Last year, Maksim was a soldier in the Russian army. A picture from that time depicts a young man in a uniform, his short haircut covered by a military beret, as he clutches a rifle. Despite his fearless posture in the photo, Maksim’s time in the Russian Army was marked with anxiety and panic attacks. As a gay man in a country that made anti-gay ideology a foundation of its anti-Ukraine propaganda, he feared for his life every day.
Today, Maksim has a different life. He recently moved into a house in Southern California with his boyfriend Dmitrii. On a recent day, his blonde hair was covered by a black baseball cap, and he fixed his blue eyes on Dmitrii, who was sitting on a couch in a high-ceilinged house the couple shares with other roommates in the Los Angeles area.
“I still can’t believe I can kiss him and hold his hand in public,” Maksim, 22, said in Russian. “I’m excited about our relationship, but I’m still afraid of (physical) attacks.”
Maksim and Dmitrii, who declined to give their last names in fear of retaliation against their families still living in Russia, are among the latest members of the growing Russian-speaking LGBTQ+ community in Los Angeles who are seeking refuge from a country where the rights of LGBTQ+ people are under fire.
They are two of four LGBTQ+ refugees who fled Russia and became friends at the Casa de Luz shelter in Tijuana. Tijuana was the last stop before they immigrated to the Los Angeles area, where the four have been housed at Auntie Mele’s House, a nonprofit homeless shelter in an undisclosed location. Maksim, Dmitrii, Max and Ivan, aged 18 to 26, asked that their last names not be disclosed. The friends hope to live together in a house one day.
“We’ve seen a huge increase in the number of Russian refugees,” said Eugene Maysky, vice president of the board at the Imperial Court of Los Angeles and Hollywood, an LGBTQ+ non-profit that advocates for human rights and equality.
In his seven years as a…
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