First encounter with the West. Cologne, 1984

 

Cologne. Railway station

On the way to France, I had a change in Cologne, and I had to wait there for a train to Paris for almost the whole day, until late in the evening. The very phrase "West Germany" sounded scary for a person who had lived half his life in the USSR. Soviet propaganda did its job, and West Germany was associated with "neo-Nazis", with "Bonn militarists thirsting for revenge," and so on. Some strange and confused feeling I still felt, I must admit.

The train dragged slowly over the long bridge across the Rhine and stopped at the huge Cologne railway station. I unloaded my luggage and took it to left luggage room. And - went to see the city.

From the railway station there was a long pedestrian street (Hohe-Strasse), full of shops, restaurants and some establishments. In fact, it was the center of the city. Along this street-exhibition, I began to walk back and forth. I immediately wanted to find some signs of gay life. After all, we were told so much about the West, that “there are many” and that “such things are happening there” ...

I returned to the station. Toilet. To enter it you have to pay 1 mark (I had to pay, although for me it was considerable money). True, I noticed that some people were hanging around without going into the main toilet. I don’t remember how, but I met some faggot, already aged, or rather, without a certain age and without appearance at all. The German faggot was very interested in me, because I was Russian (exotic!), and immediately dragged me to the porn cinema to the hall for gays.

The porn itself did not attract me in any way - what is there to watch? - I went with this man just to learn something about this side of life. But in the darkness of the hall, the faggot immediately began to touch me (my crotch, of course). I removed his hand several times. The short session ended and we parted ways. Well, that's how they meet - at the main station and in porn cinemas.

Later, in the evening, I had the opportunity to observe a busier movement of faggots at the station. There was also a large beer hall, where they all went (I could not afford such a thing then, and I did not know how it was done and how much it cost). Actually, I did not expect anything from Germany. I saw enough of Germans back in Bulgaria, these here were the same. They are plump, with beer bellies and as if without faces. Only later, a few years later, I learned that, as elsewhere in the civilized West, active men, fuckers, are represented by southern peoples, immigrants. In Germany, mostly Turks. They know that they are in demand, and, as a rule, they fuck faggots for money or for some kind of benefits.

Square in front of the train station in Cologne:

Somehow I didn’t really like it in the West on the very first day. I felt that I was not needed here, that this was not mine. But I have pushed those thoughts aside for the time being. After all, there is Paris, France ahead. Maybe it's different there...

Here comes my night train to Paris. A compartiment for six people... All the same, I was somehow unhappy. Feeling like I'm doing something wrong. But there is no return, all the bridges were burned, it is necessary to do this "wrong thing". The train started moving.

Gay guy meets a Soviet pop star

 

I already wrote that many faggots had female idols. Some preferred ballerinas, others operetta female singers, but most often women from the pop world. Edita Piekha enjoyed special love with her non-standard voice and demeanor, a light foreign accent. In 1960 and in the early 70s, Piekha really stood out against the background of the monotonous Soviet pop squeakers.

Almost every cruising area in the USSR had a gay regular with the nickname "Edita Piekha", sometimes just "Edita". There were also those who managed to really get acquainted with the ideal of their dream transformation into a woman. Pop singers, including Piekha, knew that they had a big gay following, and did not neglect them at all. It was even somehow accepted that this or that pop star regularly met in real life with a gay guy, listened to compliments from him and received a bouquet of flowers.

Around 1975, something like this happened. One quite decent and fashionably dressed guy, a passionate admirer of Edita Piekha and having known her for some time, apparently decided to arrange another meeting with her. He reserved a table for two at a restaurant in the center of Moscow, ordered many dishes and various alcoholic drinks ... At the appointed hour, Edita Piekha appeared in person. She didn't even sit down, she just stood by the table for about seven minutes, sipped a glass of champagne, exchanged a few words and hurried away.

