Unprecedented Support to Queer Culture Festival in St. Petersburg

This year's Russian Festival of Queer Culture, which is going to take place in St. Petersburg on September 16-25, gained much support from distinguished artists, politicians, journalists and other public figures. The event has scheduled exhibitions, debates, concerts, poetry evenings, movie and animation contests, theatre, fashion shows and drag king shows. Among its supporters are Mayor of Berlin,Klaus Wowereit, British actor Stephen Fry, Belgian singer Lara Fabian, American actor and filmmakerJohn Cameron Mitchell, Swedish musician Jay-Jay Johanson, one of the guests of the event, and others.

"The Festival's slogan - Art of Being Yourself - is not only a call to every individual to be confident of him or herself and to accept differences of others, but also calls for a fair society built upon mutual respect, for a society that sees diversity as an enrichment and not as a blemish," says Klaus Wowereit, the Mayor of Berlin. "I wish the International Queer Culture Festival in St. Petersburg much success."

SPECIAL: Shakira, drag queen: I managed to be ME in my dear small country

Despite all the homophobia and mean stuff, Shakira manages to say about him that he is a happy person, that he feels good in Romania and that life offered him enough to consider himself a lucky man. He learned to survive in a jungle that hates you only because you dare to be different.

With the drag queens group, he was sensational and if at the beginning they were only a freak show, thru artistic quality they changed the preconceived image about themselves. They were adored by gays and straight as well, they performed in gay clubs as well as in clubs that you'll never said a drag queen will ever enter.