Quote Originally Posted by nulle View Post
To be homosexual - it was a crime in USSR.
And that shows how backward this country was...
Here is the timeline - decriminalisation of same-sex sexual activity in Europe (geographically) for the last 80 years:

1933 - Denmark
1942 - Switzerland
1944 - Sweden
1951 - Greece
1961 - Hungary
1962 - Czechoslovakia
1967 - England, Wales
1968 - East Germany, Bulgaria
1969 - West Germany
1971 - Austria, Finland
1972 - Norway
1973 - Malta
1977 - Croatia, Slovenia, Montenegro
1979 - Spain
1980 - Scotland
1982 - Nothern Ireland, Portugal
1983 - Guernsey
1989 - Liechtenstein
1990 - Jersey
1991 - Isle of Man, Ukraine
1992 - Estonia, Latvia
1993 - Ireland, Lithuania, Russia, Gibraltar
1994 - Serbia, Belarus
1995 - Albania, Moldova
1996 - Romania, Macedonia
1998 - Cyprus, Bosnia and Herzegovina
2000 - Azerbaijan, Georgia
2001 - San Marino
2002 - Armenia

As you can see, decriminalisation of same-sex sexual activity in the whole Europe was gradual process which took a couple of centuries to be completed. Also note that in many cases age of consent for gays was higher even after that, and was equalised years later. There is no need to single out Russia (or USSR) as backward in this respect, because most European countries were equally "backward" till some year in the 20th century. Of course, there were pioneers like Belgium, France, Netherlands, Andorra, Monaco, Luxembourg and Turkey (no punishment for homosexual activity since 18th or 19th century) and Poland (homosexuality was never illegal under Polish law). Russia was neither a pioneer, nor an outsider in this process.

By the way, here is one curious thing: seems that anti-homosexual laws always targeted men only (мужеложество), whereas lesbianism was not punished by the law. Why the bias?