Sasha Shatilov, 22 years old, poses for a portrait at his apartment in St. Petersburg, Russia. “I am the only son of my parents. If I tell them that I am gay, I will get nothing for myself, but they will be absolutely devastated. All sense of their life... just bang! … it will get rotten.”

Pavel Kostin, 44 years old, poses for a portrait at his apartment in St. Petersburg, Russia. “My mother's reaction was “it is a teenage thing, you’ll grow out of it, you simply haven't met the right girl yet.” The most ridiculous thing is I was already 26.”

Georgiy Tsarevskiy, 22 years old, poses for a portrait at his apartment in St. Petersburg, Russia. “One of the reasons for moving to St. Petersburg is a desire to live openly in a big city. If you had asked me before moving if I was gay — I would have said "no".

Anton Dronov, 20 years old, poses for a portrait at his apartment in St. Petersburg, Russia. “Heterosexuality is the right thing, everything else is not. I hope I'm not gay forever”

Sergey Stepanenko, 23 years old, poses for a portrait at his apartment in St. Petersburg, Russia. “I realized that I'm gay when I fell in love with my best friend in my freshman year.”

Maxim Lisak, 28 years old, poses for a portrait at his apartment in St. Petersburg, Russia. “Sometime later my mom confessed: “Every day I lived with the thought that my son was gay and I was looking for any excuse to make a scene. Then I imagined how during an argument I was taking an axe and cutting your head off. I really wanted it.”

A 33-year-old gay man Sergey Pan'yasin poses for a portrait at his friend's apartment in St. Petersburg, Russia. “I used to go to a Baptist church for 5 years. I used to be a Sunday school teacher, teaching children the Bible. I sang in the Church choir. After coming out as gay I was expelled from the church.”

Sasha Zhelezkin, 26 years old, poses for a portrait at his apartment in St. Petersburg, Russia. “My grandfather was a very clever and acute person. I think I was about 9 or 10 years old, I don't remember, but once he asked me directly "Are you gay? " I answered like "What’s a gay?"

Anatoly Fedorov, 23 years old, poses for a portrait at his apartment in St. Petersburg, Russia. “I’ve been walking alone since I was 7. There is a river called Volkovka near my house where the railroad and garages are. Before there were thickets instead of garages and I just went to these thickets until the end of the day. There were no people, people are an aggression.”

Oleg Koptsov, 27 years old, poses for a portrait at his apartment in St. Petersburg, Russia. “Remember the magazine Rovesnik? Every month me and my mom went to Soyuzpechat* kiosk. And once Brad Pitt was on the cover. Actually, I don't like Brad Pitt... Anyway, mom bought me the magazine, and I took and kissed the cover for some reason. I can't explain why I did it. But mom was perplexed.” *Soyuzpechat is a network of press kiosks existing in USSR.