Scientific research into how to stop or slow the ageing process has become a boom industry in Russia over the past few years, with the number of anti-ageing projects funded by The Russian Science Foundation (RSF), a state-run nonprofit set up in 2013 to support scientific research, growing six times since 2021 compared to the previous five-year period, Novaya Europe has calculated.

This year, according to its website, the foundation is offering annual grants worth between €41,000 to €71,700 to fund research, all of which can be extended by one or two more years if necessary. According to conservative estimates, the total RSF funding for anti-ageing research has risen from €215,000 between 2016 and 2020 to €1.8 million since 2021, though the true increase could be even greater.

The RSF was most active in its support for such projects between 2021 and 2023, issuing 34 grants in that period. The foundation awarded a grant to one project which looked into how innate immunity mechanisms affected ageing in different people and looked for markers that could help predict whether an individual would age normally or with pathologies. The authors of another RSF-supported study are trying to establish a link between certain changes in the brain and eye with Alzheimer’s disease and to find a way to prevent the disease progressing.

In 2024, the RSF’s total grants amounted to approximately €410 million. This year, the foundation has supported five medical projects related to ageing, including one examining “changes in the electrical activity of neurons in the dorsomedial nucleus of the hypothalamus in vitro during ageing”. Financial support was also provided to at least one more project on an anti-ageing-related theme, looking into cell renewal processes in the body and longevity. The project is headed by none other than Maria Vorontsova, Vladimir Putin’s eldest daughter.

Scientific journal T-Invariant noted that Vorontsova received the grant even though her Hirsch index — one of the most important indicators determining demand for a scientist’s research — is significantly lower than that of other grantees. The grant Vorontsova received was also larger than most of the others typically disbursed, and could be as high as €308,000.

Putin, now 72 years old, has increasingly shown an interest in the topic of prolonging human life and combating the ageing process. A conversation between Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping that was picked up on a hot mic during a military parade in Beijing on 3 September in which the pair discussed ways to prolong human life quickly spread online.

Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping arrive to attend a military parade on Beijing’s Tiananmen Square in China, 3 September 2025. Photo: EPA / ALEXANDER KAZAKOV / SPUTNIK / KREMLIN

Xi was heard to say that, according to the latest forecasts, some people born this century could live for up to 150 years. Putin, for his part, asserted that modern medicine and technology would allow people to “feel ever younger and even achieve immortality”, and that modern medicine had given “humanity hope that life expectancy will increase significantly”, adding that this would have “social, political, and economic consequences, that must be taken into consideration”.

Reuters, which initially released video footage of the conversation, subsequently deleted it and asked its clients to do the same, after Chinese state broadcaster CCTV revoked the licence for the material.

In 2024, Putin announced a new national project researching new technologies for preserving health aimed at “saving 175,000 lives” by 2030. The battle against ageing formed a significant part of the project and would focus on technological development, disease prevention, neurotechnology, biological age assessment and organ bioprinting.

Russia’s leading nuclear research institution is known for defending a number of outlandish genetic theories including the development of a so-called “Russian genome”.

Independent media outlet Meduza said Putin’s long-time friend Mikhail Kovalchuk had initiated the project. Kovalchuk, the head of the Kurchatov Institute, Russia’s leading nuclear research institution, is known for defending a number of outlandish genetic theories, including the development of a so-called “Russian genome”, suggesting the possibility of creating “a weapon that is targeting a particular ethnicity”, and accusing foreign powers of trying to create a new type of “servant human”.

Experts interviewed by Meduza doubted the project’s goals could be achieved, saying much of the science was dubious and the budget unclear, while difficulties with resources and infrastructure meant the project was more symbolic than something which could be implemented on a large scale.

The investigative journalists at Proekt reported in April 2022 that Russia’s then-defence minister, Sergey Shoigu, had advised Putin to take antler baths — a healing procedure in which a person is immersed in a warm infusion of the blood of young, not yet ossified deer antlers.

Though antler harvesting is extremely cruel to deer, the procedure is said to improve cardiovascular function and rejuvenate the skin, though neither benefit has been scientifically proven. According to Proekt, after Putin began to take antler baths in Siberia’s Altai region, the craze quickly began to spread among the Russian elite. Like the deeply superstitious Stalin, Putin is apparently content to turn his back on science when it proves itself incapable of meeting his needs.

The Russian government has banned independent media. We were forced to leave our country in order to keep doing our job, telling our readers about what is going on Russia, Ukraine and Europe.

We will continue fighting against warfare and dictatorship. We believe that freedom of speech is the most efficient antidote against tyranny. Support us financially to help us fight for peace and freedom.

