Moscow gay club Central Station reportedly shut down

Club subjected to series of attacks

Popular Moscow gay club Central Station, which has been subject to a series of attacks, has reportedly shut down, Queer Russia says.

According to the report, the landlord cites an arbitration court ruling as the reason for the club’s closure, but Central Station owners say the club was allowed to remain in the building until 2017.

Club CEO Andrei Lischinsky resigned in February, noting that the venue had been raided several times in a bid to intimidate patrons and that he was “tired of fighting.”

In November, Queer Russia reported that shots were fired in one attack on the club. A week after that incident, Central Station came under attack again with the release of an unspecified “harmful gas” on the premises. Many of the 500 people who were in the club at the time required medical attention, Queer Russia said.

In an interview with The Washington Blade in January, an ex-manager of the club, Arkady Gyngazov, said he is planning to seek asylum in the United States because he fears for his life.

Natasha Barsotti is originally from Trinidad and Tobago in the Caribbean. She had high aspirations of representing her country in Olympic Games sprint events, but after a while the firing of the starting gun proved too much for her nerves. So she went off to university instead. Her first professional love has always been journalism. After pursuing a Master of Journalism at UBC , she began freelancing at Xtra West — now Xtra Vancouver — in 2006, becoming a full-time reporter there in 2008.

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