A KGB lieutenant who handed over his lovers to the secret service. An enthusiastic doctor who stubbornly tried to "cure" homosexuality. A Scottish communist who defended homosexuals before Stalin. A Soviet "patient zero" who contracted HIV in Tanzania. The stories of all these people who lived in the USSR remained in the shadows for a long time — the historian Rustam Alexander sheds light on what other researchers avoided. The book "Closed" tells about the Soviet Union through the lives of people who were not officially in the socialist state: homosexuals who were forced to suppress themselves because of the article for "sodomy" or live underground, risking being in prison on denunciation. From ordinary workers to pop stars, they were all trapped in a hostile environment, but even in such unbearable conditions they were looking for ways to survive and happiness.