Historian Dan Healey, whose 2001 book Homosexual Desire in Revolutionary Russia was translated into Russian in 2008, argues that despite several prohibitive laws sexuality was considerably less regulated in pre-revolutionary Russia than elsewhere in Europe at that time. Several researchers claim that historical accounts show that before the 18th century, Russian society held rather lenient views toward homosexuality, and that homophobia was at least in part “imported” from Europe by Peter the Great — along with European traditions in food, architecture and fashion. Some argue that it was Peter’s father, Tsar Alexis, who first started persecuting gay people, but the first law that made homosexuality illegal (initially only for men in the army and navy) was signed by Peter in 1716. For civilians homosexuality was made illegal in 1835 — again for men only. However, not only there few recorded cases of these laws were actually applied, but the rapid urbanisation that followed the abolition of serfdom in 1861 allowed for LGBTQ communities to form in the capital, St Petersburg, as well as Moscow and other large cities.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LGBT_history_in_Russia

In the wake of the October Revolution, the Bolshevik government decriminalized homosexuality. The Bolsheviks rewrote the constitution and "produced two Criminal Codes – in 1922 and 1926 – and an article prohibiting homosexual sex was left off both."[1] The new Communist Party government removed the old laws regarding sexual relations, effectively legalising homosexual activity within Russia, although it remained illegal in other territories of the Soviet Union, and the homosexuals in Russia were still persecuted [ru] and sacked from their jobs.[1] Under Joseph Stalin, the Soviet Union recriminalized homosexuality in a decree signed in 1933.[2] The new Article 121, which punished "muzhelozhstvo" with imprisonment for up to five years, saw raids and arrests. Female homosexuals were sent to mental institutions. The decree was part of a broader campaign against "deviant" behavior and "Western degeneracy".[1] Following Stalin's death, there was a liberalisation of attitudes toward sexual issues in the Soviet Union, but homosexual acts remained illegal. Discrimination against LGBT individuals persisted in the Soviet era, and homosexuality was not officially declassified as a mental illness until 1999.[3]