","freeContentEncoded","textContent","published","strategy","curl-ready","locked","deletedAt","isSyncedFromOwnBlog","original","duplicatesCount","duplicateVersion","originalArticleId","errorsCount","appearance","article","color","backgroundColor","shortSummary","Russia is investing heavily in anti-ageing research, with state funding increasing significantly. Putin's personal interest in longevity is also evident, as he champions national projects and discusses life extension with global leaders, even as some of these initiatives face scientific and logistical skepticism.","summary","Scientific research into anti-ageing has seen a significant funding increase in Russia, with the Russian Science Foundation (RSF) tripling its grants since 2021. This surge aligns with President Vladimir Putin's expressed interest in prolonging human life and combating ageing. However, some of these ambitious projects, including those led by Putin's daughter and initiated by a friend known for controversial theories, face doubts from experts regarding scientific validity and feasibility.","bullets",[208,209,210,211,212,213,214,215],"Funding for anti-ageing research projects in Russia has grown sixfold since 2021 compared to the previous five-year period.","The Russian Science Foundation (RSF) has increased its grants for anti-ageing research from €215,000 (2016-2020) to €1.8 million (since 2021).","Projects include studying innate immunity mechanisms, brain and eye changes related to Alzheimer's, and neural activity during ageing.","Maria Vorontsova, Vladimir Putin's eldest daughter, heads a project on cell renewal and longevity, receiving a potentially large grant despite a lower Hirsch index.","Putin has publicly discussed prolonging human life with Chinese President Xi Jinping.","A new national project announced by Putin in 2024 focuses on health preservation technologies, including anti-ageing aspects.","Some initiatives, like the one initiated by Mikhail Kovalchuk, face skepticism regarding scientific merit and feasibility.","Investigative reports suggest Putin has considered non-scientific rejuvenation methods like antler baths.","persons",[218,219,220,221,222],"Vladimir Putin","Xi Jinping","Maria Vorontsova","Mikhail Kovalchuk","Sergey Shoigu","places",[31,225,226,227],"Beijing","Siberia","Altai region","words",642,"sentiment",0.1,"subject","health","meta",{"_236":237,"_238":239,"_264":246},"type","bee:get-index-of-articles","schedule",{"_16":240,"_41":-5,"_241":242,"_65":-5,"_243":-5,"_144":244,"_245":246,"_247":71,"_68":69,"_232":29,"_248":-5,"_249":69,"_188":189,"_250":251,"_43":251,"_252":253,"_254":71,"_255":251,"_45":251,"_256":69,"_67":98,"_257":258,"_259":-5,"_260":261,"_262":-5,"_263":-5},"9e57befc-5002-4b97-a93d-b8f5f7cf6888","npub","npub1n9ufscz7haxj48egmpzrml7jyzwvaz4zhk70zvjf984atxtnx2lqtl7wrn","jobId",1,"rssUrl","https://novayagazeta.eu/en","system","userRef","autosign","syncedAt","2025-12-30T22:47:43.769Z","frequency","daily","isOwnBlog","nextRunAt","autopublish","sourceVariant","rss","systemVariant","scheduleVariant","scraping-bee-classic-proxy","retryArticlesIds","ownershipConfirmedAt","dataSourceUrl","eventId","07f24ac1554a4cfc24813f7758781efac81ebe3b39c797c93cbc2e9118cd0f71","nostrRootEvent","event",{"_16":266,"_270":271,"_272":244,"_65":273,"_286":285,"_181":287,"_288":289},"sig","92d7f160be3a3b3fde2e6fbf75609de5097124d31f426a9c85f24803769a352379512b373d34cb7893e44457575f9f8389389c0ad7378808f0827a0bf2b77f93","kind",[274,275,276,280,283],[232,168],[34,174],[277,278,29,279],"a","30023:997898605ebf4d2a9f28d8443dffd2209cce8aa2bdbcf1324929ebd5997332be:ca6958b8-3644-42f7-9288-80dd645483ee","mention",[281,282],"client","Layer3.press",[284,285,29],"p","997898605ebf4d2a9f28d8443dffd2209cce8aa2bdbcf1324929ebd5997332be","pubkey","Stopping the clock. Why has Russia massively increased its funding of anti-ageing research?\nAn elderly woman walks past a street art exhibition called We Bring Peace! in Moscow, Russia, 5 April 2024. Photo: EPA / YURI KOCHETKOV\n\n\nnostr:naddr1qvzqqqr4gupzpxtcnps9a06d920j3kzy8hlaygyue69290du7yeyj20t6kvhxv47qqjxxcfk8y6nsc3c95envdp5956rye3h95unywpc95urqeryxc6r2dpcxdjk2sqvmte ","created_at",1767134954,"authorNPub","markdown","Scientific research into how to stop or slow the ageing process has become a boom industry in Russia over the past few years, with the number of anti-ageing projects funded by The Russian Science Foundation (RSF), a state-run nonprofit set up in 2013 to support scientific research, growing six times since 2021 compared to the previous five-year period, Novaya Europe has calculated.\n\nThis year, according to its [website](https://www.rscf.ru/en/), the foundation is offering annual grants worth between €41,000 to €71,700 to fund research, all of which can be extended by one or two more years if necessary. According to conservative estimates, the total RSF funding for anti-ageing research has risen from €215,000 between 2016 and 2020 to €1.8 million since 2021, though the true increase could be even greater.\n\nThe RSF was most active in its support for such projects between 2021 and 2023, issuing 34 grants in that period. The foundation [awarded](https://www.rscf.ru/en/project/23-15-00137/) a grant to one project which looked into how innate immunity mechanisms affected ageing in different people and looked for markers that could help predict whether an individual would age normally or with pathologies. The authors of another RSF-supported study are trying to establish a link between certain changes in the brain and eye with Alzheimer’s disease and to find a way to prevent the disease progressing.\n\nIn 2024, the RSF’s total grants [amounted](https://rscf.ru/news/found/predstavlen-otchet-o-rezultatakh-deyatelnosti-rossiyskogo-nauchnogo-fonda-v-2024-godu/) to approximately €410 million. This year, the foundation has supported five medical projects related to ageing, including one [examining](https://rscf.ru/en/project/25-25-00302/) “changes in the electrical activity of neurons in the dorsomedial nucleus of the hypothalamus in vitro during ageing”. Financial support was also provided to at least one more project on an anti-ageing-related theme, looking into cell renewal processes in the body and longevity. The project is [headed](https://rscf.ru/project/PKtdilMFAsMFZENI2FNeiC4xLrWI1rj172M_8sV-a5VkHDl2qSkZURC2mSdViqq0rqfbPxYPJ9o~/) by none other than Maria Vorontsova, Vladimir Putin’s eldest daughter.\n\nScientific journal T-Invariant [noted](https://t-invariant.org/2025/03/maria-vorontsova-was-included-in-the-circle-of-the-largest-scientists-without-regard-to-scientometrics/) that Vorontsova received the grant even though her Hirsch index — one of the most important indicators determining demand for a scientist’s research — is significantly lower than that of other grantees. The grant Vorontsova received was also [larger](https://rscf.ru/upload/iblock/87d/tra3kir641hcejxyd29324gqx5gdqti0.pdf) than most of the others typically disbursed, and could be as high as €308,000.