes. Realizing that I did not live at the place of registration and that my passport was not there, they quickly left.

A little later, I learned from journalists that our passports were canceled. We checked the validity of our passports on the official website of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, and there it was written: issued with a violation. But, excuse me, my passport was issued to me as early as 2009, without any violations.

We didn't yet understand how to react to this. The next day we were expecting friends to visit, and in the evening we were supposed to go to a performance at the Gogol Center.

- Yes, I invited you to “Shakespeare”. Here, in the spirit of provincial journalism, one must say: “And then Shakespearean passions flared up.”

Pavel Stotsko: I don’t know if Shakespeare’s characters wrote in a personal message: “Beware,” “I’ll cut off your head,” “You should be publicly executed on Red Square.” My mother also called me and told me that they called her and threatened that she would be fired, and that her eight-year-old nephew would have problems at school. In general, we realized that it was better to stay at home and did not go to Shakespeare.

I just didn’t know what else could happen next, and I began to fear for myself and my family. Do you remember, I then asked you to come to our home.

- Yes, I went to your entrance simultaneously with operatives. They only had time to rise to you, and I - no.

Pavel Stotsko: Yes, soon after that they knocked on our door. They were in civilian clothes, did not say anything, only knocked continuously on the door. Light and the Internet turned off to us. We naturally did not open the door.

“I then stood outside the door for three hours with the operatives, and then spent another six hours with you in the apartment.” In the end, you gave away your two “damaged” passports.

Pavel Stotsko: We did not want to give. This was the imperative advice of our lawyers, Dmitry and Olga Dinze. You do remember, the investigators stood deep in the night at the doors and at the house. They were not going to leave without our passports.

“I remember asking them myself: “Maybe we can postpone everything until tomorrow, because there’s no one at the passport office anymore?” They answered me: “Don’t worry. They will wait there as long as necessary«.

Pavel Stotsko: And closer to midnight, they began to hint to our lawyers that their patience was at an end.

We were under siege. The police were in the stairwell and around the house. Many journalists and activists refused to let us. We understood that if we were detained, the police would be able to force us to confess anything. Therefore, we wrote the contacts of lawyers right on the inside of our forearms, in case we were still taken away and left without communication.

But everything was decided differently. At night, the deputy head of the Moscow police, Colonel Andrei Zakharov, came to negotiate with us.

Photos: Facebook
Evgenii Voitsekhovskii

- Sorry, but I will repeat it to emphasize: at night, in the winter, on a day off, the deputy head of the Moscow police came to your home in Lyubertsy. And the next day, on Sunday, there was another rally of Navalny, and all the forces were thrown there. Can you imagine how highly you were rated?

Pavel Stotsko: We were then interested in only one thing - what will happen to us when we give up the passports. Zakharov did not give us any guarantees of security. Moreover, he said that the police could not be responsible for everything that could happen after. His words inspired no one confidence.

But we had no other choice. Zakharov gave us on the record “the officer’s word” that we would not be detained tonight if we gave up our passports. We have this recording.

- And this decision gave you the opportunity to fly the next day.

Pavel Stotsko: I will say otherwise - we did not have the opportunity to stay. Zakharov stressed that he does not give us guarantees that we will not be arrested the next day, and that the police cannot be responsible for what may happen to us. There was a hidden threat in these words. But we bargained for a few hours, and we managed to escape.

- What happened at the airport?

Pavel Stotsko: We arrived at the very beginning of check-in for the flight. We had a flight to Istanbul with a transfer in Amsterdam. Sheremetyeva employee checked something for a long time, clarified where we were going, but then still gave us boarding passes with places in the very tail of the plane. Later we understood why.

When boarding the plane, an airport employee took our foreign passports and took them to some man with his face covered with a scarf and hood. He took photographs of our passports on his mobile and said a strange phrase: “There is an order not to allow Russian citizens into Istanbul, but you I’m very lucky today!”

We did not understand exactly how lucky it was, because just before that, a flight to Istanbul with Russian tourists departed from a neighboring gate. When we entered the plane and got into our seats, we understood what was the matter.

