MOSCOW, July 22, 2008 (GayRussia.ru)  –  Next year’s Moscow Pride is set to be staged on May 16 – the same day as the Eurovision song  contest finals and the day before International Day Against Homophobia.

Yesterday, Eurovision officials announced that next year’s event would be staged at Moscow’s Olympiyskiy stadium.

And organisers of Moscow Gay Pride confirmed last night their intent to conduct the gay parade on the day on of the Eurovision final in Russian capital.

“We will conduct the gay pride on the day of the Eurovision final on 16 May 2009,” Nikolai Alekseev told the Interfax news agency  “As usual we will notify Moscow authorities about the conduct of the event.”

He suggested that “that the public event of the fourth Moscow Pride” could be staged on one of the central streets of Moscow.

Moscow won the right to stage Eurovision next year when Dima Bilan won this year’s contest in Belgrade in May.

“We hope that the many gays and lesbians who usually attend Eurovision finals from different countries will join our Pride,” he told UK Gay News this morning.

He also said that, apart from the gay march, the organisers are planning to hold an international conference dedicated to the International Day Against Homophobia which is being marked around the world on 17 May.  

The invitations to take part in the conference will be sent to the Mayors of Paris, London and Berlin as well as many European politicians.

“Russia must show that it is part of the civilized world, of the European family, that it is tolerant and that it is possible to conduct public actions of sexual minorities in Moscow,” Mr. Alekseev said.

In the next few weeks an organizing committee for the forth Moscow Pride will be formed and will include record number of people.

Pride organisers will be getting in contact with the European Broadcasting Union, the organisers of Eurovision song contest, to discuss issues concerning the security of gays and lesbians in the Russian capital.

The song contest, with its ‘camp’ acts, has become an iconic event in the gay European calendar – and the event is starting to gain popularity within the LGBT community in the USA, the world largest television market.

■ Moscow’s mayor, Yuri Luzhkov, who describes Gay Pride parades as “satanic gatherings”, has banned all attempts to stage any form of a Gay Pride parade in the Russian capital since the first attempt in 2006.  He has sent riot police into the streets to prevent the parades.  The bans imposed on the three parades so far planned are all being appealed through the court system, with the bans on the first two awaiting rulings at the European Court  of Human Rights.

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Posted: 22 July 2008 at 09:30 (UK time)