But what happiness! The gay guy met Piekha in flesh and blood, and now he could tell everyone about it! Excited, he started drinking what was on the table! More... more... more... This guy got drunk, and when the waiter came up, he immediately began to pester him. The waiter, without hesitation, escorted a completely drunk gay man to a secluded place in the basement of the restaurant where the waiter allowed the guy to suck him off. Then he called other waiters. They also fucked this gay in the mouth. And then ... and then all sorts of workers and porters came running, and everyone took turns fucking the guy in the mouth and in the ass ... Everyone who was in the basement at that time took part, even all scum. In the end, the faggot was lying unconscious on the floor with his pants pulled down, his ass bare.

After this incident, the whole restaurant staff told and retold in detail for another three days how they "fucked the fag in the mouth and in the ass." One porter boasted how he filled the whole mouth of the fag with sperm ...

This is how transition from the sublime to the dirty and low happened. However, I do not think that the drunk faggot was dissatisfied with anything later or had regrets about what happened. Most likely, he did want to be fucked by many men at once. This happened. Moreover, neither money nor documents were stolen from him.

I do not condemn this faggot and do not want to laugh at him. It just so often happens in life that the sublime merges with ridiculous. Because they exist side by side.

My first trip abroad

Prague. Wenceslas Square.
 

We all pinned great hopes on foreign countries. Firstly, not a single East European socialist country had an article in their criminal codes penalizing for homosexuality. Secondly, it seemed to us that there were “a lot” and that “it is common”. It was difficult to go on a package tour or by invitation even to the countries of the Soviet bloc. Often it was not possible to choose a country for a tourist trip. And so it happened that the first country I went to was Czechoslovakia. It was August 1972. I bought a package tour for 12 days - Prague and other smaller cities, incl. Karlovy Vary. With me in the group was also my friend, Alik B., of the same orientation, but ten years older than me.

The very crossing of the USSR border was an exciting event. A strange feeling gripped almost everyone in the first moments when the train was no longer on the territory of the USSR. I kept repeating to myself: “I am not in the USSR, I am outside of it, I am abroad, here, right here, there is no more USSR!” The train crossed the border already after midnight, in the dark, and then many tourists clung to the windows, stood for a long time in order to see the abroad, something different from what we have become accustomed to in our entire life in the Soviet Union.

- Look, look, what houses! Look, the cars are not like ours! - was heard in the carriage.

In the morning we arrived in Prague. It struck the Soviet tourist primarily with crowded shops, an abundance of clothes and shoes. Everyone had the same problem: how to spend the exchanged rubles so as not to miscalculate and not make a mistake.

On the very first day of my arrival there was a scandal because of me. After we settled in a hotel our guides suddenly announced that everyone must go to the Lenin Museum and some cemetery of communist leaders without fail. I said: "I will not go!" I had to urgently run to the city center and look for a "special cafe for homosexuals", which I had already heard about. - I'm not going with the group! I insisted. The whole bus was waiting for me for a long time, but in the end they left without me.

I alone walked from the hotel to the city center, to Wenceslas Square (before going on this tour, I even learned Czech and could speak it well). There was an underground passage on Wenceslas Square, and there were toilets in it. I immediately rushed into the toilet. I saw that one person was leaning towards me. He looked completely unattractive to me, but I decided to get all the information from him - where is the cafe where they gather, and so on. He immediately took me upstairs and led me to this cafe, it was called "Europe". Moreover, he told me that “our people” were gathering on the second floor, so it was necessary to go up there right away.

It was very strange to be in a gay bar! All the men or young people were sitting there. I thought that the waiters, probably, were also like that. And everyone around knows it, and nobody bothers!

I ordered myself a beer. Met some faggots, apparently regulars. They told me that there was also a gay night club "TT", but I did not dare to go there. On another day, I brought my older friend Alik there, and he was completely stunned, petrified... “And everyone who sits here just like that?”, he asked. It seemed to him that cars with policemen and KGB officers must immediately drive up, arrest everyone and send them to prison.

