Originally Posted by
Nikolya I was in Vladimir a couple of weeks ago where I stayed in a hostel for three nights. One night I talked to two other guests, two Russian women from Moscow, both probably in their late 20s or early 30s. One had been in western Europe, and began talking about what she especially disliked about it: the fact that there are so many - openly - homosexual couples. This was followed by long monologues by both women about how awful геи (gays) really are, and how happy they were to live in Russia where there are not that many (their words).
Understandably, I quickly lost interest in speaking with them, and found another place in the hostel to sit. Ten minutes later the owner of the hostel walked up to me, and told me that he had overheard the conversation between me and the women. He seemed genuinely sorry and wanted to excuse his fellow Russians, explaining that the women were simple and did not know what they were talking about. I was happy to hear that the negative attitude towards homosexual people was not shared by all Russians - at least for a minute. However, I soon realised that he wanted to say sorry simply because I was not supposed to hear what they had told me. "They don't meet many European people, they don't know that we can not say directly to European people that we hate homosexuals," and he then continued explaining that he, however, agrees totally with the women, and further described homosexuals as being some of the worst scum on earth.
This is not meant to be generalisation - all Russian do not hate or dislike homosexuals. It is simply a funny story, albeit tragic and disturbing.