Gays banned from store chain: ‘No entry for f***ots’

A MILLIONAIRE who owns a chain of food stores has placed crude signs in shop windows banning gay customers from entering his business.

Russian millionaire German Sterligov sits in his house in Nizhnevasilyevskoye, Russia, northwest of Moscow, in 2008. Picture: AP /Misha Japaridze.

A DEVOUTLY religious millionaire who owns a chain of Russian food stores has placed crude signs in shop windows banning gay customers from entering his business.

Russia decriminalised homosexuality in 1993, two years after the fall of the Soviet Union, and Russian law prohibits sexual discrimination.

But prejudices still run deep and much of the gay community remains underground.

“No entry for f***ots,” read a wooden plate at the entrance to one of German Sterligov’s shops in central Moscow.

Sterligov, 50, became a millionaire by opening a mercantile exchange shortly before the Soviet Union’s demise.

Later in his career the nationalist businessman turned devoutly religious and retreated with his family to rural Russia to sell organic farm produce. The one-time boy wonder of Russia's young market economy dropped out of the business world and started raising sheep and other livestock on two farms.

“Our planet is full of filth and sick humans,” Sterligov told Reuters Television at a country fair outside Moscow.

“In front of our eyes is the historical experience of Sodom and Gomorrah when God burned these towns.”

The Sterligov family, with German fifth from left, in the village of Nizhnevasilyevskoye, northwest of Moscow in 2008. Picture: AP Photo/Misha Japaridze)

Addressing the farm fair through a loudspeaker, Sterligov praised US President Donald Trump, who was swift to revoke his predecessor Barack Obama’s landmark guidance to public schools allowing transgender students to use the bathroom of their choice.

“We thank him. May God give him health,” Sterligov said.

Yulia Gorbunova, a Human Rights Watch researcher, said the retail chain’s disregard for the law sent a dangerous message in a country where homophobia remains prevalent.

“It seems like they are promoting homophobia in an already homophobic society and it only leads to rising tensions,” she told Reuters Television. “The state certainly has a responsibility to stop that and step in.” Alyona, a young assistant in one of Sterligov’s Moscow stores, said she shared the chain’s stance on homosexuals “as a true Christian”.

“It’s our guarding talisman,” she said.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has denied he discriminates against sexual minorities.

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Originally published as Gays banned from store chain: ‘No entry for f***ots’