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LGBTQIA+ Studies Resources: Russian Federation: Periodicals

1/10

Cover of 1/10, issue 6(93)1/10: газета для всех

1/10 was a newspaper aimed at gay males and featuring articles about culture, politics, AIDS, sex and sexual health, selected gay rights news from around the world, fiction and poetry, and book reviews, all delivered in a rather playful tone. It also included letters to the editor, erotic photography, bawdy cartoons, horoscopes, crossword puzzles, personals, and advertisements. The name of the newspaper refers to the Kinsey Report statistic that 10% of males are homosexual (Essig 1999: 210). 1/10 varied in length, from 10 to 35 pages, and was printed with a "suggested for boys and girls over the age of 18" recommendation. With its 18th issue, the newspaper's production moved to Prague along with its editor-in-chief Dmitrii Lychev. The sole issue of the English-language version of the newspaper, 1/10 International was published in 1994.

АРГО

АРГО: иллюстрированный эротический литературно-публицистический и рекламный журнал для геев

ARGO, acronym for Association for the Equal Rights of Homosexuals (Assotsiatsiia za ravnye prava gomoseksualov), was an entertainment magazine aimed at gay males and one of Vladislav Ortanov's two major publishing projects after his split with Tema (the other being RISK). The thick (70-80 pages) publication became full color with the third issue and achieved impressive print runs. Ortanov created ARGO when RISK got into trouble with authorities for its erotic content (Кирсанов 2005: 427). ARGO focused on lighter topics, largely avoiding politics or health. The magazine featured erotic photography, reprints from Western gay press, erotic fiction and poetry by Russian authors, excerpts from authors like Oscar Wilde, Jean Genet and James Baldwin (translated into Russian, of course), articles about gay entertainment and travel, film reviews, interviews, bawdy cartoons, personals and advertisements.

  • Title translation: ARGO: illustrated erotic literary/opinion journalism and advertising journal for gays
  • Place of publication: Moscow
  • Dates of publication: 1994-1997
  • Editor(s): Vladislav Ortanov, Konstantin Evgen'ev (pseudonym of Dmitrii Kuz'min)
  • Advertised circulation: print run of issue 2: 5,000 copies; issue 3 and 4: 10,000 copies, issue 5: 5,000 copies
  • Availability:

Зеркало

Зеркало: информационный бюллетень библиотеки лесбиянок и геев

Zerkalo was the newsletter of the Library of Lesbians and Gays (AKA GenderDoc). It offered a chronicle of gay and lesbian news and events (conferences, performances, film screenings) with brief editorial commentary, an annotated bibliography of mainstream Russian press coverage of gay and lesbian issues, and book and film reviews. Давыдов (2017) cites an English-language version with a circulation of 50-60 copies.

  • Title translation: Mirror: information bulletin of the Library of lesbians and gays
  • Place of publication: Moscow
  • Dates of publication: 1995-1998
  • Editor(s): Viktor Oboin
  • Advertised circulation: 200 copies
  • Availability:

Импульс

Cover of Impul's 1-2 1993Импульс: АнтиСПИД, искусство, публицистика

Impul's was a newspaper established by Nikolai Sivolobov. It was rare publication from this period to include contributions from women and an entire lesbian section, although most of the content remained by and for men. Staff of issue 1/2(1993) included Misha Anikeev, Irina Mal'tseva, Sergei Vereshchagin. The newspaper included LGBT news items, fiction, poetry, art, letters to the editor, interviews, articles on AIDS and sexual health, personals, and advertisements.

