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home  >  projects  >  "KVIR, Nationwide Gay Magazine"

Project description in-detail

Gay.ru is a popular and trustworthy source of information about gay issues, but its possibilities are not sufficient to implement all our ideas. So we have launched a brand new offline project that gives us access to the biggest part of the community (especially from areas other than Moscow and St.Petersburg, where living standards are lower, so few people are able to go online).

A gay magazine is an obvious step as there is no gay, lesbian or transsexual press in Russia. There were few attempts several years ago (“Risk”, “Argo”, “1/10”), but the magazines were of poor quality and targeted mainly basic communication goals (some news, photos, porn stories and lots of classifields). 

All of these projects, started in the early 1990's were short-lived and eventually failed.

The aim of the project: 

to get access to the biggest part of the community.

The project goals to:

• inform and develop the gay community in Russia (no gay community life at the moment)

• raise self-acceptance level among gays (according to surveys, it is in inverse relation with the level of high-risk sexual behavior)

• provide an opportunity to communicate about sex as equals (important for youth)

• resolve psychological problems (mental health is an essential component of health in general)

• encourage safe sex (gays tend to be more vulnerable to suicide and substance abuse than straights; suicidal tendencies may result in unprotected sex)

• fight social discrimination and stigmatization

• beat low level of social adaptation

The magazine consists of 64 pages (common business-weekly format).

More information:

• First national lesbigay publication launched in Moscow (a press-release)

• www.kvir.ru website (in russian)

Can I help?

Yes.

First of all, the costs are the major issue. Since our internal resources are insufficient to run this project on our own (at least at the 1st phase where printing costs are too big), we are now trying to find external sponsors. Initially we were going to give the magazines away for free (that is especially important in the countryside), but now have to sell it because the amount of financing is insufficient. Your support will enable us to lower price or to give magazine for free.

If you could provide us with non-sexual photos for our magazine, this would also be a great help.

Also we’re highly interested in contacts with organizations with similar experience. In fact, any help, including contact to possible funding organizations, would be greatly appreciated.

How to  donate this project?  

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