\n\nPutin, now 72 years old, has increasingly shown an interest in the topic of prolonging human life and combating the ageing process. A conversation between Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping that was [picked](https://novayagazeta.eu/articles/2025/09/03/putin-invites-zelensky-for-peace-talks-in-moscow-during-beijing-press-conference-en-news) up on a hot mic during a military parade in Beijing on 3 September in which the pair discussed ways to prolong human life quickly spread online.\n\n![](https://novayagazeta.eu/static/records/cb01eeb7e0654b6dae05f10f7fb6a4ee.jpeg)\n\nPutin and Chinese President Xi Jinping arrive to attend a military parade on Beijing’s Tiananmen Square in China, 3 September 2025. Photo: EPA / ALEXANDER KAZAKOV / SPUTNIK / KREMLIN\n\nXi was heard to [say](https://www.forbes.ru/healthcare/545597-si-czin-pin-i-putin-pogovorili-o-zizni-do-150-let-naskol-ko-eto-vozmozno) that, according to the latest forecasts, some people born this century could live for up to 150 years. Putin, for his part, asserted that modern medicine and technology would allow people to “feel ever younger and even achieve immortality”, and that modern medicine had given “humanity hope that life expectancy will increase significantly”, adding that this would have “social, political, and economic consequences, that must be taken into consideration”.\n\nReuters, which initially released video footage of the conversation, subsequently [deleted](https://www.reuters.com/business/media-telecom/reuters-withdraws-xi-putin-longevity-video-after-china-state-tv-pulls-legal-2025-09-06/) it and asked its clients to do the same, after Chinese state broadcaster CCTV revoked the licence for the material.\n\nIn 2024, Putin [announced](https://meduza.io/feature/2024/09/02/prichudy-stareyuschego-politbyuro) a new national project researching new technologies for preserving health aimed at “saving 175,000 lives” by 2030. The battle against ageing formed a significant part of the project and would focus on technological development, disease prevention, neurotechnology, biological age assessment and organ bioprinting.\n\nRussia’s leading nuclear research institution is known for defending a number of outlandish genetic theories including the development of a so-called “Russian genome”.\n\nIndependent media outlet Meduza said Putin’s long-time friend Mikhail Kovalchuk had initiated the project. Kovalchuk, the head of the Kurchatov Institute, Russia’s leading nuclear research institution, is known for defending a number of outlandish genetic theories, including the development of a so-called “Russian genome”, [suggesting](https://novayagazeta.eu/articles/2023/01/29/doktor-pauk) the possibility of creating “a weapon that is targeting a particular ethnicity”, and [accusing](https://en.thebell.io/rosneft-and-putin-s-daughter-lead-search-for-russian-gene/) foreign powers of trying to create a new type of “servant human”.\n\nExperts interviewed by Meduza doubted the project’s goals could be achieved, saying much of the science was dubious and the budget unclear, while difficulties with resources and infrastructure meant the project was more symbolic than something which could be implemented on a large scale.\n\nThe investigative journalists at Proekt [reported](https://www.proekt.media/en/investigation-en/putin-health/) in April 2022 that Russia’s then-defence minister, Sergey Shoigu, had advised Putin to take antler baths — a healing procedure in which a person is immersed in a warm infusion of the blood of young, not yet ossified deer antlers.\n\nThough antler harvesting is extremely cruel to deer, the procedure is said to improve cardiovascular function and rejuvenate the skin, though neither benefit has been scientifically proven. According to Proekt, after Putin began to take antler baths in Siberia’s Altai region, the craze quickly began to spread among the Russian elite. Like the deeply superstitious Stalin, Putin is apparently content to turn his back on science when it proves itself incapable of meeting his needs.\n\nThe Russian government has banned independent media. We were forced to leave our country in order to keep doing our job, telling our readers about what is going on Russia, Ukraine and Europe.\n\nWe will continue fighting against warfare and dictatorship. We believe that freedom of speech is the most efficient antidote against tyranny. Support us financially to help us fight for peace and freedom.","freeMarkdown","kind1EventId","kind30023EventId","cbb493f8fc855508018d10970f6067a41341c41bd636481f29bb4fd266b4b885","kind30023",{"_16":296,"_270":299,"_272":300,"_65":301,"_286":285,"_181":315,"_288":289},"c9ee145a51cb2576a848bbdbb7addbb77eaf35664d3261f822ce4e983a515c54dbf099e0421b2aa5c128af8c0b9f224decdb1f6543c2e67a9853c58e442f0946",30023,[302,305,306,309,310,312,313,314],[303,304],"r","https://russia.layer3.press/articles/ca6958b8-3644-42f7-9288-80dd645483ee",[30,168],[307,308],"published_at","1767134978",[34,174],[311,163],"d",[204,169],[281,282],[284,285,29],"Stopping the clock. Why has Russia massively increased its funding of anti-ageing research?\nScientific research into anti-ageing has seen a significant funding increase in Russia, with the Russian Science Foundation (RSF) tripling its grants since 2021. This surge aligns with President Vladimir Putin's expressed interest in prolonging human life and combating ageing. However, some of these ambitious projects, including those led by Putin's daughter and initiated by a friend known for controversial theories, face doubts from experts regarding scientific validity and feasibility.\n - Funding for anti-ageing research projects in Russia has grown sixfold since 2021 compared to the previous five-year period.\n - The Russian Science Foundation (RSF) has increased its grants for anti-ageing research from €215,000 (2016-2020) to €1.8 million (since 2021).\n - Projects include studying innate immunity mechanisms, brain and eye changes related to Alzheimer's, and neural activity during ageing.\n - Maria Vorontsova, Vladimir Putin's eldest daughter, heads a project on cell renewal and longevity, receiving a potentially large grant despite a lower Hirsch index.\n - Putin has publicly discussed prolonging human life with Chinese President Xi Jinping.\n - A new national project announced by Putin in 2024 focuses on health preservation technologies, including anti-ageing aspects.\n - Some initiatives, like the one initiated by Mikhail Kovalchuk, face skepticism regarding scientific merit and feasibility.\n - Investigative reports suggest Putin has considered non-scientific rejuvenation methods like antler baths.\n","publishedToNostr","htmlContentKind30023","

