Gay Propaganda: Russian Love Stories

ANTON* & GEORGY* “We’re not lying. We’re just not telling them everything.”

Anton and Georgy met in Moscow in 1995. Anton had just graduated from college with a degree in economics and finance. He landed his first job at a merchandising company. Georgy worked at the same company as a warehouse coordinator. Ten years prior, he’d moved to Moscow from Batumi, Georgia to go to school. Today, Anton, 41, is the financial manager at a construction company and Georgy, 42, heads the logistics division at a merchandising company. Three years ago, they had twins. Two boys.

ANTON

My friend got me hired. Georgy was also hired on someone’s recommendation a little before me. We saw each other at work a lot. I had never been attracted to men from the Caucuses, but Georgy seemed interesting, although he didn’t seem to notice me at all.

GEORGY

I tried to be careful at work. I was in charge of hundreds of people and it’s not the kind of situation where you want to express your feelings.

ANTON

My friend told me that Georgy also liked men. I started trying to figure out how to approach him. I picked a moment when he was alone, came up to him, and asked him whether he wanted to go to the club with me. He said, “No, I don’t.” This was the end of our first romantic interaction.

GEORGY

He was always being sent over to me from the other department. I understood and felt that he was gay before he knew that about me. I really liked Anton, I liked the way he talked, the way he looked, the way he naively approached me and asked me out to the club. I didn’t want to go out with him because, at that time, I was seeing someone else.

ANTON

Once, when I was walking home from work he came up to me and asked if we could go together. We didn’t live far from each other. We struck up a conversation. That’s how we started going home from work together. One day we were on the train and all the lights went off. Suddenly, I felt him put his arm around me and press me to him. After that, we slowly started dating. My feelings kept getting stronger. But it was hard for Georgy to leave his boyfriend. He was really worried about hurting him.

GEORGY

I ended up breaking up with him and moving in with Anton. I thought that I was doing something really bad. I’d stopped having feelings for him, but I still felt responsible. Anton was the one I had real feelings for.

ANTON

One day we went out to the club. We didn’t have any money for drinks. We bought alcohol at the store and, like normal dignified people, we’d go outside to drink on the street. Hanging out outside the club was the funnest part. We were talking to these girls there and one of them, Natasha, asked me to go to her parents’ house and tell them I was her boyfriend. I asked her to do the same thing for me. After that, my parents believed I was living with Natasha.

Sometimes my parents would call me out of the blue and tell me that they were going to stop by. Georgy and I would have to urgently get a hold of Natasha. She would rush over and we would throw her clothes around the apartment. When my parents came over, the three of us would meet them. Georgy pretended to be a friend of ours who had just stopped in.

GEORGY

My parents don’t know anything. My father had a stroke, and none of them were up to this kind of thing. For eight years, all of the strength and time my family had went toward his rehabilitation. No one was concerned with my personal life. My father died in 2005. My mother and I talk on the phone every other day and I go back to Georgia once a year. But my mother came to Moscow for the first time in fifteen or so years only last year. I don’t talk to her about these things. Periodically, I tell her that I have a girlfriend. My relatives insist on my getting married, offering to introduce me to friends of friends and relatives. They worry a lot, of course. But I’ll never tell my mother under any circumstances. That’s what I decided. I know it would be a blow to her.

ANTON

We’re just trying to look out for our parents. I’m very close to mine, but I have never told them about my sexual orientation. My parents really love me and I know that they would forgive me and understand. But they’d be very upset and blame themselves. I don’t explain to them that it’s not a matter of how they raised me. I’d rather go through that unpleasantness and take the sin of lying upon on my own soul, because at least they’re happy in their ignorance.

GEORGY

We’re not lying. We’re just not telling them everything. We used to be very upset about it, but now we’re over it.

ANTON

We lived that way for a long time, playing that game, until Natasha asked us to marry her. I did it. We introduced our parents to each other. It went well, both of our parents are very tactful, no one asked any unnecessary questions. When we got our marriage license, our parents asked us to have a small dinner to celebrate our wedding. Then they wanted to invite grandma, aunt, uncle, and so on. It ended up that we had to go to the restaurant in five cars. Georgy was the witness. Our friends who had come to the wedding and knew the truth would go up to me and Georgy and give us money and congratulate us as though it were our wedding.

GEORGY

The bride’s friends knew everything, too. Only the relatives were in the dark.

ANTON

However, when we started thinking about kids, Natasha said that she wasn’t ready yet. That’s when we decided to get a divorce. There were also a couple of legal reasons. Georgy and I wanted to buy an apartment and take out a loan. It was easier this way.

GEORGY

Natasha is still a very close friend of ours. We have a good relationship.

ANTON

After some time, we started talking about having children again. We had been together for thirteen years and decided that we were ready to become fathers. On Gay.ru, we saw an ad that a woman had put up, where it said that she was looking for men to have children with. We started corresponding and then met up. She turned out to be a very interesting person, a poet.

GEORGY

She explained that she really wanted children, that she was ready to become a mother. She wanted her child to have a father.

ANTON

At a certain point, when it came time to make a decision, I got a little scared and wanted to backpedal. Then we saw her again and she threw her arms around both of us. “Don’t get scared. We don’t need any dads but you.”

We kept spending time together and growing closer. One day she called us and said, “I’m having twins.” We were insanely happy. Soon, we had two boys.

Then it turned out that one of them was disabled. The doctors diagnosed him with achondroplasia. For a while, this really upset me. I didn’t know what to do. I got depressed. It was hard on his mother, too.

GEORGY

For the first three months, we spent all of our time with them. As soon as we got off work, we’d go see them. I bathed them, then we’d take turns swaddling them, and we wouldn’t go home until they went to bed. Now they’re three and a half. They’re wonderful.

ANTON

They’re in preschool, and they live with their mother during the week. My mother picks them up from preschool a lot of the time. We see them after work, when we go to their house, have dinner together, and put them to bed. They spend Saturdays at our house.

My parents think that this woman and I used to date and that’s why we have these kids. They know I don’t live with her and that I live with Georgy. I think that they probably suspect something by now, but they don’t ask about it. It’s like “don’t ask, don’t tell.”

GEORGY

I believe we’re raising our kids so it won’t be hard for them to figure out what their family is like. They’re already very smart. We’re going to do everything to make sure that they’re free, normal boys. But I don’t want to think about the future yet, because one of our sons has serious health issues and he has to undergo a series of surgeries. He’s an amazing boy. Bright, artistic, witty. The biggest problem for us is his health.

ANTON

If it weren’t for his health problems, we’d be the happiest people alive.

GEORGY

It may be too early to talk about this, but I really want to have a daughter. I drive around and imagine how amazing it would be if they had a sister. I’d be so happy.

ANTON

In all of the eighteen years that we’ve been together we haven’t had one serious fight. It used to be that we’d argue and I’d run out of the house. Georgy would always run after me and find me. I have never had any doubt that he would come after me and I never really wanted to run away from him. I have always been amazed with Georgy’s generosity, and with how beautifully and broadly he sees the world.

GEORGY

This is probably what it means to have real feelings. We knew from the very beginning that we were right for each other; I think it’s because of this that we still have such strong feelings. Sometimes, we’re even embarrassed to say how long we’ve been together.