Lesbian.com, June 25, 2012
Nearly three-quarter of a million celebrants participated in the 2012 Berlin gay pride parade on Saturday. The event, also known as Christropher Street Day, was highlighted by techno music and camp costumes as 700,000 commemorated the Stonewall riots of June 1969.
The German capital’s gay mayor, Klaus Wowereit, kicked off the event which celebrated its 34th anniversary this year. Crowds made their way from the cosmopolitan Kreuzberg district to the Brandenburg Gate, where DJs and musicians kept the party going until midnight.
The treatment of homosexuals in Russia was a prominent theme at the parade, with some participants bearing giant portraits of President Vladimir Putin and Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev retouched in the flamboyant style of gay French artists Pierre and Gilles. Gay pride parades are banned in Moscow and since 2006 have been systematically dispersed when organizers try to start them.