$\"\"$

Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping arrive to attend a military parade on Beijing’s Tiananmen Square in China, 3 September 2025. Photo: EPA / ALEXANDER KAZAKOV / SPUTNIK / KREMLIN

Russia’s leading nuclear research institution is known for defending a number of outlandish genetic theories including the development of a so-called “Russian genome”.

The Russian government has banned independent media. We were forced to leave our country in order to keep doing our job, telling our readers about what is going on Russia, Ukraine and Europe.

","pubDate","2025-12-30T22:49:38.114Z","modifiedAt","2025-12-30T22:49:14.097Z","2025-12-30T22:49:35.939Z","storyId","likes","reposts","comments","storyUpdatedAt","storyArticlesCount",{"_16":331,"_164":332,"_166":332,"_167":-5,"_30":333,"_32":334,"_170":-5,"_171":-5,"_146":-5,"_172":-5,"_173":335,"_175":-5,"_176":-5,"_177":-5,"_178":-5,"_179":-5,"_180":-5,"_181":336,"_183":337,"_185":-5,"_186":-5,"_18":187,"_188":189,"_190":-5,"_72":71,"_191":-5,"_192":71,"_193":-5,"_194":117,"_195":-5,"_196":-5,"_197":117,"_198":199,"_200":-5,"_201":-5,"_202":338,"_204":339,"_206":340,"_216":349,"_223":353,"_228":357,"_230":358,"_67":98,"_232":233,"_234":359,"_65":-5,"_265":361,"_267":-5,"_268":362,"_290":-5,"_291":372,"_293":-5,"_294":361,"_295":373,"_297":374,"_316":69,"_317":388,"_319":389,"_321":-5,"_43":322,"_45":390,"_46":-5,"_324":-5,"_325":-5,"_326":-5,"_327":117,"_328":-5,"_329":-5},"7e682d5f-08f8-49dd-b8f8-3dc3323f18f9","https://novayagazeta.eu/articles/2025/12/04/a-cure-for-wellness-en","A cure for wellness. Described as torture by the UN, gay conversion therapy is nevertheless thriving in contemporary Russia","It’s now over two years since Russia’s Supreme Court deemed the “international LGBT movement” an extremist organisation, effectively outlawing any form of public identification with or support for what is referred to by the Kremlin as “non-traditional sexuality”.","https://novayagazeta.eu/static/previews/2025/12/04/a-cure-for-wellness-en.jpeg?v=70","It’s now over two years since Russia’s Supreme Court deemed the “international LGBT movement” an extremist organisation, effectively outlawing any form of public identification with or support for what is referred to by the Kremlin as “non-traditional sexuality”.\nIn that time, Russian courts have found over 100 individuals guilty of involvement in the “LGBT movement” or displaying queer symbols, such as the rainbow flag, while dozens of others have been prosecuted for their queer identity, whether real or merely suspected.\nIn 2021, almost a quarter of Russians (23%) still considered members of the LGBT community “sick people who need medical treatment”, according to the state-run Russian Public Opinion Research Centre. In today’s Russia, the state equates the threat from LGBT people to that from paedophiles and extremists, dressing up its persecution of queer people as its concern for morality and the protection of children.\nWhat’s perhaps less known is that Russia now has a whole network of “rehabilitation centres” and “psychological workshops” offering to “correct homosexuality” and “cure transgenderism”. Those unfortunate enough to be sent to such institutions by their families are often kept in isolation, forced to undergo “spiritual rehabilitation” and take medication, undergo hypnosis and even be subjected to violence, with human rights activists having recorded instances of both torture and abuse.\nState media, politicians and propagandists have long portrayed LGBT people as deviants who undermine society and regularly compare queer people to paedophiles and other “perverts”.\nState media, politicians and propagandists have long portrayed LGBT people as deviants who undermine society and regularly compare queer people to paedophiles and other “perverts” who need to be either cured or isolated.\nMoreover, homosexuality is often described as a weapon being used against Russia by the West, or as the deputy speaker of Russia’s State Duma, Pyotr Tolstoy, put it: “If we consider LGBT propaganda a tool of hybrid warfare, and no one doubts that anymore, then it poses a danger both to our children and society as a whole.”\nWhen Vladimir Putin instructed the Health Ministry to create a special psychiatric institute to study the behaviour of people “with impaired gender self-identification” in 2023, LGBT people and human rights activists sounded the alarm and warned that Russia could return the thoroughly discredited practice of so-called conversion therapy — violent practices designed to “correct” human sexuality.\nDaddy issues\nNadya Mityagina, an English teacher and content-creator, is a lesbian from the city of Syktyvkar in Russia’s northern Komi republic. Nadya dated boys in her school years, but as that brought her little joy, was increasingly worried there was something wrong with her.\nAfter one painful romantic experience saw Nadya succumb to depression and begin playing truant from school, her mother suggested she see a therapist. The psychologist who treated her decided to “correct” her sexuality.\nHaving taken the psychologist into her confidence, Nadya admitted that she was attracted to women, at which point the therapist informed her that same-sex attraction was “unnatural, came from trauma, and could be treated”. The psychologist then suggested that Nadya’s feelings were due to unresolved issues with her father and tried to convince her that her sexual identity was a lie and a defensive reaction, which could be “corrected”.\nThe treatment consisted of pseudo-scientific practices and emotional blackmail, with Nadya repeatedly being told that “becoming LGBT” would condemn her to a life of unhappiness, loneliness and childlessness.\nLooking back, Nadya admits that as fear was her overriding emotion — the very idea of having feelings for another girl was terrifying — she didn’t even consider the possibility that the therapist could be a quack or the fact that lesbians in many cases did have children. Living in a homophobic environment with no resources for LGBT people didn’t make things any easier, of course.\n“She would divide the palm of her hand into four sections and say: ‘Imagine something delicious, like tiramisu. This is tiramisu [pointing at one quarter of her hand]. This is lemon. This is dog vomit. And this is milk.’ Then she added “kissing women” and placed it with dog vomit. I was meant to imagine eating dog vomit and kissing a woman. Very many times. It was supposed to evoke disgust. It didn’t work. But I spent a lot of time on it.”\n“I was 15 when the first law banning LGBT propaganda was passed,” Nadya continues. “There was a lot of talk about it on TV. I trusted the state — if serious men in suits said it was bad, then there must have been something to it. The most important thing was that I felt ashamed to the point that I couldn’t even think about it.”\n“I was very ashamed. It’s impossible to hate one part of yourself and love the rest. Or be ashamed of one part of yourself, and show off the rest.”\nNadya’s thinking changed, however. At 21, she began trying to accept herself. “I calmed down, realised that I was all right,” she says of coming out to herself. But past experience had made its mark and she found herself thinking “we are doing something wrong” for the first year of what was a happy new relationship with a woman.\nThe road to recovery was long and painful. She relied on therapy, the support of loved ones and an inner desire to be happy. She says it still affects her perception of herself and her ability to be open with others.\n“I was very ashamed. It’s impossible to hate one part of yourself and love the rest. Or be ashamed of one part of yourself, and show off the rest,” Nadya concludes.\nNow she understands only too well that the “specialist” was promoting an anti-scientific lie. After the beginning of the war in Ukraine, she left for Argentina with her future wife. She is now happily married and posts about her queer life.\nA year and a half in hell\nOnly in the last three years has 30-year-old Igor* been able to live a normal life, enjoy his job, be understood by his friends and feel good about himself. Though he understood his alienation from his body from an early age, he found it hard to come to terms with his identity as a trans man, as he grew up knowing nothing about trans people. When he was finally issued with a male ID aged 27, he was immediately disowned by his family.\nThough Igor tried to get into university, his debilitating gender dysphoria and his family’s lack of compassion saw him slip into a deep depression. “I couldn’t look at myself in the mirror or bear to hear my own voice. It was very bad,” he says.\nHaving dropped out of school, lost friends who refused to understand his struggle, and even attempted suicide, Igor ended up at a “rehabilitation centre”, which his mother described to him as “a house in the countryside where they treat depression”.\nWhen he refused to sign a consent form upon his arrival, he was warned that he wouldn’t “leave alive” unless he did.\nAnd so began the nightmare that Igor still finds difficult to talk about. “It was no house in the country. It was just people making money, calling themselves a rehab centre for drug users,” he explains, adding that he knew as soon as he arrived that the sanatorium was nothing of the sort. It turned out to be a strictly run institution with disproportionate punishment meted out for breaking any of its rules. When he refused to sign a consent form upon his arrival, he was warned that he wouldn’t “leave alive” unless he did. He therefore reluctantly “consented” to stay.\nThough the centre claimed to use the same 12-step system as Alcoholics Anonymous, in reality, its methods were far more brutal, and included humiliation, unbearable psychological torture and a strict system of punishment. Everything felt especially absurd to Igor as they tried to treat him for an addiction he wasn’t suffering from. “I felt like an alien, because I don’t drink anything stronger than coffee,” he says of the group sessions.\nIgor found the worst ordeal being forced to write down his innermost thoughts and feelings, allegedly for therapeutic purposes, which were then read by the staff. If the centre’s employees found the words “insincere” or “insufficiently repentant”, they meted out punishment.\n“They could give you more written assignments — to get something even more intimate out of you,” says Igor, adding that they were obliged to report the slightest misconduct of their fellow patients, no matter how insignificant.\nFamilies seeking ways to “correct” their queer children at any cost are typically found through a semi-closed network of personal recommendations and word of mouth. Igor subsequently learned that his mother had been visited by a scout from the centre who had heard that she was looking for an alternative way to “cure” her son.\n“As far as I know, it might have cost anywhere from 60,000 rubles (€660) to 100,000 rubles (€1,100) per month. Sometimes it’s even more,” Igor says.\nIn one call, Igor was shocked to hear his mother tell him that he was lucky, saying she had been advised to place her son in a psychiatric hospital and forget about him.\nDuring his enforced stay at the centre, all communication with the outside world was strictly monitored and he was only allowed to make two short phone calls a week, to which staff at the centre would listen in. In one call, Igor was shocked to hear his mother tell him that he was lucky, saying she had been advised to place her son in a psychiatric hospital and forget about him, adding that he should be grateful she hadn’t done so.\nOne of the most painful aspects of the experience for Igor was his mother’s betrayal, and he says he still hasn’t fully understood why she insisted on sending him there. “I’ve asked her but got no clear answer. But the staff at that wonderful institution told me that she wanted her daughter back.”\nAfter a year and a half of “treatment”, Igor emerged from the centre exhausted, confused and weighing 30kg less than he had when he went in. However, he refused to be broken by the experience. “I looked like a concentration camp survivor. I look at photos from back then and yes, I smile, because I’m alive, at least, but it was a nightmare, of course.”\nThough it took Igor a long time to recover from the trauma, he is at least sure that he will never allow anyone to lock him up under any pretext ever again. He ultimately completed his trans journey alone, finally having the documents he requires, a body he is comfortable in, and a supportive environment.\nTreatment or torture?\nIgor’s story is far from unique. A 2024 investigation carried out by Sistema, the investigative branch of US-funded Radio Liberty, reveals that there are at least 12 organisations within Russia offering “treatment for homosexuality”. Staff from the Initiative for the Prohibition of Conversion Therapy in Russia told Novaya Gazeta Europe that they had approximately 16 other such organisations in their current list, which, they said, did not include the results of monitoring by other human rights projects such as Memorial. The number of such “hospitals” in the country is likely to exceed 30.\nThe institutions usually advertise themselves as offering solutions to alcohol and drugs problems, though the centres contacted by Novaya confirmed that they could also “fix” LGBT people, most of whom are placed in such centres against their will by their own families. Their methods include religious sermons, isolating clients from society, the forcible medication of patients, prayer, hypnosis and punitive psychiatric procedures.\nThe World Psychiatric Association calls attempts to change a person’s sexual orientation and gender identity unethical, while the UN equates some types of forced “homosexuality treatment” with torture. In Russia, however, such methods are de facto encouraged by the state, which not only avoids public criticism of such institutions, but also refuses to take up the cases of those who have been illegally locked up in these hell holes.\n*name changed","

