Some 30 Russian and international gay rights activists held a brief protest on a central Moscow street on Saturday, defying a ban by the capital's authorities.
For five years, organisers have been rejected by authorities whenever they applied for permission to hold the march every year since 2006. Courts have time and again upheld the ban and rejected appeals as Moscow Mayor Yury Luzhkov described Pride parades as "satanic."
The brief protest, lasting about 5 or 10 minutes, was the first time that gay activists had managed to hold a peaceful demonstration after attempts over the last five years were marred by violence and arrests. No one was arrested this time as organisers played a "cat and mouse game" with police.
Led by Russian Nikolai Alexeyev and with Louis-Georges Tin, founder of the International Day Against Homophobia and President of the IDAHO Committee, British campaigner Peter Tatchell and German MP Volker Beck, the parade ran along Leningradsky Prospekt in central Moscow with a 20-metre wide rainbow flag and placards.
Despite the small numbers of participants, organiser Alekseyev called the parade a "huge success."
"Today, for the first time in five years, the Gay Pride was held peacefully in Moscow,” Alekseyev told RFE/RL's Russian Service. “There were no excesses and not a single arrest. This is the first time that no one was detained at a Moscow Gay Pride."
Tatchell, coordinator of the British gay human rights group OutRage!, described the parade as a "guerrilla-style hit-and-run" march that was over before the police arrived.
"When they turned up, officers scurried around aimlessly, searching for protesters to arrest. All escaped the police dragnet,” Tatchell wrote on his website. “All morning the Gay Pride organisers fed the police a steady stream of false information, via blogs and websites, concerning the location of the parade. They suggested that it would take place outside the EU Commission’s offices. As a result, the police put the whole area in total lockdown, closing nearby streets and metro stations, in bid to prevent protesters assembling there.
“The Russian gay activists have won a big political and morale victory. They staged their Gay Pride march, despite it being banned by the Mayor and the judges, and despite the draconian efforts by the police and FSB security services to prevent it from taking place. I pay tribute to the courage and ingenuity of the Russian gay and lesbian activists. They outwitted the Mayor and his police henchmen."
Alekseev said now that they have showed that it is possible to have a march in support of gay rights in Moscow, organisers are looking forward to a favourable verdict by the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg to have the first authorised Moscow Pride march next year. He is referring to a complaint he had filed several years ago, the Court is due to rule on the case this year.
Read about how organisers outwitted the secret police on Gayrussia.ru.