In late January, before the men had time to properly say goodbye to their parents, the Russian LGBT Network, an activist group, hastily arranged for the couple to fly one-way to Istanbul because Russian citizens do not need travel visas for Turkey. Not all of the details could be independently verified. Now, seven months later, the couple gave one of their first interviews to The Moscow Times, in which they described how they fled Russia and started their new lives in the Netherlands. Since, they have avoided speaking with the media, citing concerns for their safety. Their marriage was widely reported as the first same-sex union to be recognized in the country due to a legal loophole (they had tied the knot earlier in Copenhagen).īut after they started receiving threats and police warned them that their protection couldn’t be guaranteed, they decided to flee. In January this year, Stotsko and Yevgeny Voitsekhovsky, both 28, fled Russia. “We try not to talk to anybody who speaks Russian who might be able to call home and say where we are,” said Pavel Stotsko during a phone interview with both men from an unidentified location. Although the men are legal residents of the Netherlands as of this month, they are worried that someone could still come for them. The couple is not yet at ease yet in their new home.