  • Title translation: Impulse: anti-AIDS, art, opinion journalism
  • Place of publication: Moscow
  • Dates of publication: 1992-1997?
  • Editor(s): Vit Vladimirov
  • Advertised circulation: print runs reached 999 copies.
  • Availability:

Информационный бюллетень (Центр Треугольник)

Информационный бюллетень (Центр Треугольник)

The generically titled Informatsionnyi biulleten' was the newsletter of Treugol'nik, Moscow's organization of gays, lesbians and bisexuals, after it was revived by an ILGA grant. A predecessor publication, called  simply Treugol'nik (later Treugol'nik soobshchaet), was produced sporadically 1993-1994, and at least 9 issues were published (Essig 1999: 72); however, I was not able to locate any holdings in the US. Treugol'nik's board of directors included some of the most prominent Moscow activists of the time: Masha Gessen, Evgeniia Debrianskaia, Roman Kalinin, V. Kurskaia, Dmitrii Lychev, P. Masal'skii, N. Nedzel'skii, Vladislav Ortanov and IU. Sarankov. The newsletter varied in length from 2 to 12 pages and featured the organization's manifestos and reports on activities, gay rights news from around the world, chronicles of events, conference reports, book and journal reviews, press digests, announcements about gay clubs, and, starting with issue 5(1996), personal ads. The newsletter was also notable for including a separate section for lesbians and devoting half of issue 3(1996) to transsexuals.

Квир

Cover of KvirКвир

Kvir was probably the most successful print periodical aimed at gay men in Russia. It ran for nearly a decade, enjoyed high print runs and a distribution that extended well beyond the capital cities and even into other formerly Soviet republics. At 64-80 pages, this glossy entertainment magazine had high production values. In addition to erotic photography it featured celebrity interviews and a range of articles, from profiles of prominent cultural figures like Sergei Paradzhanov or Keith Haring, to travel, fashion and sex, as well as book, film, and music reviews, and, of course, advertisements. Kvir also had a book publishing division, producing chiefly works of fiction and literary anthologies.

  • Title translation: Cyrilicization of the term "queer"
  • Place of publication: Moscow
  • Dates of publication: 2003-2012
  • Editor(s): Ed Mishin, Vladimir Voloshin
  • Advertised Circulation: between 20,000 and 33,000 copies

Органическая леди

Органическая леди

Organicheskaia ledi was a newsletter aimed at lesbians that also published fiction and poetry, interviews, club reviews, horoscopes and crossword puzzles (Харитонова 2013).

  • Title translation: Organic lady
  • Place of publication: Moscow
  • Dates of publication: 1998-2000
  • Editor(s): Svetlana Vol'naia
  • Availability:

Остров

Остров: художественно-публицистический радикально-феминистский журнал

Ostrov was a quarterly journal that featured prose and poetry, primarily, though not exclusively by lesbian authors, interviews, essays on cultural topics, feminism, LGBT rights and homophobia by female and male authors, book and film reviews, and occasional letters to the editor. The journal also offered "archival" publications, such as Sofia Parnok's correspondence, and translations, such as chapters from David Tuller's book Cracks in the Iron Closet. The only advertisements were for Elena Grigor'eva's Archive of Lesbians and Gays and for LGBT support and rape crisis hot lines. Starting with 2010, Ostrov began to include more explicitly political content, peaking in 2013.  Issues 24(2005) and 37(2008) include indexes to 2002-2008 content. The editors also produced 29 thematic literary supplements. UNC copies of issues from 2000-2005 appear to be 2006 reprints. Ostrov was the longest-running out of all Russian LGBT publications.

  • Title translation: Island: arts/opinion journalism radical feminist journal
  • Place of publication: Moscow
  • Dates of publication: 1999-2013?
  • Editor(s): Ol'ga Gert (Ol'gerta Kharitonova)
  • Advertised circulation: 200-300 copies
  • Availability:

Литературное приложение к журналу Остров

29 issues of the Literary supplement to Ostrov have been published. Each issue typically featured the work of a single author.

  • Title translation: Literary supplement to the journal Ostrov
  • Place of publication: Moscow
  • Dates of publication: 2000-2013
  • Editor(s): Ol'ga Gert (Ol'gerta Kharitonova)
  • Advertised circulation: 200-300 copies
  • Availability:

Партнер(Ша!)

