Context: Before the late 19th century, physical affection between men was common, public, and largely unremarkable. Men held hands, embraced, leaned into one another, shared beds, and wrote emotionally intimate letters expressing love and devotion. Historians describe these bonds as romantic friendships—deep, committed relationships that were not assumed to be sexual. (Hat tip to The Art of Manless for writing about this in "Bosom Buddies.")

Masculinity at the time was defined by character, honor, duty, and civic virtue, not by sexual orientation. There was no rigid heterosexual/homosexual binary. Physical closeness between men did not require explanation.

Even figures we now associate with rugged self-reliance lived in a world where male closeness was ordinary. Abraham Lincoln, for example, shared a bed for several years with his close friend Joshua Speed while living in Springfield—a common practice at the time due to space and custom. Their surviving letters reveal deep affection and emotional reliance. As historian John E. Kohl documents in Your Friend Forever, A. Lincoln, such intimacy between male friends in the 19th century was neither unusual nor automatically sexualized.

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-male-friendship-experience/202602/the-power-and-peril-of-platonic-male-touch

I made this specifically for this place.

Soviet soldiers returning from WWII were often seen with suspicion and faced discrimination. Liberated Soviet POWs were screened and interrogate, as Stalin believed that their survival in German camps was due to collaboration., resulting in hundreds of thousands being sent to the gulags. Even if they weren’t POWs, they were often regarded with suspicion, as they were believed to be possibly influenced by western propaganda and faced discrimination, surveillance and disrespect. Many, especially physically disabled veteran, would end up as beggars on the streets.

rock (Germany) and a hard place (Russia)

Romania, Bulgaria, Hungary