Masha Gessen quotes:

As a gay parent I must flee Russia or lose my children

Putin needed an enemy, an Other, against which to mobilize. LGBT people are really convenient: we're sort of the ultimate foreign agent.

When you lose your freedom, you lose, first and foremost, the opportunity to choose the company you keep.

When you're part of the opposition you want to stay. It's part of your identity. You're useless if you leave. You feel like you have failed.

... fighting for gay marriage generally involves lying about what we are going to do with marriage when we get there-because we lie that the institution of marriage is not going to change, and that is a lie. The institution of marriage is going to change, and it should change. And again, I don't think it should exist.

It turned out that capitalism alone could make people not only rich and happy but also poor, hungry, miserable, and powerless.

It's not natural for people in the opposition to leave. It's always a personal catastrophe.