The Fifth Floor: Russia's crackdown on gay clubs

The Documentary Podcast

BBC

Society & Culture, Documentary, Personal Journals

4.3 • 2.6K Ratings

🗓️ 25 January 2025

⏱️ 27 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

There have been at least 12 police raids on gay clubs in Russia since November 2023, when the country’s Supreme court banned what they call 'the global LGBT movement'. BBC Russian Anastasia Golubeva has been talking to activists on the ground to find out how these restrictions are affecting them.

Five years ago, COVID-19 was spreading around the world, causing millions of deaths. How did the pandemic change our lives, and what lessons have we learnt from it? With Martin Yip from BBC Chinese and Dorcas Wangira, BBC Africa’s Health Correspondent.

Presented by Faranak Amidi. Produced by Alice Gioia, Hannah Dean and Caroline Ferguson.

(Photo: Faranak Amidi. Credit: Tricia Yourkevich.)

Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome to the documentary from the BBC World Service.
0:07.8	This is the fifth floor.
0:11.5	The fifth floor, you knowssonous.
0:15.9	This is the fifth floor at Farnak Amidi Sobath. This is the fifth floor at the heart of global storytelling with BBC journalists from all around the world.
0:29.0	I'm your host, Faranak Amidi.
0:37.3	It's Halloween night in Yaroslavl, a Russian city not too far from Moscow.
0:43.7	It's cold outside, but the atmosphere inside the local gay club is warm and friendly.
0:50.8	A drag queen is performing.
0:54.4	Suddenly, the doors burst open
0:57.0	and a police squad comes running in.
1:00.1	They round up the drag queens and arrest them.
1:03.2	One of them, Kirill, not his real name,
1:06.3	shared his account of what happened that night
1:08.6	with my colleague, Anastasia Golbava from BBC Russian.
1:13.1	They took them to the police station and they questioned them,
1:16.0	they looked at their phones and stuff like this.
1:18.4	He was in full makeup and in his dress on heels.
1:22.7	And after they let him go, he had like no money, no nothing on him.
1:27.4	So he had to walk like in the only morning,
1:29.5	like in his full like drag gown, you know, on the suits of Yugoslav, which must have been
1:34.9	funny in another situation, but not in this. There have been at least 12 police raids on
1:41.9	gay clubs in Russia since November 20, when the country's Supreme Court
	...

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