Ksenia Mesheryakova, 39, is a lesbian Russian immigrant who lives with her wife Lisa, and their young daughter Sophie. “Russia is my motherland,” she said in a statement this weekend. “But right now my motherland is acting like an abusive bitch.”
This vocal smack-down was made in retaliation to IKEA’s decision to pull a story about a lesbian couple’s home furnishing system from a recent Russian catalog. Angry Russian gay couples staged a guerilla protest this weekend at the store’s Brooklyn location.
The protest was staged by Alexander Kargaltsev, a Russian photographer; Nina Long, co-founder of Russa LGBT and Joseph Huff-Hannon, who just happens to be co-editing a book called Gay Propaganda: Russian Love Stories, for OR Books in January. Said Mr. Huff-Hanon:
“IKEA calls themselves the Life Improvement store, but we decided they have some major room for improvement after they deleted a lesbian couple from the Russian version of their catalog. IKEA should stop insulting their LGBT customers in Russia and around the world, show some backbone, and publish the story in Russian.”
The group also made this video to explain their decision to make IKEA “Queered.”
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E1Ee9opxLOc&w=560&h=315]