Sexually, Czechoslovakia disappointed me greatly, although for a while I tried to convince myself that I really liked everything, and I enthusiastically told everyone about my trip. There were no active men in the places of gatherings of faggots, they were only "girls", and even more passive in their essence than the Russian ones. True, the Czech "girls" looked better than the Russian ones, they were dressed fashionably, often mimicking men. Apparently, the European “system” has taken root there, when “the less passive fucks the more passive”. Such people in Russia were called "lesbians" and "shifters". All this, among other things, was combined with the Czech language, which sounds childish to the Russian ear (with many diminutive suffixes), which further reduced the feeling of being masculine. I met someone in Prague, went to spend the night, it turned out that I had to fuck and fuck, and at the same time he also fell in love with me. I could not understand why I was chosen for this role.

I'm in Prague on Wenceslas Square

A similar thing happened in Karlovy Vary, where there was a cruising area. Again I met someone, then we rubbed against each other, it was not clear what we were doing and we thought that we had "great love".

The only good thing about these Czech acquaintances was that later these people came to the USSR, brought good clothes, deodorants, after-shaves, and sold all this to us at a reasonable price.

I forgot to mention that before the trip to Czechoslovakia, when it was not yet known whether I would be allowed to go there or not, a KGB officer came to my house. “Well, you understand that the decision about your trip is made by us ... So ... We are interested in what people are talking about in the tour group, what kind of conversations are being held there ...”

But more about the KGB - later.

First steps. Continuation

So, first they showed me the Saigon cafeteria, then they took me to Catherine's garden (see photo). “This is the main place,” they said. Wow, - I thought, - I passed by this place so many times, and how could I not notice that this is the very “secret meeting place” for “such” people!

Around the garden, on the outside pavement, there were benches, a row of them. In the light of the evening lanterns, one could see a lot of people were sitting on these benches. Others were walking up and down or just passing by. I immediately began to regret the missed opportunities. I had suffered for so long, but it was here, right in the center of the city, where “our” people seem to be gathering and where life was going on. How much I have missed!

Someone sat down next to me and we started talking. At the first inspection of those gathered in the cruising area, I was somewhat disappointed. There wasn’t anyone at all who could grab my attention. In other words, there were no real men there. Instead there were some drab creatures of different ages, badly dressed and filthy, staring at me because I was new.

It seems that on the very first evening I met a few regulars. They all had nicknames - female names, and they spoke in the feminine ("she", "her"). They invited me to take a walk down Main Street. They showed me a place at the central store (“our people are also standing here”), then we walked to the Moskovski railway station. There were several public toilets at the Moskovski railway station, and we went around them. Inside and at the exit of them there were faggots (there was no such word then) - unattractive, sloppy, unfashionable, ugly, unmanly. Not men, not guys, in general.

But there was a feeling that I joined some kind of secret society. It was strange that it existed under Soviet rule. It turned out that under the Soviet regime there was a certain “gap”, an oversight, that there was a secret community of people who recognized each other, winked at each other and did something that was condemned by society and even punishable by law. Under that regime I often felt like some kind of scout, saboteur, spy.

Over time, I learned about other places in the center of the City. It was the Central Department Store courtyard with four public toilets. Groups of faggots were standing in the entrance halls of the toilets, smoking. They were of different  ages, unattractive in every way, strangely dressed as if they were in women's pantsuits. Some were just freaks. Much later, already in the 1970s, a gay German from West Germany asked me: “How is it that you have such unattractive faggots in Russia (“nicht attraktiv”)? In Germany, such people look very different, they take care of their appearance, they dress fashionably, they run ahead of fashion.” Later I realized that our Russian faggots in those days copied Soviet women of low social status. They dressed like Soviet aunties and behaved accordingly.

At that time I still thought that I was unlucky, that I just had to come on the right day, at the right time, maybe on a weekend, when, as they said, “especially many people gather.” It also seemed to me that somewhere secretly there are people who do not show up in such places at all, and that you can somehow find them.

All in all I got into a kind of trap of futility. Every day I began to make rounds of all these places along the same route. I met some "guys" occasionally, but it’s sickening to remember this, because it was not worth the effort.

I felt frustrated because you just had to step a little aside from the cruising area, from the meeting place of freak faggots, and you could see many normal handsome guys and men. My eyes were spoiled for choice. However it will take a few more years, before I realized the futility of finding a partner in cruising areas. I will stop visiting them and focus my attention on the guys and men elsewhere. I'll switch to straight men.