Партнер(Ша!): литературное приложение к газете «Импульс»

Initially issued as a "literary supplement" to newspaper Impul's, Partner(Sha!) outlived its "parent" publication and evolved from consisting primarily of erotic photographs and bawdy poetry (chastushki) to developing a consistent anti-AIDS focus and including domestic and translated fiction, sexual health and AIDS information, essays on homophobia, gay culture, etc., as well as letters to the editor, advertisement, and personals. Consequently, the magazine also expanded in size and format. Editor Mikhail Anikeev explained the title in a 1994 interview in issue 4 of Treugol'nik: "'Sha!' is a separate word. It is aimed at those who considers gays defective. Something like 'shut up!'." With its final double issue from 1997, the title changed to simply "Partner".

  • Title translation: title is a play on words: "-sha" is the feminine ending to the cognate partner, but also an interjection meaning "shut up!"
  • Place of publication: Moscow
  • Date of publication: 1993-1997
  • Editor(s): Mikhail Anikeev, Vit Vladimirov
  • Advertised circulation: 999 copies
  • Availability:

Приложение к АДЭЛФЕ

Cover of Приложение к АдэлфеПриложение к Адэлфе

Prilozhenie k Adelfe was a photocopied journal produced by the lesbian arts association MOLLI (Moskovskoe ob"edinenie lesbianok literatury i iskusstva). It was billed as a supplement to the journal Adelfe, which seems to never have been published. The first issues contained much of the material intended for Adelfe (with third issue, the journal adjusted its name to Adelfe. Prilozhenie). MOLLI was founded in 1990 with the aim of developing tolerance and respect for lesbians among Russian heterosexual majority by promoting lesbian art and writing. Journal contents included fiction, poetry, translations into Russian of various English-language materials (Martina Navrátilová's autobiography, articles from American LGBT press), essays on lesbian identity, interviews, and health information.

  • Title translation: Supplement to Adelfe
  • Place of publication: Moscow
  • Dates of publication: 1995-1996?
  • Editor(s): Elena TSertlikh, Mila Ugol'kova, Tat'iana Ivanova
  • Availability:

РИСК

РИСК

RISK (acronym for Russian words for equality, sincerity, freedom and compromise) was conceived as a less radical alternative to Tema by former Tema creator Vladislav Ortanov. It offered LGBT rights news, legal and sexual health advice, articles on gay culture, reports on gay events, erotic photography, humor, personals, and advertisements, aimed primarily, though not exclusively, at a male audience. 7 issues (including a few double issues) were published between 1990 and 1994, and the magazine doubled in size, from 24 to 48 pages. UNC unfortunately does not hold any issues from this early incarnation of RISK. In 1995, Ortanov handed the publication over to Dmitrii Kuz'min who transformed RISK into more of a radical high-brow literary journal exploring the topic of homosexuality through fiction, poetry and essays, and attracting as contributors a who's who of Russian experimental letters, from Dmitrii Prigov to Dmitrii Volchek to Linor Goralik. The journal also published translations into Russian (e.g. Michel Foucault) and reprints of older texts that touched on the subject of homosexuality (Zinaida Gippius, Anastasiia Tsvetaeva). 4 issues of the revamped RISK were published.

  • Title translation: RISK
  • Place of publication: Moscow
  • Dates of publication: 1990-2002
  • Editor(s): Vladislav Ortanov, Dmitrii Kuz'min, Egor Gorodetskii, IAroslav Mogutin
  • Advertised circulation: Issue 1: 999 copies (Wockner, 1991)
  • Availability:

