When you're part of the opposition you want to stay. It's part of your identity. You're useless if you leave. You feel like you have failed.

You risk everything if you so much as join a legal protest demonstration in Russia. It raises the stakes.

It's not natural for people in the opposition to leave. It's always a personal catastrophe.

The law in Russia bans "propaganda of homosexuality," which is defined as dissemination of information that can cause harm to the spiritual or physical development of children, including forming in them the erroneous impression of the social equality of traditional and nontraditional sexual relations. It's a law that actually enshrines second-class citizenship - it makes it a crime to claim social equality.

One of the things that I really value about Russian culture is that on the private level it allows for a huge amount of variety and individuality with regards to family structure.

Russian law on banning nontraditional relationships basically says you cannot have any portrayal, neutral or positive, of homosexual relationships or nontraditional families, period. And you also cannot have negative portrayals of heterosexual relationships. So along the way, the law completely quashes any kind of public discussion on domestic violence. No discussion of relationships at all, unless you want to showcase a heterosexual love story, that preferably involves reproduction.

When you lose your freedom, you lose, first and foremost, the opportunity to choose the company you keep.