I'm not saying the problem isn't there. As far as political establishment goes, there's still work to be done, and not just in that department. I'm not making any excuses for our government either - some of the things they say or do (both in domestic and foreign policy) make me, at best, wonder and at worst, make my stomach turn. What I'm saying is, raging homophobes don't make the most of the population, not in the big cities at least and the real situation differs from how it's presented in the press - otherwise, we wouldn't have any gay bars here. I once worked in the company where one of the guys was openly gay and none of my colleagues (or me) had any problem with that. He wasn't ever attacked by anyone else as well and it's just one of the examples I can provide.
I also get the part about our politicians and police being responsible for the country's image - one of such instances was mentioned in this thread. When I heard about that MP saying Russian women shouldn't have sex with foreigners, I was like, "what the fuck is she doing? She's making the mockery of the entire country for the whole world". No wonder another MP had quickly covered up for her and said the complete opposite.
As for voting for Putin, I'm baffled by that as well and there're a lot of people in Russia who feel the same way, but that's a point for a whole other debate, as well as Chechnya. I personally didn't vote for him and think it's time for him to go away, for a whole array of reasons, not just him being in power for so long. But saying, "fuck Russia", to me, is a narrow view of the situation and is akin to me saying "fuck USA" just because I've read that the police killed an unarmed person again.