Precisely in front of us in the plane sat six men.

- So what?

Pavel Stotsko: I will just tell you how they looked and behaved, and what we felt about all this, and you draw your own conclusions.

They were of different ages, in different clothes, different styles, but clearly did not look like the other passengers who bought a ticket for a thousand euros. There was nothing in common between them, but they all knew each other. As they took their seats, they began jokingly arguing about who should sit by the window. And one of them, not the oldest, said: “By seniority, I will sit by the window.” I wondered what kind of “seniority” these people might have.

— So they were some kind of “special employees”?

Pavel Stotsko: Let the readers make a conclusion themselves, but these people were not like businessmen, athletes or researchers. And they tried as little as possible to communicate with each other. But still pierced. And you know how? One of them got pies - and all of them suddenly began to take and eat.

Photos: Facebook
Pavel Stotsko

- What happened next?

Pavel Stotsko: One of these six, sitting in front of me, turned around and looked at me with his eyes... I don’t know how to say it. There was hatred in them, predatory hatred. I don't know what he needed. He glared at me and immediately turned away. I didn't have time to react somehow. But it started to make me nervous. Moreover, these six began to openly follow us. Behind our every action. They didn't pay attention to anyone on the plane - only to us. We stood up and they turned around. When we went to the toilet, they followed us. And so all the time, all the time.

I talked to the flight attendant. She went into the cabin and assessed the situation on the plane herself. There, even married couples had a hard time finding two seats next to each other, but here six men managed to sit in a row right in front of us. The crew probably knew who was on the plane with us. So the flight attendant spoke to the chief pilot and came back and said that they were concerned about the situation on board and would not allow us to be delayed. She explained to me how we should act. “You can be the first to leave the plane, leave on a separate bus with business class and immediately contact the police,” she advised. That's what we did.

Then we sat on chairs next to the police station until the morning - without sleep, food or toilet. We were afraid to move more than five steps away from the police, literally. We were afraid that these six would find us at this giant airport, but none of our Russian “friends” showed up. They probably didn't dare look for us near the police.

And in the morning a man came out in ordinary clothes and turned in Russian ...

- And you decided that the escape did not succeed and you were found?

Pavel Stotsko: We thought so. But the man showed the token and stated that he was from the Netherlands border guard. Honestly, I am petrified. I did not know whether to trust him and go with him somewhere. I asked the police, and they confirmed that it was their colleague. We hesitantly followed him through the entire airport, went down to the basement, went through some corridors and at the end went to the spacious office where people in military uniform sat. And only then did we believe that everything was in order.

The border guard asked us about everything that happened in Russian. Filled several questionnaires. He took our documents and 52 dollars - all the money that we had. Our phones were also seized for checking for terrorist content. Filling all the papers took about five hours. After that, we were photographed, fingerprinted and informed that we would be sent to a closed prison-type camp.

- For what?

Pavel Stotsko: Such rules. But, you know, we were even glad because we were exhausted. We really wanted to finally be in a safe place, eat, wash and sleep. Even if this place is a prison.

We were given a folder with instructions in Russian, which told about what will happen to us in the coming days.

Together with migrants from other countries, we were taken outside, put in an armored van and taken out of the territory of the sterile zone of the airport to a building resembling a fortress. We were driven through a double gate in five-meter walls with barbed wire. So we were in prison.

“And what does a Dutch prison look like?”

Pavel Stotsko: We were put in a cell for two people. With private shower, toilet, TV, refrigerator, electric kettle and microwave. And they gave us food and dinner, which we could warm up in the microwave.

We lived there for two and a half weeks. The Netherlands paid us a lawyer and helped collect evidence for interviews with the migration and naturalization service. And we passed these interviews. Translators immediately recognized us and were very worried about us. And we are grateful for their help and accurate translation of each of our words.

