{"id":682654,"date":"2026-01-08T17:17:12","date_gmt":"2026-01-08T17:17:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/682654\/"},"modified":"2026-01-08T17:17:12","modified_gmt":"2026-01-08T17:17:12","slug":"heated-rivalry-in-putins-russia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/682654\/","title":{"rendered":"Heated Rivalry in Putin’s Russia"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

In the past month or so, Heated Rivalry became a major global sensation<\/a>. What you probably don\u2019t know is that the show has enjoyed extraordinary success even in Russia\u2014despite the fact that it is not officially available on any Russian streaming platform. On Kinopoisk, the Russian equivalent of Rotten Tomatoes, Heated Rivalry has a rating<\/a> of 8.6; Game of Thrones and Breaking Bad, listed as the two most popular series on the platform, both have ratings<\/a> of 8.3. In other words, a self-selected group of Russian viewers think Heated Rivalry is the best show they\u2019ve ever watched. It\u2019s an unexpected turn, especially for a country widely known for its homophobia.<\/p>\n

I know Ilya Rozanov, the smoldering hockey player Connor Storrie plays<\/a> on the surprise hit romance Heated Rivalry. In fact, I know quite a few people like him. I might even say that I have been him.<\/p>\n

Here is a new piece I\u2019ve written for <\/a>Vanity Fair<\/a> \u2013\u00a0about Heated Rivalry, homophobia and what it means to be gay in Putin\u2019s Russia today.<\/p>\n

https:\/\/www.vanityfair.com\/hollywood\/story\/heated-rivalry-russian-lgbt-experience?srsltid=AfmBOorHb6m0cll4v_XYwSgbj-FxEqwW0z7n2h2Nb-09jl4o9KPx2Ip0<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In the past month or so, Heated Rivalry became a major global sensation. What you probably don\u2019t know…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":682655,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7655],"tags":[332],"class_list":{"0":"post-682654","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-russia","8":"tag-russia"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115860618859631594","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/682654","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=682654"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/682654\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/682655"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=682654"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=682654"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=682654"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}