It’s now over two years since Russia’s Supreme Court deemed the “international LGBT movement” an extremist organisation, effectively outlawing any form of public identification with or support for what is referred to by the Kremlin as “non-traditional sexuality”.

In that time, Russian courts have found over 100 individuals guilty of involvement in the “LGBT movement” or displaying queer symbols, such as the rainbow flag, while dozens of others have been prosecuted for their queer identity, whether real or merely suspected.

In 2021, almost a quarter of Russians (23%) still considered members of the LGBT community “sick people who need medical treatment”, according to the state-run Russian Public Opinion Research Centre. In today’s Russia, the state equates the threat from LGBT people to that from paedophiles and extremists, dressing up its persecution of queer people as its concern for morality and the protection of children.

What’s perhaps less known is that Russia now has a whole network of “rehabilitation centres” and “psychological workshops” offering to “correct homosexuality” and “cure transgenderism”. Those unfortunate enough to be sent to such institutions by their families are often kept in isolation, forced to undergo “spiritual rehabilitation” and take medication, undergo hypnosis and even be subjected to violence, with human rights activists having recorded instances of both torture and abuse.

State media, politicians and propagandists have long portrayed LGBT people as deviants who undermine society and regularly compare queer people to paedophiles and other “perverts”.

State media, politicians and propagandists have long portrayed LGBT people as deviants who undermine society and regularly compare queer people to paedophiles and other “perverts” who need to be either cured or isolated.

Moreover, homosexuality is often described as a weapon being used against Russia by the West, or as the deputy speaker of Russia’s State Duma, Pyotr Tolstoy, put it: “If we consider LGBT propaganda a tool of hybrid warfare, and no one doubts that anymore, then it poses a danger both to our children and society as a whole.”

When Vladimir Putin instructed the Health Ministry to create a special psychiatric institute to study the behaviour of people “with impaired gender self-identification” in 2023, LGBT people and human rights activists sounded the alarm and warned that Russia could return the thoroughly discredited practice of so-called conversion therapy — violent practices designed to “correct” human sexuality.

Daddy issues

Nadya Mityagina, an English teacher and content-creator, is a lesbian from the city of Syktyvkar in Russia’s northern Komi republic. Nadya dated boys in her school years, but as that brought her little joy, was increasingly worried there was something wrong with her.

After one painful romantic experience saw Nadya succumb to depression and begin playing truant from school, her mother suggested she see a therapist. The psychologist who treated her decided to “correct” her sexuality.

Having taken the psychologist into her confidence, Nadya admitted that she was attracted to women, at which point the therapist informed her that same-sex attraction was “unnatural, came from trauma, and could be treated”. The psychologist then suggested that Nadya’s feelings were due to unresolved issues with her father and tried to convince her that her sexual identity was a lie and a defensive reaction, which could be “corrected”.

The treatment consisted of pseudo-scientific practices and emotional blackmail, with Nadya repeatedly being told that “becoming LGBT” would condemn her to a life of unhappiness, loneliness and childlessness.

Looking back, Nadya admits that as fear was her overriding emotion — the very idea of having feelings for another girl was terrifying — she didn’t even consider the possibility that the therapist could be a quack or the fact that lesbians in many cases did have children. Living in a homophobic environment with no resources for LGBT people didn’t make things any easier, of course.

“She would divide the palm of her hand into four sections and say: ‘Imagine something delicious, like tiramisu. This is tiramisu [pointing at one quarter of her hand]. This is lemon. This is dog vomit. And this is milk.’ Then she added “kissing women” and placed it with dog vomit. I was meant to imagine eating dog vomit and kissing a woman. Very many times. It was supposed to evoke disgust. It didn’t work. But I spent a lot of time on it.”

“I was 15 when the first law banning LGBT propaganda was passed,” Nadya continues. “There was a lot of talk about it on TV. I trusted the state — if serious men in suits said it was bad, then there must have been something to it. The most important thing was that I felt ashamed to the point that I couldn’t even think about it.”

“I was very ashamed. It’s impossible to hate one part of yourself and love the rest. Or be ashamed of one part of yourself, and show off the rest.”

Nadya’s thinking changed, however. At 21, she began trying to accept herself. “I calmed down, realised that I was all right,” she says of coming out to herself. But past experience had made its mark and she found herself thinking “we are doing something wrong” for the first year of what was a happy new relationship with a woman.

The road to recovery was long and painful. She relied on therapy, the support of loved ones and an inner desire to be happy. She says it still affects her perception of herself and her ability to be open with others.

“I was very ashamed. It’s impossible to hate one part of yourself and love the rest. Or be ashamed of one part of yourself, and show off the rest,” Nadya concludes.

Now she understands only too well that the “specialist” was promoting an anti-scientific lie. After the beginning of the war in Ukraine, she left for Argentina with her future wife. She is now happily married and posts about her queer life.

A year and a half in hell

Only in the last three years has 30-year-old Igor* been able to live a normal life, enjoy his job, be understood by his friends and feel good about himself. Though he understood his alienation from his body from an early age, he found it hard to come to terms with his identity as a trans man, as he grew up knowing nothing about trans people. When he was finally issued with a male ID aged 27, he was immediately disowned by his family.

Though Igor tried to get into university, his debilitating gender dysphoria and his family’s lack of compassion saw him slip into a deep depression. “I couldn’t look at myself in the mirror or bear to hear my own voice. It was very bad,” he says.

Having dropped out of school, lost friends who refused to understand his struggle, and even attempted suicide, Igor ended up at a “rehabilitation centre”, which his mother described to him as “a house in the countryside where they treat depression”.

When he refused to sign a consent form upon his arrival, he was warned that he wouldn’t “leave alive” unless he did.

And so began the nightmare that Igor still finds difficult to talk about. “It was no house in the country. It was just people making money, calling themselves a rehab centre for drug users,” he explains, adding that he knew as soon as he arrived that the sanatorium was nothing of the sort. It turned out to be a strictly run institution with disproportionate punishment meted out for breaking any of its rules. When he refused to sign a consent form upon his arrival, he was warned that he wouldn’t “leave alive” unless he did. He therefore reluctantly “consented” to stay.

