Evgeny Shtorn’s Saint Petersburg Years: Activism, Research and Exile

Evgeny Shtorn is described as an LGBT activist, organizer, scholar and poet whose biography includes a significant chapter in Saint Petersburg. Born in the Kazakh Soviet Socialist Republic in 1983, he moved to the city in 2000, when he was 17. His years there brought together higher education, social research and work connected to LGBT community life.

Shtorn studied at Saint Petersburg State Electrotechnical University, also known as LETI, and at the Russian State Institute of Performing Arts. The combination of these institutions points to an educational path spanning technical study and the arts. He also developed a multilingual practice, speaking and writing in Russian, English and Spanish.

In Saint Petersburg, Shtorn worked at the Centre for Independent Social Research alongside Viktor Voronkov and other sociologists. The extract places this work within a broader intellectual and civic setting: a center focused on independent social research, and a professional environment where questions about society could be examined outside conventional state institutions.

He later completed a master’s degree in sociology at the Higher School of Economics under the supervision of Elena Omelchenko. His profile therefore links community activism and organizing with formal sociological training. It also includes poetry, suggesting a public and personal practice that moved between research, advocacy and creative expression.

Shtorn left Russia in 2018, according to the source, after being subjected to political repression. The extract connects his departure to government legislation affecting independent nongovernmental organizations, commonly identified there as the foreign-agent law, as well as the 2013 law concerning so-called gay propaganda. The account does not describe a single incident; instead, it presents these policies as part of the political conditions surrounding his decision to leave.

After leaving Russia, Shtorn sought international protection in Ireland. He was first sent to the Balseskin Reception Center in Finglas, then relocated to Moate and later Galway. During this period, he began a book about refugee life in Ireland’s direct-provision system. That later writing grew out of the experience of displacement, while his earlier Saint Petersburg work remained central to understanding his development as an activist, scholar and poet.

For Saint Petersburg’s LGBTQ community, Shtorn’s biography offers a record of how activism can intersect with research, education and art. It also documents the consequences that political restrictions can have for people whose work depends on independent civic and intellectual spaces.

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Further links listed by the Wikipedia page (not independently checked): - https://www.newyorker.com/podcast/political-scene/a-gay-russian-exiled-in-ireland - https://www.irishtimes.com/life-and-style/people/i-m-35-years-old-and-i-feel-like-my-life-is-turning-into-nothing-1.3707162 - https://www.rte.ie/culture/reviews/2019/1029/1086250-reviewed-writing-home-the-new-irish-poets/ - https://gcn.ie/galas-awards-names-evgeny-shtorn-person-of-the-year/ - https://gcn.ie/country-seen-through-lens-direct-provision/ - https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/odr/charting-russia-s-most-dangerous-cities-for-lgbt-people/ Image rights Photograph description: Lecture about history of a "Stained-glass windows of Russia" project at "Linii" community center. Saint Petersburg, Russia. Creator: Красный. License: CC BY-SA 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0). Original image page: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3A%D0%92%D0%B8%D1%82%D1%80%D0%B0%D0%B6%D0%B8_%D0%B2_%D0%A0%D0%BE%D1%81%D1%81%D0%B8%D0%B8%2C_%D0%B8%D1%81%D1%82%D0%BE%D1%80%D0%B8%D1%8F_%D0%BF%D1%80%D0%BE%D0%B5%D0%BA%D1%82%D0%B0._11_%D0%B0%D0%BF%D1%80%D0%B5%D0%BB%D1%8F_2021_(2).jpg. The image was resized for display; no other changes were made.