The video for the song “So Beautiful” was removed from the official YouTube channel of Sergei Lazarev without explanation, attention was drawn to this by the telegram channel “Caution, News”.
The video was also removed from the singer’s website. The video was released in 2017, and by December 1, 2023, it had received more than six million views on YouTube, note “Caution, News.” The director of the video, Konstantin Cherepkov, told Podem that he did not want to comment on the situation.
The day before, the Vyborg District Court of St. Petersburg fined the AIVA TV channel 500 thousand rubles under the protocol on “propaganda” of LGBT relationships (Part 3 of Article 6.21 of the Administrative Code) because of the video “So Beautiful.” The court emphasized that the video showed “interacting hands (caressing each other) <…> two different people of the same sex.» The court considered these shots to be a “broadcast of homosexual preferences.”
Lazarev’s clip, which was published with the 18+ mark, shows pairs of lovers — including same-sex couples, as well as people connected by family ties, for example, a mother with baby. In some shots, people are kissing, hugging and touching each other's hands.
According to the security officials who compiled the protocol, the clip creates the idea that “people in non-traditional sexual relationships not only do not differ from representatives of heterosexual relationships, but their preferences are, if not socially approved, then at least , are acceptable in society and are equivalent to the union of a man and a woman.»
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