Russia is creating a database of LGBTQ+ citizens, report says
Database reportedly will be used to track movements of LGBTQ+ Russians.
Russia’s Interior Ministry is compiling a sweeping electronic database of LGBTQ+ people in the country, Meduza, a Latvia-based independent Russian-language news outlet, reported recently.
LGBTQ Nation published this report based on the Meduza article:
Citing anonymous sources at the Interior Ministry, [Meduza] reported that the Orwellian plan has been in discussion since last year after Russia’s Supreme Court outlawed the so-called “international LGBT movement” as an “extremist organization” at the urging of President Vladimir Putin.
The database will be a “large-scale” system to track members of the LGBTQ+ community at large, according to sources.
The plans were corroborated by Dmitry Chukreyev, an official with the Civic Chamber of Yekaterinburg, Russia’s fourth largest city. He said police have been keeping informal lists of LGBTQ+ individuals since the Supreme Court ruling was announced.
In 2024, police conducted at least 42 raids on LGBTQ+-friendly venues across Russia, according to an investigation by independent news outlet Current Time and human rights organization Sphere. Beatings, forced confinement, and sadistic humiliations based on sexual and gender identities are regular features of the sweeps.
Russian officials and state-aligned media regularly describe Russia’s LGBTQ+ community as a network of “paramilitary groups” calling for an “open gender war,” who engage in “dehumanization” and “devil worship,” the outlet reports. Officials and media credit security forces’ actions with “suppressing” anti-state activity.
The raids, in addition to intimidating the queer community at large and forcing the closure of several venues, have provided security officials with information that would supply an electronic LGBTQ+ registry.
An employee at a Siberian queer establishment told Meduza, “Security forces copied the entire database from the computer where we keep track of reservations,” obtaining information about hundreds of clients. Fingerprints and mouth swabs were collected from visitors during a raid the Eden club in Chelyabinsk, and employees and patrons at the Orenburg club Pose were forced to state their registered residential address on camera.
At a house party raided by security forces in Leningrad Oblast, guests were forced to surrender their passports and unlock their phones; if someone refused, the others were subjected to collective punishment and forced to squat. …
While security forces continue to collect data in ever-more sadistic operations, progress on a full-scale LGBTQ+ registry has been hampered by Putin’s other current obsession: the expansion of Greater Russia through his war on Ukraine. Forces assigned to that conflict are draining the ranks of police who would otherwise be hunting down members of the “international LGBT movement.”
But the raids continue to produce results.
One sweep at a restaurant and club in Gorno-Altaysk last year yielded data on 80 patrons and staff alone, an employee said.
“We know all of you now,” security forces repeated as the raid dragged on.
Meduza listed the following raids that collected information for the database:
- In the Krasnoyarsk bar Elton, operatives seized recordings from surveillance cameras and found on them “two or three moments where people of the same sex… hugging and kissing.”
- The oldest gay club in St. Petersburg, “Central Station” (operated from 2005 to 2023), experienced more than ten searches with video recording before closing.
- At a Siberian queer establishment, an employee told Meduza, “security forces copied the entire database from the computer where we keep track of reservations,” obtaining information about hundreds of clients.
- Having burst into an erotic party in the Urals, the police squad first asked: “Are there any gays and lesbians here?” and then blocked the entrances and exits so that not one of the 170 guests left without checking their documents.
- Fingerprints and mouth swabs were collected from visitors to the Chelyabinsk club “Eden” .
- During a raid, artists from the Orenburg club Pose were forced to state their registered residential address on camera.
- At Full House in Petrozavodsk, everyone present had their phones taken away .
- At a house party in Koltushi, Leningrad Oblast, security forces demanded that guests not only hand over their passports, but also unlock all their devices; if someone refused, the operatives forced the rest to squat.
