Warsaw Letter: Alexei says he had good reason to fear for his life when he fled Russia 12 years ago. But those reasons have kept him in a legal limbo in Poland ever since.
On an April night in 1995, Alexei (not his real name) was dragged by a group of soldiers into a barracks in his home town of Stavrapolski in the North Caucus, handcuffed to a radiator and beaten. He woke up in hospital.
The law student, then just 24, had attracted unwanted attention for helping war refugees from Chechnya who streamed into his town - desperate people with shocking tales of army brutality and missing relatives.
When he returned home from hospital a letter was waiting for him, calling him up to military service. Alexei knew his pro-Chechen views would not go down well in the barracks, even less so his homosexuality.
Still bruised from the beating, Alexei fled his home and headed west for Warsaw. The Polish capital has been his open prison ever since.
"There was no alternative because I knew I didn't want to serve in Chechnya," he says, sitting in a Warsaw cafe - a medium-sized man with thin blonde hair and sad blue eyes.
"I should have just married a woman like everyone else does. My friends advised me to. Now I know I shouldn't have said so much about myself."
His openness has seen his applications for asylum denied by Polish courts. In the meantime, his Russian passport has run out, he has no visa, no health insurance and no fixed address. He does odd jobs to earn money and his uncertain status means he cannot even buy a mobile phone.
Rather than await almost certain expulsion, Alexei studied Polish law and has won two legal challenges to his expulsion. Another round this month could be decisive in his legal battle.
Alexei pinned his hopes on Poland's EU accession and a directive from 2004 guaranteeing minimum "tolerated" status for third country nationals, refugees and stateless persons.
The directive prohibits the return of refugees to persecution and directs countries to seek the advice of the UN High Commission on Refugees (UNHCR).
The UNHCR has examined Alexei's case and recommended giving him refugee status for three reasons: his civil rights background, his homosexuality and the fact that he skipped military service.
But Polish courts have chosen not to take the UNHCR opinion into account and the government has yet to implement the 2004 directive.
"I thought this is a European country on its way into the EU, they respect international law, but it's a nightmare," he says, calling it his "double misfortune" to be a gay Russian in Poland.
For skipping his army service, Alexei says he faces a possible prison term or even active service, neither an attractive prospect for a gay campaigner for Chechen civil rights.
Every inquiry into Alexei's case - including requests from high profile Polish and German politicians - lands on the desk of an official who is on the record as saying only "Slavs" should be allowed into Poland.
This official says that Alexei's fear of a prison sentence if he returns to Russia is hypothetical and that his homosexuality is irrelevant to the case, something leading international organisations dispute.
Official attitudes in Poland are unlikely to change as long as the government is filled with politicians who view homosexuality as an infectious disease, or equate it with paedophilia.
Meanwhile it's clear that the ongoing battle and the uncertainty it brings have taken their toll on Alexei: his nervous smile and trembling hands suggest a man on the brink of a nervous breakdown.
"The pressure is there constantly," he says, adverting to the strain of his uncertain status. He is not tolerated by the authorities but, because of his media profile and continued legal fight, he has not been thrown out the country either.
Now Alexei is hoping for a legal miracle, or even permission to leave Poland and go to another country where homosexuality can serve as a grounds for asylum.
"A Russian army general spoke to my mother recently in Russia," said Alexei. "He said that, if he had anything to do with it, he'll make someone serve in the army, even if it's her."