Though the centre claimed to use the same 12-step system as Alcoholics Anonymous, in reality, its methods were far more brutal, and included humiliation, unbearable psychological torture and a strict system of punishment. Everything felt especially absurd to Igor as they tried to treat him for an addiction he wasn’t suffering from. “I felt like an alien, because I don’t drink anything stronger than coffee,” he says of the group sessions.

Igor found the worst ordeal being forced to write down his innermost thoughts and feelings, allegedly for therapeutic purposes, which were then read by the staff. If the centre’s employees found the words “insincere” or “insufficiently repentant”, they meted out punishment.

“They could give you more written assignments — to get something even more intimate out of you,” says Igor, adding that they were obliged to report the slightest misconduct of their fellow patients, no matter how insignificant.

Families seeking ways to “correct” their queer children at any cost are typically found through a semi-closed network of personal recommendations and word of mouth. Igor subsequently learned that his mother had been visited by a scout from the centre who had heard that she was looking for an alternative way to “cure” her son.

“As far as I know, it might have cost anywhere from 60,000 rubles (€660) to 100,000 rubles (€1,100) per month. Sometimes it’s even more,” Igor says.

In one call, Igor was shocked to hear his mother tell him that he was lucky, saying she had been advised to place her son in a psychiatric hospital and forget about him.

During his enforced stay at the centre, all communication with the outside world was strictly monitored and he was only allowed to make two short phone calls a week, to which staff at the centre would listen in. In one call, Igor was shocked to hear his mother tell him that he was lucky, saying she had been advised to place her son in a psychiatric hospital and forget about him, adding that he should be grateful she hadn’t done so.

One of the most painful aspects of the experience for Igor was his mother’s betrayal, and he says he still hasn’t fully understood why she insisted on sending him there. “I’ve asked her but got no clear answer. But the staff at that wonderful institution told me that she wanted her daughter back.”

After a year and a half of “treatment”, Igor emerged from the centre exhausted, confused and weighing 30kg less than he had when he went in. However, he refused to be broken by the experience. “I looked like a concentration camp survivor. I look at photos from back then and yes, I smile, because I’m alive, at least, but it was a nightmare, of course.”

Though it took Igor a long time to recover from the trauma, he is at least sure that he will never allow anyone to lock him up under any pretext ever again. He ultimately completed his trans journey alone, finally having the documents he requires, a body he is comfortable in, and a supportive environment.

Treatment or torture?

Igor’s story is far from unique. A 2024 investigation carried out by Sistema, the investigative branch of US-funded Radio Liberty, reveals that there are at least 12 organisations within Russia offering “treatment for homosexuality”. Staff from the Initiative for the Prohibition of Conversion Therapy in Russia told Novaya Gazeta Europe that they had approximately 16 other such organisations in their current list, which, they said, did not include the results of monitoring by other human rights projects such as Memorial. The number of such “hospitals” in the country is likely to exceed 30.

The institutions usually advertise themselves as offering solutions to alcohol and drugs problems, though the centres contacted by Novaya confirmed that they could also “fix” LGBT people, most of whom are placed in such centres against their will by their own families. Their methods include religious sermons, isolating clients from society, the forcible medication of patients, prayer, hypnosis and punitive psychiatric procedures.

The World Psychiatric Association calls attempts to change a person’s sexual orientation and gender identity unethical, while the UN equates some types of forced “homosexuality treatment” with torture. In Russia, however, such methods are de facto encouraged by the state, which not only avoids public criticism of such institutions, but also refuses to take up the cases of those who have been illegally locked up in these hell holes.

