More typically, the menu features dance shows compered by drag queens, club nights with international DJs and karaoke competitions. Petersburg gay scene and is mainly popular with gay men, though it does have a girls' night (Female Station, on Thursdays), where guys are still welcome, though they have to pay twice as much to get in. The club is very much the center of the St.
Inside, there are two crowded bars, a big dancefloor, a VIP room and a dark room. In the summer months crowds of clubbers mill about outside, rubbing shoulders with the largely straight overspill from nearby bars such as Dacha. The biggest and most European-style gay club in town is Central Station, at the end of Dumskaya Ulitsa, a multi-floor fun house of Russian estrada, mainstream pop and house, which is busy nightly throughout the week. While visibility is increasing, nearly all establishments remain somewhat discreet about their nature, so you can still expect good old-fashioned videophone entries and unsigned venues, which just adds to the sense of adventure. Nevertheless, the city's gay scene is surprisingly busy and accessible to all, with four well-established clubs and a smattering of bars and saunas - it differs little from the scene to be found in any other European city. While gay rights groups have become far more vocal in recent years, it's still no exaggeration to say that the political side of the gay scene remains small and rarely visible, even as political protest seems to be returning to St. Many gay people in Russia still consider the mere existence of a gay rights movement a nuisance that will simply serve to turn an intolerant society's attention toward a group of people that the average Russian rarely sees or even thinks about. Like many aspects of Russian civil society that tentatively grew up in the early 1990s, the gay and lesbian movement characterized itself by keeping its head down, not upsetting the authorities and trying hard to avoid creating trouble, a strategy most unlike that used by other, more provocative European gay rights movements. Petersburg's gay scene has never been more visible or felt less threatened than it does today. PETERSBURG - Perhaps what's most surprising amid the homophobic rhetoric and the new law targeting the "promotion" of gay lifestyles is the fact that St.