Тема

Cover of TемаТема

Tema was the first ever newspaper aimed at gays and lesbians in Russia and had one of the widest circulations out of any such publications. Initially it billed itself as a mouthpiece of the semi-fictitious Association of sexual minorities (Assotsiatsiia seksual'nykh men'shinstv). It was first produced as a photocopied 4-page zine/newsletter, then, from 1991 as an officially registered newspaper, growing in length to 22 pages. The newspaper was explicitly political and for the time rather radical and provocative, focusing on gay rights and actively campaigning for the repeal of Article 121 and publishing accounts of individuals persecuted under this law. The newspaper was also associated with radical political parties of which its editor-in-chief Roman Kalinin was a member -- the Democratic Union, the first opposition party in the USSR, and the Libertarian Party of the USSR. Tema featured human rights news from around the world, articles on politics, sexual health and gay culture, including translations from Western LGBT press, interviews letters to the editor, and personals. Although Tema retained its slogan as a "newspaper for gays and lesbians" throughout its existence, the content became almost exclusively male-centric after the first couple of issues. An ideological split over radicalism led to the departure of Vladislav Ortanov after the third issue.

Cover image source: Онлайн музей истории ЛГБТ в России

Ты

Ты

Ty was an illustrated magazine aimed at gays and lesbians, though primarily at gay men. It was affiliated with the AIDS support organization My i Vy (Essig 1999: 92). The journal contained reports on activities of LGBT organizations, AIDS and other health information, interviews, and articles about gay culture (Давыдов 2017).

  • Title translation: You
  • Dates of publication: 1992(?)-1993
  • advertised circulation: 10,000 copies
  • Availability:

Уранус

Уранус

This is the sole issue of this ambitious magazine aimed at gay males, established and published by Andrei Men'shikov. Although a second issue was announced, it was never published (Кирсанов 2005: 407). The first issue included translations of essays by sexologists Siegfried Schnabl & Kurt Starke, William Masters & Virginia Johnson, extracts from Jean-Paul Sartre, Stanisław Lem, Leopold von Sacher-Masoch, Vasilii Rozanov, and Petronius' Satyricon, fiction by editor Mikhail Anikeev and Evgenii Popov, Anikeev's essay on homosexuality in the Bible, Beardsley-inspired art by Vadim Valov and interview with the artist, a preview of the art of S. Grekov (intended to be featured in subsequent issue), erotic photographs and erotic drawings. The magazine had higher production values then some of its contemporary publications, used higher-quality paper and was printed in full color.

  • Title translation: Uranus
  • Place of publication: Moscow
  • Dates of publication: 1995
  • Editor(s): Mikhail Anikeev
  • Availability:

Шанс курьер

Шанс курьер (Шанс)

Shans kur'er was an officially registered newspaper published in Rostov-na-Donu 1992-1993(?) (Ролдугина 2021). Its tagline was "Культурно-просветительная газета" (a cultural-educational newspaper).

  • Title translated: Chance courier
  • Place of publication: Rostov-na-Donu
  • Dates of publication: 1992-1993?
  • Availability:

Agens magazine

Cover of AgensAgens magazine: журнал о девушках для девушек

Agens was a glossy magazine aimed at lesbians. The pilot issue included LGBT rights news from around the world, reactions to the "Gay propaganda" law, interviews (founder of LGBT basketball league in Saint Petersburg, club owners, Russian student in France), a report on an LGBT film festival, a how-to article on making short films, articles on coming out, sex, fitness, fashion, advertising aimed at LGBT people, a primer on LGBT symbols, and plenty of photographs. It seems like only two issues of this magazine were published.

  • Title translation: Agens magazine: magazine about girls for girls
  • Place of publication: Moscow
  • Publication dates: 2013
  • Editor(s): Milena Cherniavskaia
  • Advertised circulation: 999 copies
  • Availability:

Gay, славяне!

Cover of Gay, slaviane, no. 1Gay, славяне!