*name changed

","Russia's crackdown on the LGBT community has led to a rise in \"rehabilitation centers\" that subject individuals to harmful conversion therapy, including torture and abuse, often at the behest of their families. Personal stories highlight the severe psychological and physical toll these practices take.","Russia has a growing network of \"rehabilitation centers\" and \"psychological workshops\" that offer to \"correct homosexuality\" and \"cure transgenderism,\" often employing abusive and pseudosciential methods. These institutions, some of which operate under the guise of treating addiction, are frequently used by families to \"treat\" their queer relatives, leading to severe psychological trauma and physical abuse. Human rights activists equate some of these forced treatments to torture, a practice implicitly encouraged by the state's stance on LGBT identification.",[341,342,343,344,345,346,347,348],"Russia's Supreme Court declared the \"international LGBT movement\" extremist, leading to the prosecution of individuals for identifying as or displaying symbols of queer identity.","A significant portion of Russians still view LGBT individuals as needing medical treatment, and the state equates threats from LGBT people to those from pedophiles and extremists.","Numerous \"rehabilitation centers\" and \"psychological workshops\" exist in Russia, offering to \"correct homosexuality\" and \"cure transgenderism\" through isolation, medication, hypnosis, and even violence.","State media and politicians often portray LGBT people as deviants and compare them to pedophiles, framing homosexuality as a Western weapon against Russia.","Personal accounts from Nadya Mityagina (a lesbian) and Igor* (a trans man) detail experiences of forced \"conversion therapy,\" psychological manipulation, and abuse within these centers.","These centers often advertise for drug and alcohol addiction but readily \"fix\" LGBT individuals, employing methods like religious sermons, isolation, forced medication, and punitive psychiatric procedures.","International organizations like the World Psychiatric Association deem attempts to change sexual orientation and gender identity unethical, and the UN equates some forced treatments to torture.","Despite the documented abuse, Russian authorities do not publicly criticize these institutions or intervene in cases of illegal confinement.",[350,218,351,352],"Pyotr Tolstoy","Nadya Mityagina","Igor*",[31,354,355,356],"Syktyvkar","Komi republic","Argentina",898,-4.5,{"_236":237,"_238":360,"_264":246},{"_16":240,"_41":-5,"_241":242,"_65":-5,"_243":-5,"_144":244,"_245":246,"_247":71,"_68":69,"_232":29,"_248":-5,"_249":69,"_188":189,"_250":251,"_43":251,"_252":253,"_254":71,"_255":251,"_45":251,"_256":69,"_67":98,"_257":258,"_259":-5,"_260":261,"_262":-5,"_263":-5},"861d5bd403422dd34ad93ad5d627dd03c96f1492d59d99ae83d58ff8f464bb7e",{"_16":361,"_270":363,"_272":244,"_65":364,"_286":285,"_181":371,"_288":289},"a8dc4851840b8e945b9808fa3d23589da7329c7199c89905adc751162c31faecd14a9f940ecb840b93fc1bc01ebc85a9c0cb1eed6dc4661db6054741813a40b8",[365,366,367,369,370],[232,333],[34,335],[277,368,29,279],"30023:997898605ebf4d2a9f28d8443dffd2209cce8aa2bdbcf1324929ebd5997332be:7e682d5f-08f8-49dd-b8f8-3dc3323f18f9",[281,282],[284,285,29],"A cure for wellness. Described as torture by the UN, gay conversion therapy is nevertheless thriving in contemporary Russia\nIt’s now over two years since Russia’s Supreme Court deemed the “international LGBT movement” an extremist organisation, effectively outlawing any form of public identification with or support for what is referred to by the Kremlin as “non-traditional sexuality”.\n\n\nnostr:naddr1qvzqqqr4gupzpxtcnps9a06d920j3kzy8hlaygyue69290du7yeyj20t6kvhxv47qqjrwefk8qexgdtx95crse3c956rjery943rse3c95ekgcenxverxe338pnrjwetanp ","It’s now over two years since Russia’s Supreme Court deemed the “international LGBT movement” an extremist organisation, effectively outlawing any form of public identification with or support for what is referred to by the Kremlin as “non-traditional sexuality”.\n\nIn that time, Russian courts have [found](https://www.hrw.org/news/2025/06/30/russia-rising-toll-of-lgbt-extremism-designation) over 100 individuals guilty of involvement in the “LGBT movement” or displaying queer symbols, such as the rainbow flag, while dozens of others have been prosecuted for their queer identity, whether real or merely suspected.\n\nIn 2021, almost a quarter of Russians (23%) still considered members of the LGBT community “sick people who need medical treatment”, [according](https://wciom.ru/analytical-reviews/analiticheskii-obzor/odnopolye-braki-tabu-ili-novaja-norma) to the state-run Russian Public Opinion Research Centre. In today’s Russia, the state equates the threat from LGBT people to that from paedophiles and extremists, dressing up its persecution of queer people as its concern for morality and the protection of children.\n\nWhat’s perhaps less known is that Russia now has a whole network of “rehabilitation centres” and “psychological workshops” offering to “correct homosexuality” and “cure transgenderism”. Those unfortunate enough to be [sent](https://theins.ru/news/269678) to such institutions by their families are often kept in isolation, forced to undergo “spiritual rehabilitation” and take medication, undergo hypnosis and even be subjected to violence, with human rights activists having recorded instances of both torture and abuse.\n\nState media, politicians and propagandists have long portrayed LGBT people as deviants who undermine society and regularly compare queer people to paedophiles and other “perverts”.\n\nState media, politicians and propagandists have long portrayed LGBT people as deviants who undermine society and regularly compare queer people to paedophiles and other “perverts” who need to be either cured or isolated.\n\nMoreover, homosexuality is often described as a weapon being used against Russia by the West, or as the deputy speaker of Russia’s State Duma, Pyotr Tolstoy, [put it](https://theins.ru/news/256230): “If we consider LGBT propaganda a tool of hybrid warfare, and no one doubts that anymore, then it poses a danger both to our children and society as a whole.”\n\nWhen Vladimir Putin [instructed](https://meduza.io/news/2023/06/15/glava-minzdrava-rossii-pouchastvoval-v-obsuzhdenii-zakonoproekta-o-zaprete-smeny-pola-on-skazal-chto-putin-poruchil-sozdat-institut-psihiatrii-po-izucheniyu-etih-povedencheskih-napravleniy) the Health Ministry to create a special psychiatric institute to study the behaviour of people “with impaired gender self-identification” in 2023, LGBT people and human rights activists sounded the alarm and warned that Russia could return the thoroughly discredited practice of so-called conversion therapy — violent practices designed to “correct” human sexuality.\n\nDaddy issues\n\nNadya Mityagina, an English teacher and content-creator, is a lesbian from the city of Syktyvkar in Russia’s northern Komi republic. Nadya dated boys in her school years, but as that brought her little joy, was increasingly worried there was something wrong with her.\n\nAfter one painful romantic experience saw Nadya succumb to depression and begin playing truant from school, her mother suggested she see a therapist. The psychologist who treated her decided to “correct” her sexuality.\n\nHaving taken the psychologist into her confidence, Nadya admitted that she was attracted to women, at which point the therapist informed her that same-sex attraction was “unnatural, came from trauma, and could be treated”. The psychologist then suggested that Nadya’s feelings were due to unresolved issues with her father and tried to convince her that her sexual identity was a lie and a defensive reaction, which could be “corrected”.\n\nThe treatment consisted of pseudo-scientific practices and emotional blackmail, with Nadya repeatedly being told that “becoming LGBT” would condemn her to a life of unhappiness, loneliness and childlessness.\n\nLooking back, Nadya admits that as fear was her overriding emotion — the very idea of having feelings for another girl was terrifying — she didn’t even consider the possibility that the therapist could be a quack or the fact that lesbians in many cases did have children. Living in a homophobic environment with no resources for LGBT people didn’t make things any easier, of course.\n\n“She would divide the palm of her hand into four sections and say: ‘Imagine something delicious, like tiramisu. This is tiramisu \\[pointing at one quarter of her hand\\]. This is lemon. This is dog vomit. And this is milk.’ Then she added “kissing women” and placed it with dog vomit. I was meant to imagine eating dog vomit and kissing a woman. Very many times. It was supposed to evoke disgust. It didn’t work. But I spent a lot of time on it.”\n\n“I was 15 when the first law banning LGBT propaganda was passed,” Nadya continues. “There was a lot of talk about it on TV. I trusted the state — if serious men in suits said it was bad, then there must have been something to it. The most important thing was that I felt ashamed to the point that I couldn’t even think about it.”\n\n“I was very ashamed. It’s impossible to hate one part of yourself and love the rest. Or be ashamed of one part of yourself, and show off the rest.”\n\nNadya’s thinking changed, however. At 21, she began trying to accept herself. “I calmed down, realised that I was all right,” she says of coming out to herself. But past experience had made its mark and she found herself thinking “we are doing something wrong” for the first year of what was a happy new relationship with a woman.\n\nThe road to recovery was long and painful. She relied on therapy, the support of loved ones and an inner desire to be happy. She says it still affects her perception of herself and her ability to be open with others.\n\n“I was very ashamed. It’s impossible to hate one part of yourself and love the rest. Or be ashamed of one part of yourself, and show off the rest,” Nadya concludes.\n\nNow she understands only too well that the “specialist” was promoting an anti-scientific lie. After the beginning of the war in Ukraine, she left for Argentina with her future wife. She is now happily married and posts about her queer life.