After a short night's sleep, we met early to drive to the LIGA office (LIGA is a very successful LGBT advocacy group in Nikolaev - this was their 4th Pride and they are really good at it. Their executive director, Oleg is a wonderfully funny guy. I first met him in 2009 in Timisoara, Romania at a conference for activists. He's the one who started calling me "Jimmi"). We waited until everyone was there and began walking towards our target site, a monument, where we would have a flashmob for IDAHO (international day against homophobia). After a brief speech, white balloons were released and then we disbanded back to the office. The balloons stayed clustered far far up into the sky. It was beautiful. The international observers sat apart from the activists to make sure there was no problem with authorities or anti-gay groups. There was no problem. Here are various Flashmob pictures:
These are some of the international observers. from left to right Edwin, Dutch Police Officer, Marisia, 1st Secretary of Embassy of Netherlands, Yury, UNDP, Tim, Dutch documentarian
Jochem, Tim and Nikolas, all Dutch.
The flashmob group walking towards our site:
Oleg, director of LIGA at monument
The flashmob group approaching the monument:
Getting the balloons ready.
The international observers from left to right: Joel, Edwin, Ellie, Marisia, Yury
The front side of Joel this time, Edwin and Ellie
the speech about combatting homophobia has begun:
Preparing to release the balloons.
I missed the balloons flying because I wanted a picture of Ellie taking a picture of the balloons flying.
And after the Flashmob, we went back to the office and then to the conference hotel.
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