Gay, slaviane! was a "thick" literary journal published by the Saint Petersburg LGBT organization The Tchaikovsky Fund (Fond Chaikovskogo). It was especially notable for counting as one of its editors Gennadii Trifonov, the openly gay author and poet who was imprisoned in the 1970s for his homosexuality and his dissident literary activities (Essig 1999: 212). The journal published fiction and poetry, including by Trifonov himself, Ol'ga Krauze, and a new generation of authors, as well as translations into Russian, investigative journalism by Ol'ga Zhuk and articles on legal persecution and prison experiences of Russian gays.

  • Title translation: Gay, Slavs! (a play on the pan-Slavic anthem "Hey, Slavs")
  • Place of publication: Saint Petersburg
  • Dates of publication: 1993-1994
  • Editor(s): Sergei Shcherbakov, Gennadii Trifonov
  • Advertised circulation: 5,000 copies
  • Availability:

Image source: http://az.gay.ru/pub-img/book/483_1.jpg

Labrys

Labrys No. 1 coverLabrys : тематический альманах

Labrys was a literary journal aimed at lesbians.

  • Title translation: Labrys: thematic almanac
  • Dates of publication: 2004-?
  • Availability:

Image source: http://az.gay.ru/pub-img/book/391_1.jpg

Pinx

Pinx: жизнь в розовом свете

Pinx was a glossy magazine aimed at lesbians, published by Lesbi.ru and initially co-published with Prosvetitel'skii tsentr "IA i IA". The 16-page magazine featured celebrity news, profiles, and interviews, short articles on lesbian issues and centerfold posters. In its final year, the magazine transformed into a 90+ page literary journal, retaining a short glossy celebrity section, but devoting the rest of the pages to fiction and poetry. 35 issues of Pinx were published.

  • Title translation: Pinx: life in pink
  • Place of publication: Moscow
  • Dates of publication: 2006-2011
  • Advertised circulation: 999 copies
  • Availability:

Publications with no holdings in WorldCat

  • Апполон (Санкт-Петербург, 200?-200?). Source: Давыдов 2018.
  • Арабескi (Санкт-Петербург, 1993). Source: Харитонова 2013; Давыдов 2018.
  • Весёлый человек (Пенза, 1993-1999). Source: Ролдугина 2021; Давыдов 2018.
  • В тему (Архангельск, 2007-?). Source: Давыдов 2017.
  • Гей-диалог (Нижний Тагил, 1993-?). Source: Ролдугина 2021; Давыдов, 2017.
  • Гей-правда (Best, Netherlands, 1990-?). Source: Давыдов 2018.
  • Голубок (Чита, 1997-2001). Source: Ролдугина 2021; Давыдов, 2017.
  • Кристофер (Russian Christopher Street gay magazine; Санкт-Петербург, 1992). Source: Давыдов 2018.
  • Лабрис (Санкт-Петербург, 1998-1999). Харитонова 2013; Давыдов 2018.
  • Ль (2004-2005). Source: Давыдов 2018.
  • Мой журнал для немногих (1995). Source: Давыдов 2018.
  • Омская тема (Омск, 1991-?). Source: Ролдугина 2021; Давыдов 2017.
  • Посиделки (Санкт-Петербург, 1997-1998). Source: Давыдов 2018.
  • Пробуждение (Санкт-Петербург, 1993-1996). Source: Харитонова 2013; Давыдов 2017.
  • Птюч. Source: Информационный бюллетень (Треугольник) 1(1996).
  • Сиб-10 (Новосибирск, 1996-1998). Source: Давыдов 2017.
  • Сибирский вариант (Барнаул 1992). Source: Ролдугина 2021, Давыдов 2017.
  • Софа Сафо (1998-1999). Source: Харитонова 2013
  • Gay times (Екатеринбург, 2003-?). Source: Давыдов 2017.
  • GL (Moscow, 1998?-?). Source: Наш мир, no. 4 (1998).
  • Sпектраль (Тверь, 1993-?). Source: Давыдов 2018.
  • Last Updated: May 19, 2025 2:42 PM
  • URL: https://guides.lib.unc.edu/russian-lgbt-press