Another serviceman, named only as Ilya, became a male prostitute during his
second month in the army. The young man received a letter from his girlfriend.
"The sergeant told me that day that I would no longer need girls. He and three
other men forced me to go behind the barracks to the abandoned construction
site. They made me kneel their, tied me up to a lamppost and hit me several
times in the groin. The pain was so strong that I lost the will to fight them
back. They made me open my mouth and raped me. I don't remember how long it
continued. When I came to my senses I didn't want to live. I was seriously
thinking about committing suicide. I was shocked that the rapists were visiting
me regularly afterwards bringing fruit and vodka for me. When it ended they
made me a prostitute," Ilya said.
There were many incidents when soldiers prefer bid farewell to their lives
being unable to cope with humiliation. However, military officials mostly say
that such stories occur because of the unbalanced state of mind of the
soldiers.
Solder Aleksey I. from the town of Taganrog was also going to commit suicide.
He wrote a letter to his mother before: "Hello Mum. I have been raped like a
whore. I have decided to kill myself. Please forgive me. I will hang myself,
and nobody will call me a whore ever again. If I find out that my younger
brothers will serve in the army too, I will curse you. I don't want to live
like a faggot. I hate myself." The man's attempt to commit suicide failed. He
is now a patient of a hospital for mentally unbalanced individuals.
Pimps in uniform aim at bringing a person down and humiliating him. If they
succeed, they make a soldier become either a passive or an active male
prostitute (an active one is more expensive). Prostitute soldiers are divided
into three groups in Russia: the secluded, the street boys and the affiliated.
Street boys are the most common and cheapest male prostitutes in the Russian
army. They can be found in many places of Moscow during weekends. When on a
leave warrant, the street boys wander about the capital looking for clients and
offering sex services to them. They can be basically found in the center of
Moscow: on Tverskaya Street, on the square in front of the Pushkinsky Cinema
and in the Alexandrov Garden near the Red Square. Sometimes they can be found
on railway stations too. They try to guess the sexual orientation of a
potential client and approach him asking for a cigarette or a little money.
Sometimes they ask to use a cell phone to make one single call home. Just a
little attention to such a soldier is enough to make him start seducing the
client. The conversation mostly ends with a quick oral action in a toilet
nearby.
"The street boys don't ask for much money. The majority of them come to Moscow
from Russia's provinces. They are ready to do anything for a bowl of soup or a
cigarette," a client (he asked to call him Igor) said. "When they return to the
military unit, they share their earnings with bullies, who in their turn share
with officers," the man said.
Unlike street boys, the secluded do not spend their time rambling about Moscow
and looking for clients. They gather in certain places of which their potential
clients know - for example the monument to heroes of Plevna, otherwise known as
Pleshka.
Pleshka is the most notorious place in the Moscow homosexual environment. Gays
can be spotted their all day long, although gay prostitutes and their pimps
appear in the evening time. Some of them put on military uniform and pretend to
be soldiers. Such a 'professional' asks for $300 USD, although a genuine
military man on Pleshka charges only $20-30 USD dollars.
The so-called affiliated army prostitutes make the biggest earnings in
comparison with the two of the above-mentioned groups. They 'serve' in their
own military units waiting for clients in the barracks.
Finding an agent to establish a contact with army prostitutes is very easy.
There are several websites on the Russian Internet that carry quite a list of
adequate advertisements. However, going on a gay adventure in the military can
be a risky endeavor. It is strongly recommended not to show money to soldiers
before sex. "If they see the money they may kill you without giving it a second
thought. Five hundred rubles ($20) is a whole fortune in the army," a man who
wished to remain anonymous said.
