LGBT activists detained at entrance to Svetogorsk. Mayor declares city gay-free zone.

LGBT activists Boris Kanakov and Andrei Potapov were detained at the entrance to city of Svetogorsk in the Leningrad Region on Monday. Citing activist Aleksei Nazarov, online publication OVD-Info reported that Kanakov and Potapov were members of a group of seven people who went to Svetogorsk on March 6.

The activists planned to take a walk around the city and to try to meet with the city’s mayor, who declared Svetogorsk a "gay-free" zone. The group was accompanied by the television station Dozhd correspondent Yevgeny Zobnin, reported publication Mediason citing St. Petersburg photographer David Frenkel.

At the second frontier post, the two activists were taken out of the bus they were traveling in from St. Petersburg and detained. The reasons for their detention is still unknown, said Nazarov.

Citing Svetogorsk’s mayor Sergey Davydov, publication 47news reported that a group of LGBT activists had been expelled from the city. Two activists, Davydov said, were removed from the bus because they did not have documents to access the city, which requires a special entry permits.

Another four activists, the Mayor of Svetogorsk said, went for a walk around the city, though they should only have gone to the border. They were detained for violating the border regime and also expelled, Davydov said.

In early March 2017, 47news reported that the Svetogorsk’s mayor Sergey Davydov, a former military commissar of the Vyborg district, said that there were no and would be no gays in the city.