I wouldn’t set foot in Russia at all. Totally Third World. Not ready for prime time and I don’t know if it will ever be.
Has Johnny Weir made any public statements after being deported from Russia?
I’m sorry, I misread the post I was replying to (and can’t find an option to edit my own post? ). It appears Johnny hasn’t been deported from Russia (as of yet).
Nevertheless, what is the total number of LGBT activists deported from Sochi?
None that I am aware of. The Russians indicated they weren’t going to bother anyone who wasn’t specifically making themselves a nuisance, and it appears they kept their word, at least in re: the Olympic Village. Weir flew home to New York not long ago, having apparently had a wonderful time.
It may have been a case of “we can’t deport everyone”. A significant portion of the people there expressed their support for the GLBT community in Russia, and indicated that they thought the law was wrong. Rainbows were suspiciously fashionable – Germany’s team and the International Olympic Committee independently distributed completely different rainbow tracksuits to their personnel as the official uniform. The Russian Federation’s own Olympic Committee chose t.A.T.u. as the entertainment for the opening ceremonies, a female pop duo famous mainly for singing a lot of songs about lesbians and snogging each other during live performances.
All in all, it went about a million times better than anyone had hoped. The main bit of world news to come out of skating was that Russia’s only men’s singles entrant had to withdraw due to injury.
I see. Well, who won the betting pool, then? The one with bets on how long it’d take Russians to deport Weir?
The human race. I generally expect these things to go terribly in some newsworthy manner. I’m happy to be wrong when they don’t.
I disagree. The human race lost, and lost quite decisively here. We had hundreds (maybe even thousands) of LGBT activists from all over the world ready to protest the daily torture, execution and outright murder of LGBT people in Russia, and for the Russians to turn the tables on them and to refuse to do all these horrible things during the Olympics… Just when one thinks the humanity can’t sink any lower…
I was quite happy to be proven wrong, there was no terror attack. Still, I’m glad I didn’t go, not that I ever remotely entertained the idea. Putin is a thug, and I wouldn’t want to give his regime any financial benefit of my tourism.
Don’t be so harsh on yourself. Your prediction
was right on the money, except the fact it was completely wrong. But it’s not your fault: unfortunately, the reality seems to have an inexplicable (at least to me) and quite persistent dislike for LibDems.
Fear not, though: the next big sporting event Russia is going to host will be even bigger than Winter Olympics: 2018 World Soccer Cup.
Let’s get another betting pool started straight away, concerning the number of terrorist attacks and LGBT deportations during the Cup… And this time, I dare…nay, double-dare, the reality to interfere with our ideas…