A tiny village in Russia has said it will not host the country’s first gay pride parade – despite activists sharing a letter that appeared to show the local government had already agreed to it.
“This information is not true, we will not hold any gay parades,” unnamed local authorities told the news wire TASS on Thursday.
The village of Yablonevy, on the outskirts of Novoulyanovsk city, has a population of about seven people. However, it was brought to national attention Wednesday when Moscow-based LGBT rights activist Nikolai Alexeyev wrote on the social network VK that the village had agreed to host a gay pride parade.
Alexeyev wrote that Novoulyanovsk’s mayor Svetlana Kosarinova agreed to host a parade in Yablonevy after plans to host an event in another nearby village with a population of over 100 fell through.
In his post, Alexeyev attached a letter that appeared to have been sent by Kosarinova approving the event, which said that the sparsely populated area of Yablonevy had been chosen because of the “population’s negative attitude” in the larger city.
The parade would take place on Aug. 26, 2018, Alexeyev wrote, calling it the “coolest event in Russian history.”
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