In the Soviet Union, homosexuality was a crime punishable by prison and hard labor, and Stalinist anti-gay policies persisted throughout the 60s and 70s. Gays were considered "outsiders," and homosexuality was thought to be the domain of pedophiles and fascists.

Measures like the propaganda ban show that many Russians still haven't shed that view, even decades after the fall of the regime that kept homophobia in place.

"When the Stalin anti-homosexual law was repealed in 1993, there was no amnesty for those still sitting in prison for sodomy," wrote history professor Dan Healey, an expert on homosexuality in Russia, on Facebook.

Since the 90s, Russians have faced incredible economic turmoil, a loss of public services in many areas, and widespread corruption -- all factors that combine to reinforce negative stereotypes.

"To the degree that a given society that is insecure about its political, social, economic, and uniting cultural identity, it will mask that insecurity with a swaggering show of gendered strength," said Yvonne Howell, a Russian professor at the University of Richmond.

Only 16 percent of Russians today say homosexuality should be accepted by society, compared with 42 percent in nearby (and also formerly communist) Poland.

Interestingly, Russians buck a major trend in modern homophobia: more religious countries are far more likely to be less accepting of homosexuality. But Russia and China seem to reject both God and gays. Russia ranks as one of the least devout countries on earth, with only 33 percent of Russians saying religion was very important in their daily life in 2009:

But even though Russians aren't churchgoers in the traditional sense, most are still incredibly supportive of the Orthodox Church, which wields power both politically, as an ally of the Putin government, and as a symbol of national pride in much of the population.

Indeed, many Russians today view Church affiliation as a way to reaffirm their "Russianness," as Masha Lipman, the chair of the Carnegie Moscow Center's Society and Regions Program, told me via email. Roughly 80 to 90 percent of Russians identify as Orthodox Christians, but almost none attend services even monthly. Instead, in a 2007 (Russian) poll on the subject, the majority of respondents said religion for them was a "national tradition" and "an adherence to moral and ethical standards," while only 16 percent said it was about personal salvation.

The Church's head, Patriarch Kirill, has been outspoken against "social ills" like alternative sexual orientations.

"The church has very strong anti-gay rhetoric, its getting stronger and stronger all the time," one St. Petersburg gay activist told PRI. "Five years ago, they would ignore the issue and now they say homosexuality is a sin."

It's no coincidence that the punk band Pussy Riot was sent to jail for performing in an Orthodox church, specifically. Kirill and other Church elders have also served as occasional Putin campaigners, issuing bizarre declarations that mash together Christianity and the longevity of United Russia. Kirill has said that "liberalism will lead to legal collapse and then the Apocalypse" and referred to Putin's presidency as "a miracle." Archpriest Dmitry Smirnov warned once that "one needs to remember that the first revolutionary was Satan."