After the interview, the officers of the Migration and Naturalization Service decided to leave us in the country and send us to an open camp for refugees. Our lawyer tried to find a safe place for us where there are no Russians, so that information about us does not spread in Russia. We arrived at the camp by taxi, which the Dutch government paid us. Coached in COA (organization that arranges the life of asylum seekers - HB) and settled in the family room. We were there together. Next week, after arriving, we started classes in the Dutch language, and Zhenya was sent to a hospital for consultation with a doctor. He was immediately prescribed therapy for HIV infection.

- Here it must be said that you are a discordant couple. Not everyone may know this term. This is when one of the partners has a positive HIV status. Zhenya, and what happened with your treatment in Moscow?

Evgeny Wojciechowski: Pasha and I learned that I have HIV, in December 2014, then we were together for more than three years. At the beginning of next year, I registered with the Moscow AIDS Center on Sokolina Gora. Every six months I went to donate blood. The tests were not bad, so I was refused treatment. I was told: we prescribe drugs only to women and children.

- And in the Netherlands?

Evgeny Wojciechowski: It treats everyone, regardless of their gender, age or social group. Although the course of my drugs for a month costs about 50 thousand rubles, treatment is free here.

- I understand correctly that you were a refugee without documents with not yet confirmed status, and were you treated for free?

Evgeny Wojciechowski: Yes, I repeat, treatment for me is free. Any, even the cheapest insurance in the Netherlands covers the treatment of HIV infection in full and the most modern drugs.

However, once I was vaccinated, which was not included in the insurance, but it was paid for by a fund to help people living with HIV. All this bureaucracy took no more than five minutes. It looked like this: I asked the doctor to prescribe this vaccine to me, she called me to the foundation, and he immediately agreed to pay for the vaccination. And I immediately did it. The bill from the hospital to the fund was sent after, but this, as a patient, no longer concerned me.

- You have two parents left in Russia, what happened to them all this time?

Pavel Stotsko: My mom was still written on VKontakte, insulted her and me. Someone opened the mailbox in our entrance. Our parents continued to come to our parents Zhenya. They did not say anything intelligible and avoided questions about the reasons for the visit, while demanding that they sign some papers. I do not know what they needed. Perhaps they did some business or simply decided to show their strength in order to keep our loved ones at bay.

But for several months now there have been no such visits. I hope they calm down and start catching real criminals.

- What is your current status in the Netherlands?

Evgeny Wojciechowski: A few days ago we received a letter from our lawyer saying that we now have a residence permit, we are protected by the Netherlands, and we no longer need her help.

Soon we will find accommodation, and we will be able to move to our new home. We will have to pass an examination on integration into the Dutch society, and in five years we will become citizens.

- Have you already met other gays from Russia?

Evgeny Wojciechowski: Several gays wrote to me: “We want to leave Russia just like you” or “We are also preparing to move.” You see, for them it’s just a move, but for us it was an escape in the truest sense of the word. We were left without Russian passports, abandoned everything we had: parents and friends, studies, work, apartment, money. We had $52 for two! So we were not preparing for any move.

We paid for it dearly. If someone has a desire to repeat our act - go for it, for the time being no one has changed the laws of Russia.

As for the future, I know for sure that it will not be worse. Now we are quietly moving forward and will take everything that happens to us. We have nowhere to hurry and there is no need.

- And what should change in Russia? What conditions must arise for you to return?

Evgeny Wojciechowski: We will not return to Russia. The only condition for our visit to our home is ... Although let's stop here. I don’t want anyone to have problems because of my answer. We will not return to Russia. Let's finish this.

Read also on ForumDaily:

How is gay from Kazakhstan in New York

Why do gays have to flee Ukraine

American mathematician killed for being gay

How is the new sexual revolution going on in the USA

Do you want more important and interesting news about life in the USA and immigration to America? — support us donate! Also subscribe to our page Facebook. Select the “Priority in display” option and read us first. Also, don't forget to subscribe to our РєР ° РЅР ° Р »РІ Telegram  and Instagram- there is a lot of interesting things there. And join thousands of readers ForumDaily New York — there you will find a lot of interesting and positive information about life in the metropolis.