Gay Propaganda: Russian Love Stories

OLGERTA & LIZA* “I had grey hair, but I felt like a 15-year-old boy.”

Olgerta and Liza met five years ago at the Moscow Gay and Lesbian Archive. Created in the beginning of the 1990s, it holds several thousand items on the history of the LGBT movement in the Soviet Union and Russia. Almost fifteen years ago, Olgerta founded the radical feminist magazine Ostrov [“Island”], which comes out once every three months with a print run of two hundred copies. She can often be found in the Archive. Liza moved to Russia from Europe thirty years ago, and in Moscow she worked as a translator and teacher. She’d recently been through a difficult break-up, ending a long-term relationship, and that evening, her friends had invited her to the Archive to “talk about books.”

LIZA

I was told that all the guests had to bring a present. So I brought something for the host and got comfortable in the kitchen. The first thing I noticed about her were her hands. The way they looked just floored me. I watched how they held a teacup, and thought about how I wanted to give myself over to these hands. I was smitten.

OLGERTA

I was almost 50—a respectable lady. I had been living with a woman for seven-and-a-half years. I thought the love we had was wonderful. Then, one evening, I was sitting in the kitchen and drinking tea. As usual when I drink tea, I was kind of massaging my cup. Suddenly, a girl I know stopped by with this red-haired woman.

I was very impressed with how well Liza spoke Russian. We started having a conversation and I saw that she was also an interesting person. It’s rare to meet a woman who is so self-sufficient. I had a friend at that time who was very unhappy being single and had asked me to help find her a girlfriend. I looked at Liza and thought, here’s a suitable candidate.

LIZA

At a certain point during the evening, it turned out that Olgerta and I lived near each other. She volunteered to go back to the neighborhood with me, which was nice because I didn’t want to make that long trip from the Archive to my house by myself.

OLGERTA

We both lived outside of Moscow, on more or less the same train line, so we walked to the station together. We got on the same train, rode together for half an hour, and then I got off and switched trains.

LIZA

I was single at the time. The end of my previous relationship had a lot of ugly consequences. I lost almost all of my friends. And I had lost of a lot of people during the relationship itself. After the break-up I was dragged to all sorts of places. None of it appealed to me. When I was invited to the Archive, I was happy because I could finally start socializing, I could read something and talk about books. But I wasn’t thinking about starting a new relationship.

OLGERTA

I really did want to set Liza up with my friend, but for some reason we couldn’t arrange their meeting. It was like I was setting my friend up, but doing the dating myself. It was fun. I was becoming involved. And at one point I started writing her emails every day.

LIZA

She would intuit all of my interests and moods in her letters. I was completely amazed by them. I liked to read them as soon as I got to work.

OLGERTA

I got all tangled up in my relationships. I couldn’t leave the woman I was with because she really hadn’t done anything wrong. We both lived in my apartment. We had certain obligations to one another and I couldn’t just kick her out. I had nowhere else to go. I had this grey hair, but I was so overwhelmed that I felt like a 15-year-old boy.

Christmas was coming up and I really wanted to get Liza a present. I went to half the stores in Moscow looking for jade because Liza’s eyes are pure jade. I found a necklace. On December 25, I went to the Archive to give it to her. When I showed up, I saw that some other women were flirting with Liza. I felt like everything was falling apart.

LIZA

That was really something. I was sitting on a couch and talking to someone. Somebody had brought me a slice of cake and a cup of tea. Olgerta was so angry that someone had beat her to the punch. I saw this out of the corner of my eye, but didn’t understand what was going on.

OLGERTA

We decided to have a soiree at our apartment outside of Moscow. A few friends would come over and we’d play guitar and sing. It was important to me that Liza come because I’d planned this whole pre-New Year’s party so that Liza could see how I live and in order to spend time with her. But Liza wrote me to tell me that she would be on the jury for a film festival that day and wouldn’t get off until late.

I was very upset by this and the idea of the soiree had completely lost its meaning. In response, I wrote that we needed to break off our relationship. I sent that letter out on Friday, and on Sunday we were having friends over. I knew that she only checked her email at work so she wouldn’t get it on Friday night. So I wasn’t expecting anything.

LIZA

On Saturday I went to Gorky Park with my friends to go ice-skating. After that, we stayed too long at a café and I ended up missing my train. It had been a year since my big break up and I was finally making new friends. I ended up staying over at one of their houses. My friend started decorating her apartment and putting little Christmas trees everywhere. But I was so tired after ice-skating that I didn’t partake in the festivities. Instead, I decided to check my email. I knew that for me to get Olgerta’s letter Monday morning she would have had to write it Friday night. I opened the letter from Olgerta where she said that she was upset because without me the party had lost its meaning to her and now we should break off our relationship.

I was dumbstruck. I didn’t know that I meant so much to her. I couldn’t live without her letters. They made me feel like I was a little seed that was getting watered. I felt like I was growing and slowly starting to bloom. I couldn’t imagine losing that.

I called Olgerta and told her I would try to come. The next day, after being on the jury, I ran away. I felt bad showing up empty handed, but I had received a beautiful rose as a member of the jury. And I thought that in the absence of any alternative, this would make a good present. The rose was of a rare color and had a long stem. It was December 28 and ten degrees below zero outside so I took the flower and hid it under my coat. To avoid damaging the flower, I couldn’t bend or sit down. But then I had another problem; who would I give this rose to? I knew that I had to give it to the other woman, because if I gave it to Olgerta, there would be confusion.

OLGERTA

At the party, it became obvious that we couldn’t stay apart. I walked her back to the train and took her hand when we had to cross the street. We kissed for the first time that evening, on the cheek.

We spent New Year’s separately. My wife and I had tickets to go to Italy. We spent the night at the airport. When we were taking off, Masha finally asked, “What’s going on with you?” Instead of saying anything, I broke down in tears. And she did, too.

We spent a week traveling through Italy. She saw that this was bigger than me. But it was all very hard. On January 10, we came back to Moscow and Masha went to sleep at her friend’s house. I called Liza and invited her over. We’ve been together since then.

LIZA

For the last five years on the tenth of every month, she asks me, “Would you like to come over?”

OLGERTA

And for the last five years on the twenty-eighth of every month I get a rose.