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January 26th, 2018 
Awake Goy The two Russian men, Evgeny Voytsekhovskiy and Pavel Stotsko, made their brow-raising claim in a series of recent interviews. They said they went to Copenhagen as tourists and registered their marriage, in accordance with the law in Denmark. They had their Danish certificate confirmed by a notary and brought it home to ask for recognition by the Russian authorities. They said they expected resistance, but a registrar clerk simply stamped their domestic IDs and filled their names into what they see as an official recognition of their union.
The national Russian ID is similar to an international travel passport and is issued to a Russian citizen once he or she reaches the age of 14. Some personal details like marital status, custody over children, place of residence, or even blood type is stamped in the booklet, just like an entry mark is for travelers, indicating that the document holder is registered in relevant databases.
Evgeny and Pavel showed their passports with the stamps and filled in names to the media, but their story was later questioned by the agency that they said had acknowledged their Danish marriage. The MFTs is a network of offices that serves as an interface between the public and various Russian governmental bodies. Responding to the media reports, it said its clerks have no authority to stamp in relation to marriages. This function is reserved for the Interior Ministry, it said in a statement. If the duo went to an MFTs office and asked for their foreign-registered marriage to be recognized in Russia, their domestic passports would be temporarily taken from them and sent to the proper officials.
The Interior Ministry, which usually has liaison officers stationed at MFTs offices, has yet to comment on the situation.
The unfolding controversy is reminiscent of another case, which is considered a landmark by some LGBT activists in Russia. In 2014, a woman and a transgender woman in transition registered a marriage in St. Petersburg. The pair hailed it as a successful attempt to have same-sex relationship recognized in Russia, but the authorities said that, since one half of the couple was officially male at the time, the marriage was a conventional one.
There is some confusion in Russian law about foreign same-sex marriages. The law regulating recognition of marriages registered in foreign jurisdictions does not specify partners being of the same sex as an obstacle to such recognition. This leads to a legal conflict with Russian family law, which defines marriage as a civil union between a man and a woman.
The situation is far from unique to Russia or limited to same-sex marriages. For instance, some Muslim countries recognize polygamous marriages, which are not legal in Russia.
Source Article from https://www.rt.com/news/417063-russian-gay-couple-marriage/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=RSS
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