http://uk.gay.com/article/5596

At 37, I'm a gay pride veteran. My first march was in the late '80s when the post-stomp party occurred in London's Kennington Park. It was rowdy, invigorating, and compared to the monsters which came later, quite social and intimate. Since then, I've enjoyed pride events in New York, Stockholm, Sydney, Paris and Sao Paulo. Growing jaded, my passion for the importance of Pride was reinvigorated in 2000 at World Pride in Rome, when a million happy militants marched against the Pope's wishes.

Despite all those proud experiences, Riga Pride in Latvia proved an unnerving and alien episode. The Friendship Days event was spread over four days, and I arrived in the middle of the schedule, on the sunny Saturday morning.
Strolling round picturesque Riga that afternoon, the absence of gays seemed almost spooky. Not one. Anywhere. Marauding stag parties, check. Body-popping teens, check. German backpackers, check…they were all in full effect, but no queens anywhere to be seen.

It turns out that the No Pride coalition had vocally discouraged international visitors by posting a message on their website which read: “Foreign Guests please don’t come. It’s our problem. Not yours!”
Such tactics are hardly surprising; a sad revelation is that despite a few worthy exceptions, the international gay community stayed clear of Riga.

On the Saturday night, I DJd at Riga's premier gay club Golden. One might expect that at 11pm on a Saturday night, there would be queues around the block and bar-staff dripping in sweat, stripped to their knickers, trying to cope with the influx of party goers. This was not the case. No amount of dry ice and flashing lights could hide the fact that four people on the dancefloor hardly constituted a Pride party.

Mozaika (Latvia's LGBT pressure group) experienced a number of homophobic hiccups with regards to their program. It seems that the No Pride contingent harassed Riga Conference Hall to such an extent, that the venue felt it necessary to cancel Mozaika's 'Family Models: Diversity and Equality' conference.

While utterly depressing, one can understand why a venue might sling out the gays when faced with a shit-slinging, neo-Nazi rally on their doorstep. The No Pride contingent DID protest outside Riga Conference Hall, but to no avail, as Mozaika had moved kit and caboodle to the Islande Hotel.Obviously, there were no winners in that scenario.

No Pride continued their sinister campaign by managing to get the Double Coffee chain of coffeehouses to remove the Mozaika postcards from racks in their many Riga outlets.

“Threats were made to the company,” the spokesperson said. “And Double Coffee capitulated.”
While Riga’s gays have vowed to boycott the chain, this is a sadly laughable action, and highly unlikely to make the company wake up and smell the coffee. While gays are demonised by the majority, supporting them could be perceived as simply bad for business. The study “Attitude to Sexual Minorities in Latvia: Trends of the Year,” conducted by the Dialogi.lv Internet portal and the SKDS pollster, found that attitudes towards the LGBT community have actually hardened in the past year.

61% voiced generally negative views while 21% voiced ‘extremely negative’ views. This cultural regression means that while Latvia boasts an array of Medieval architecture, given a gay pride event, tourists can also witness the mob-handed attitudes of the Middle Ages.

The curse of the anti-gay establishment struck again when the venue for the main party on Saturday night was cancelled at the last minute. No explanation was given, but the promoter was told by the owner that ‘under no circumstances’ could the Pride event take place in his venue. Luckily, they found another space, but as it was far smaller than their original choice, Mozaika were forced to postpone a performance from Boy George.

The main party was held at a club called Pulkvedis in the Old Town. After spinning at the eerily quiet Golden, I hopped in a cab to play at the main event. While there was a healthy, happy crowd at the 150-capacity venue, it was hardly a roadblock. I’ve seen more people at a suburban gay pub on a Tuesday night. They were an enthusiastic bunch, but only a tiny fraction of Latvia’s gay population, who seem to have either emigrated or remained in the closet.

Following the gig, Anatolis, Golden’s handsome manager, led the way to a nightclub/casino called Fashion, popular with the Russian party set. It’s a flash, brash palace of pseudo-decadance complete with chandeliers, plush velvet and dolled-up girls behaving like extras in a hip-hop video. We were quite drunk and despite assurances, I was concerned that snogging on the dancefloor might lead to a kicking. It didn’t.

As we staggered back to the hotel, Anatolis had his arm around my shoulder. This mild display of affection led to enquiries from a group of young women, who wanted to know if we were gay. Our response led to screamed abuse. ‘No Pride! No Pride!’ they chanted and jeered. It was a surreal moment, because initially, they appeared to be pretty, fun-loving girls. Their transformation into hateful harpies was instant and quite alarming. It didn’t help that my cohort relished cranking them up, and I had to drag him away before more passers-by got involved.

It was blisteringly hot at midday on Sunday as I dragged my hangover to Vermanes Gardens to witness the much anticipated march. The Pride participants were like rainbow coloured captives in a very strange zoo. From the street, one had to look past the throngs of gawping, shouting onlookers, beyond the armed police, through the railings and past the leafy foliage of the park’s trees. Surrounded by special fencing and guarded by moody storm troopers, the marchers brandished little rainbow flags from the safety of their Arcadian prison.

It was the ordinary nature of the anti-gay onlookers that proved most shocking. Young, well-dressed couples, teenage boys, old women and beered-up blokes hurled insults at the marchers, who were nothing if not meek and peaceful. Never have I seen a less provocative Pride parade- there were no go-go boys in sequin shorts, no drag queens…and a complete lack of pumping house music- just conventionally dressed people, singing The Beatles’ “All You Need is Love”. The contrast between one group’s need for love and the other’s blind hatred was quite profound and moving.

Unable to find the entrance to the park, I was trapped on the outside with the neo-Nazis, storm troopers and curious onlookers. It has to be said, the police were quick to suppress any onlookers who seemed on the verge of violence. It wasn’t a threatening atmosphere, but it was entirely strange and unlike anything I’d witnessed before.

Following the parade, local police laid on buses to take participants to a safe area of the city. There are no reports of anyone being injured, despite the use of firecrackers and paint bombs which were thrown over the fencing.
About 1 km away from this eerie scene, some 1,500 people attended a "World Against Homosexuals" concert. People who signed up to their anti-gay petition received a free t-shirt. Unfortunately, I had to get my flight back to London Sunday afternoon, so missed much of the post-parade action.

Back in London, I stepped out onto my balcony, looked out at the twinkling panorama and enjoyed a moment of intense appreciation of the city I call home.
The first Pride event I attended in ’88 boasted 250,000 fellow marchers. Last year, over 1million revellers packed London for Europride. Riga’s Friendship Days was attended by about 500 brave souls, while thousands of police kept back a baying mob.

Here in London, gay police proudly march at Pride events in uniform, while families and tourists cheer and applaud the colourful, often outrageous gay circus. London’s gay community is so big and confident that it enjoys neighbourhood pride events…Lewisham Pride anyone?

We have it good. We have it easy…and instead of just drowning in a sea of spunk, GHB and smug dribble, we should be supporting our brothers and sisters in the Baltics and other countries where the gays are under threat- step forward Poland, Russia, Lithuania, Estonia.

Our greatest power is by showing our numbers and if there isn’t enough indigenous queers to make a noise in these countries, we should be flying in to boost the numbers, and fuck the carbon footprints. In some situations, the pink footprint is vitally important.

Queens seem to have no problem jetting to Sydney Mardi Gras, or White Party Palm Springs, where they’ll blend into a useless sea of twitching tits and torsos. If we’re to have the audacity of calling ourselves a ‘community’, the least we can do is act like one- start turning up in places where we count.