\n\nA year and a half in hell\n\nOnly in the last three years has 30-year-old Igor\\* been able to live a normal life, enjoy his job, be understood by his friends and feel good about himself. Though he understood his alienation from his body from an early age, he found it hard to come to terms with his identity as a trans man, as he grew up knowing nothing about trans people. When he was finally issued with a male ID aged 27, he was immediately disowned by his family.\n\nThough Igor tried to get into university, his debilitating gender dysphoria and his family’s lack of compassion saw him slip into a deep depression. “I couldn’t look at myself in the mirror or bear to hear my own voice. It was very bad,” he says.\n\nHaving dropped out of school, lost friends who refused to understand his struggle, and even attempted suicide, Igor ended up at a “rehabilitation centre”, which his mother described to him as “a house in the countryside where they treat depression”.\n\nWhen he refused to sign a consent form upon his arrival, he was warned that he wouldn’t “leave alive” unless he did.\n\nAnd so began the nightmare that Igor still finds difficult to talk about. “It was no house in the country. It was just people making money, calling themselves a rehab centre for drug users,” he explains, adding that he knew as soon as he arrived that the sanatorium was nothing of the sort. It turned out to be a strictly run institution with disproportionate punishment meted out for breaking any of its rules. When he refused to sign a consent form upon his arrival, he was warned that he wouldn’t “leave alive” unless he did. He therefore reluctantly “consented” to stay.\n\nThough the centre claimed to use the same 12-step system as Alcoholics Anonymous, in reality, its methods were far more brutal, and included humiliation, unbearable psychological torture and a strict system of punishment. Everything felt especially absurd to Igor as they tried to treat him for an addiction he wasn’t suffering from. “I felt like an alien, because I don’t drink anything stronger than coffee,” he says of the group sessions.\n\nIgor found the worst ordeal being forced to write down his innermost thoughts and feelings, allegedly for therapeutic purposes, which were then read by the staff. If the centre’s employees found the words “insincere” or “insufficiently repentant”, they meted out punishment.\n\n“They could give you more written assignments — to get something even more intimate out of you,” says Igor, adding that they were obliged to report the slightest misconduct of their fellow patients, no matter how insignificant.\n\nFamilies seeking ways to “correct” their queer children at any cost are typically found through a semi-closed network of personal recommendations and word of mouth. Igor subsequently learned that his mother had been visited by a scout from the centre who had heard that she was looking for an alternative way to “cure” her son.\n\n“As far as I know, it might have cost anywhere from 60,000 rubles (€660) to 100,000 rubles (€1,100) per month. Sometimes it’s even more,” Igor says.\n\nIn one call, Igor was shocked to hear his mother tell him that he was lucky, saying she had been advised to place her son in a psychiatric hospital and forget about him.\n\nDuring his enforced stay at the centre, all communication with the outside world was strictly monitored and he was only allowed to make two short phone calls a week, to which staff at the centre would listen in. In one call, Igor was shocked to hear his mother tell him that he was lucky, saying she had been advised to place her son in a psychiatric hospital and forget about him, adding that he should be grateful she hadn’t done so.\n\nOne of the most painful aspects of the experience for Igor was his mother’s betrayal, and he says he still hasn’t fully understood why she insisted on sending him there. “I’ve asked her but got no clear answer. But the staff at that wonderful institution told me that she wanted her daughter back.”\n\nAfter a year and a half of “treatment”, Igor emerged from the centre exhausted, confused and weighing 30kg less than he had when he went in. However, he refused to be broken by the experience. “I looked like a concentration camp survivor. I look at photos from back then and yes, I smile, because I’m alive, at least, but it was a nightmare, of course.”\n\nThough it took Igor a long time to recover from the trauma, he is at least sure that he will never allow anyone to lock him up under any pretext ever again. He ultimately completed his trans journey alone, finally having the documents he requires, a body he is comfortable in, and a supportive environment.\n\nTreatment or torture?\n\nIgor’s story is far from unique. A 2024 [investigation](https://theins.ru/news/269678) carried out by Sistema, the investigative branch of US-funded Radio Liberty, reveals that there are at least 12 organisations within Russia offering “treatment for homosexuality”. Staff from the Initiative for the Prohibition of Conversion Therapy in Russia [told](https://bctir.org/) Novaya Gazeta Europe that they had approximately 16 other such organisations in their current list, which, they said, did not include the results of monitoring by other human rights projects such as Memorial. The number of such “hospitals” in the country is likely to exceed 30.\n\nThe institutions usually advertise themselves as offering solutions to alcohol and drugs problems, though the centres contacted by Novaya confirmed that they could also “fix” LGBT people, most of whom are placed in such centres against their will by their own families. Their methods include religious sermons, isolating clients from society, the forcible medication of patients, prayer, hypnosis and punitive psychiatric procedures.\n\nThe World Psychiatric Association [calls](https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC5032493/) attempts to change a person’s sexual orientation and gender identity unethical, while the UN [equates](https://docs.un.org/en/A/HRC/44/53) some types of forced “homosexuality treatment” with torture. In Russia, however, such methods are de facto encouraged by the state, which not only avoids public criticism of such institutions, but also refuses to take up the cases of those who have been illegally locked up in these hell holes.\n\n\\*name changed","418b296811a2a258f197c250ccf820afdab69cca36cfb80e82c9edc230d1620d",{"_16":373,"_270":375,"_272":300,"_65":376,"_286":285,"_181":387,"_288":289},"1376da20ed74420903436a57b1e222d0ae92d9b97732096119e2f4c364cf4ec24bc537a2b8537d02a4e1670015653ab98f08c3bd18739621f330ffd944a6f240",[377,379,380,382,383,384,385,386],[303,378],"https://russia.layer3.press/articles/7e682d5f-08f8-49dd-b8f8-3dc3323f18f9",[30,333],[307,381],"1767135039",[34,335],[311,331],[204,334],[281,282],[284,285,29],"A cure for wellness. Described as torture by the UN, gay conversion therapy is nevertheless thriving in contemporary Russia\nRussia has a growing network of \"rehabilitation centers\" and \"psychological workshops\" that offer to \"correct homosexuality\" and \"cure transgenderism,\" often employing abusive and pseudosciential methods. These institutions, some of which operate under the guise of treating addiction, are frequently used by families to \"treat\" their queer relatives, leading to severe psychological trauma and physical abuse. Human rights activists equate some of these forced treatments to torture, a practice implicitly encouraged by the state's stance on LGBT identification.\n - Russia's Supreme Court declared the \"international LGBT movement\" extremist, leading to the prosecution of individuals for identifying as or displaying symbols of queer identity.\n - A significant portion of Russians still view LGBT individuals as needing medical treatment, and the state equates threats from LGBT people to those from pedophiles and extremists.\n - Numerous \"rehabilitation centers\" and \"psychological workshops\" exist in Russia, offering to \"correct homosexuality\" and \"cure transgenderism\" through isolation, medication, hypnosis, and even violence.\n - State media and politicians often portray LGBT people as deviants and compare them to pedophiles, framing homosexuality as a Western weapon against Russia.\n - Personal accounts from Nadya Mityagina (a lesbian) and Igor* (a trans man) detail experiences of forced \"conversion therapy,\" psychological manipulation, and abuse within these centers.\n - These centers often advertise for drug and alcohol addiction but readily \"fix\" LGBT individuals, employing methods like religious sermons, isolation, forced medication, and punitive psychiatric procedures.\n - International organizations like the World Psychiatric Association deem attempts to change sexual orientation and gender identity unethical, and the UN equates some forced treatments to torture.\n - Despite the documented abuse, Russian authorities do not publicly criticize these institutions or intervene in cases of illegal confinement.\n","

State media, politicians and propagandists have long portrayed LGBT people as deviants who undermine society and regularly compare queer people to paedophiles and other “perverts”.

Daddy issues

“I was very ashamed. It’s impossible to hate one part of yourself and love the rest. Or be ashamed of one part of yourself, and show off the rest.”

“I was very ashamed. It’s impossible to hate one part of yourself and love the rest. Or be ashamed of one part of yourself, and show off the rest,” Nadya concludes.

A year and a half in hell

When he refused to sign a consent form upon his arrival, he was warned that he wouldn’t “leave alive” unless he did.

“As far as I know, it might have cost anywhere from 60,000 rubles (€660) to 100,000 rubles (€1,100) per month. Sometimes it’s even more,” Igor says.

In one call, Igor was shocked to hear his mother tell him that he was lucky, saying she had been advised to place her son in a psychiatric hospital and forget about him.

Treatment or torture?

*name changed

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