"Hate speech" OK in Russia

A DEVOUTLY religious millionaire who owns a chain of Russian food stores has placed crude signs in shop windows banning gay customers from entering his business.

Russia decriminalised homosexuality in 1993, two years after the fall of the Soviet Union, and Russian law prohibits sexual discrimination. But prejudices still run deep and much of the gay community remains underground.

“No entry for f***ots,” read a wooden plate at the entrance to one of German Sterligov’s shops in central Moscow.

Sterligov, 50, became a millionaire by opening a mercantile exchange shortly before the Soviet Union’s demise.

Later in his career the nationalist businessman turned devoutly religious and retreated with his family to rural Russia to sell organic farm produce. The one-time boy wonder of Russia's young market economy dropped out of the business world and started raising sheep and other livestock on two farms.

“Our planet is full of filth and sick humans,” Sterligov told Reuters Television at a country fair outside Moscow.

“In front of our eyes is the historical experience of Sodom and Gomorrah when God burned these towns.”

Addressing the farm fair through a loudspeaker, Sterligov praised US President Donald Trump, who was swift to revoke his predecessor Barack Obama’s landmark guidance to public schools allowing transgender students to use the bathroom of their choice. “We thank him. May God give him health,” Sterligov said.

Alyona, a young assistant in one of Sterligov’s Moscow stores, said she shared the chain’s stance on homosexuals “as a true Christian”. “It’s our guarding talisman,” she said.

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