ABSTRACT
This chapter illuminates the “social geography” of gay life in the USSR. It describes in some detail the layout and uses of those locations that were well-established enough to be considered geographic institutions, detailing the social arrangements each place fostered among Soviet gay men and lesbians and making historical references and cross-cultural comparisons where appropriate. The ecological institutions of the Soviet gay world had their precedents and patterns in the Soviet context, and in many ways the forms and features of the gay and lesbian social ecology mimicked those of the Soviet Union. In Moscow, several of the public toilets used as meeting places for Soviet gays were located within walking distance of the pleshka. Sexual interests among gay men at bathhouses in the Soviet Union had to be pursued carefully and furtively though, since any homosexual activity was a potentially dangerous use of the bathhouse facility.
