They were chasing the promise of the “Russian dream”. Without the need for visas, every year more than 25,000 Cubans landed as unwary tourists at Moscow or St. Petersburg airports. Some arrive to buy cheap and scarce goods, which they then resell at higher prices in Cuba. Others, with the illusion that once on land, they can take a train to Madrid. Many of them travel with equally illusory promises of work contracts, buoyed by optimism with the thought of landing in the former Soviet empire.

None of them could imagine that they were departing for a country where the cultural, climatic, and linguistic distance —to say nothing of the unfavourable immigration laws— make integration extremely difficult. Further, the deeply patriarchal culture and homophobic laws are an added obstacle for queer people. The worst was the discovery of an intricate shield —a neo-Iron Curtain– that encases the European borders.