“Putin needed an enemy, an Other, against which to mobilize. LGBT people are really convenient: we're sort of the ultimate foreign agent.” PeopleEnemyNeededUltimateAgentsLgbtConvenientPutin Author:Masha Gessen
“It's not natural for people in the opposition to leave. It's always a personal catastrophe.” PeopleNaturalOppositionCatastrophe Author:Masha Gessen
“It is the first time since 1993 that Russians have come out into the streets without an explicit permission from the government to do so. The main difference between the protests of 2011-2012 and these protests today is that they didn't have permits. These were - the people who were coming out into the streets were very young people, for the most part, who knew that they were all risking arrest. It's an extraordinary event.” PeopleTodayFirst TimeExtraordinaryProtestExplicit Author:Masha Gessen
“I think some people have blind faith in American institutions without knowing a whole lot about them and think they will stand up to Donald Trump and are indestructible. I actually think democracy is not a definable and achievable state. Any country is either becoming more democratic or less democratic. I think the United States hasn't tended to its journey toward democracy in a long time. It's been becoming less democratic, and right now it's in danger of becoming drastically less democratic.” PeopleThinkingLongCountryDemocracyJourneyDangerBlindDemocraticBlind Faith Author:Masha Gessen
“For Russians in the '90s, there was that sense of not knowing what the future held at all. And coming off a long period of when people actually were robbed of the ability to plan their future - that's very much a part of totalitarian control - that exacerbated it. In this country, we are not coming off a long period like that. But I think that for a lot of Americans, as a result of globalization, as a result of the housing crisis, the future is just too uncertain. And their place in the world is too uncertain.” PeopleThinkingWorldLongCountryAbilityCrisisGlobalization Author:Masha Gessen
“There was this very strange moment when the world discovered what was going on for LGBT people in Russia. It was very gratifying: I thought, there is a world out there, a saner world. It had felt sort of desperate and bizarre until that point.” PeopleWorldMomentsStrangeDesperateLgbtBizarre Author:Masha Gessen
“One of the most famous lines in contemporary Russian poetry is "Erica makes four copies and that's enough." That's the ethos we're aiming for. This is not to say I don't want lots of people to read my book, I do. I especially want people to read it who will feel better, and safer, or at least understood.” PeopleBookEnoughPoetry IsFeel Better Author:Masha Gessen
“LGBT people are really convenient: we're sort of the ultimate foreign agent in Russia. There's no doubt in anyone's mind that the values that affirm nontraditional relationships, that affirm feminism, come from abroad. If you've established - and this isn't up for discussion - that foreign agents are bad, and foreign influence is bad, and the West is our enemy, then there's no better expression of the West's influence than gays and lesbians.” PeopleMindValuesEnemyDoubtFeminismInfluenceGayUltimateDiscussionLgbt Author:Masha Gessen
“Conceit of the anti-gay law in Russia is to protect children, then the people who have the most to fear are LGBT parents. And sure enough, in conjunction with the homosexual propaganda law, they instituted a ban on adoptions by same-sex couples, or single people from countries where same-sex marriage is legal. That has very scary potential for any LGBT person with adopted kids, because Russian courts practice this particular legal concept called "annulment of adoption." So an adopted child is never exactly the same as a biological child, even if he or she was adopted ten years ago.” PeopleChildrenCountryEnoughKidsParentCoupleProtectScaryPropagandaLgbtAdoptionHomosexualAdoptedSingle People Author:Masha Gessen
“You can't expect people who didn't exist as a community at all until about twenty years ago to have formed a political movement. This attack on the LGBT community was very shocking to the people who consider themselves to be activists. They're basically playing in the sandbox, and there's a tank coming! And what are they supposed to do - use the plastic shovel to push the tank back? But since the homosexual propaganda legislation, people have really stepped up, educated themselves politically, and grown by leaps and bounds.” PeoplePoliticalCommunityEducatedPropagandaLgbtLeapActivistHomosexual Author:Masha Gessen
“There are several dozen political prisoners in Russia. When I cite that number people are often very surprised. They often think there are more. Well - there are hundreds of thousands of people who haven't had a fair trial, who are victims of the political system. But in the Amnesty International sense of the word, most of them are not political prisoners because they are not going to prison for protesting.” PeopleThinkingPoliticalVictimPrisonPrisonerCiting Author:Masha Gessen
“For example, if you are a blogger who wrote something about a local official and you're going to prison for that, you're a political prisoner. If you're a businessman who has refused to cede his business to the local official and you're going to prison for that, you're not a political prisoner. In that second category there are hundreds of thousands of people in Russia.” PeoplePoliticalPrisonPrisonerBusinessman Author:Masha Gessen
“Take the people facing charges in connection with the protests that occurred on the eve of Vladimir Putin's third-term inauguration, May 6, 2012. Hundreds were arrested but what's important is that most of those charged are not leaders in the movement. In fact, only one is an identifiable leader. The rest are rank-and-file activists, or people who just came to the protest. This indicates a very particular kind of crackdown - it communicates the message that there's no safe zone.” PeopleKindImportantLeaderCommunicateZoneProtestActivistInauguration Author:Masha Gessen
“When I was touring with my Vladimir Putin biography, which was published all over the world, people would ask me, How come you're still there, why haven't you left? I would say, I'm staying, it's my home. He can leave! It felt very good to say that. But now - he wins. It's not natural for people in the opposition to leave. It's always a personal catastrophe. And yet he's gotten people out of the country. That's the most terrifying thing about the current situation, and for the future of the country.” PeopleWorldCountryHomeWinningNaturalSituationVery GoodAsk MeCatastrophe Author:Masha Gessen
“With Pussy Riot - this was a prank! It was a brilliant, artistically gifted prank. But they didn't expect to go to prison! They were college girls who became political prisoners for two years. That makes them very similar to the people who were "just going to a protest one day" and got arrested. They had no idea they were risking the rest of their lives. Because you're never the same after you've spent two years in a gulag.” PeoplePoliticalGirlCollegeOne DayPrisonBrilliantProtestPrisonerRiot Author:Masha Gessen
