In the wake of Vlad Tornovy, 22, being attacked for being gay in the Russian city of Volgograd and having two and a half beer bottles forced into his anal cavity, his genitals slashed, and his face bashed in with a rock before mercifully dying, the world is again talking about gay rights in Russia and the former Soviet Union. It is a tragic and violent climate, but what many people don’t know is how that violence is creating a growing community of gay Russian and Ukrainian asylum seekers in the U.S. centered in New York.
Another Vlad, Vladislav Shumilov, 20, is applying for asylum in the U.S. for being gay. From records from the hospital where he woke up concussed after being attacked outside of a Kyiv gay club, to written testimony from friends about how he was attacked and harassed in school, he is trying to gather as much written documentation as he can for his court date.
