“We were so happy when we got the stamps in our passports. All Russians over 14 must by law possess internal passports that document their place of residence and marital status. Upon their return to Russia in January, the couple submitted their internal passports to a register’s office in Moscow, where a clerk “calmly and without any questions” put marriage stamps on the documents.
Russian officials, it appears, were unaware of the legal loophole.
But after studying Russian civil law, Stotsko and Voitsekhovsky realised that the authorities are obliged to recognise marriages that have been registered abroad, even those between same-sex couples. The two men’s problems with the Russian authorities began at the start of the year after they wed in Denmark, where same-sex marriages have been legal since 2012.Īlthough homosexuality is not against the law in Russia, same-sex marriage is.
