Queer Streetlife

This chapter explores the ordering, the experience, and the performance of the queer city in the streets by connecting key phenomena symptomatic of urbanization and modernization to reports of queer life. It looks at cruising by drawing on parallels between flaneurs and queer men, both of whom exploit the unique characteristics of modern urban streetlife for opportunities of observation and exhibition. The chapter then focuses on the Liteinaia Borough, which was home to Anichkov Bridge and a critical mass of other sites that played an important role in queer spatial patterns. It traces certain infrastructural themes that penetrated the Liteinaia Borough but also expanded beyond it: public transport, streetlights, and public toilets. All of these were intimately connected to commerce and entertainment as well as to the queer milieu. Finally, the chapter considers a particular public commercial space located a few steps from the Liteinaia Borough: the roofed shopping arcade called the Passazh. Its refurbishment uniquely reveals how municipal authorities and the Passazh's owners attempted to enforce a vision of spatial order that was irreconcilable with what would be described today as cruising.