On November 27, a queer museum opened in St. Petersburg. Its creator is LGBTI community activist and local historian Petr Voskresensky.

Due to a law recently passed by the State Duma to completely ban LGBTQ propaganda, the museum will only be open for five days, after which its existence will become illegal. The Sever.Realii website reports the first and for the foreseeable future the last queer exhibition in Russia.

At the entrance, visitors are greeted by a portrait of Pyotr Tchaikovsky, a Russian composer and one of the most famous homosexuals of Tsarist Russia. After visiting the composer’s museum in Klin, Voskrishchensky had the idea to create a queer museum. He spent two and a half years putting together a collection of art for him.

According to Voskrishensky, the founder of the Tchaikovsky Museum, the brother of the famous composer Modestos, also a homosexual, built a small house on the estate where he himself lived. And in the office of Modest Tchaikovsky, you can see the preserved original interior of that time, Voskrishensky explains.

Recognizable “fun” interiors of the 19th century are sculptures, antiques and figurines depicting young men. For example, the hero of ancient Greek mythology Narcissus, who is perceived not only as a symbol of pride, but also as a symbol of same-sex love. Or Antinous, lover of the Roman Emperor Hadrian. Since the 18th century, his images have been reproduced, including as a queer symbol.

The museum collection has three semi-precious stones with a relief image of Antinous. Two of them were created in the Soviet Union in the 1950s, when homosexuals were still sent to the Gulag for “sodomy”. The fourth relief image of Antinous is pinned to the shirt of Peter Voskritsensky himself.

The collection of the Queer-Museum of St. Petersburg also contains the first edition of the treatise by the priest Pavel Florensky “The Pillar and Ground of the Truth” (1914). Contemporaries praised the book as a declaration of friendship with homosexual overtones and accused the priest of trying to “glorify ancient customs.”

In total, the exhibition includes about three dozen objects that show how same-sex love and transsexualism have manifested themselves in art over the past centuries. For several years, Peter Voskrishensky searched the Internet, second-hand stores and auctions for all the figurines and rare books.

The exhibition will officially close in five days. Piotr Voskritsensky does not rule out that his museum will become a “museum of exile” or a “museum of refugees”, possibly homosexuals, when he opens it in another, freer country. And he hopes that in the future all the exhibits will again be able to exhibit legally in Russia.

Source: Freedom