LOS ANGELES. On a warm, sun-drenched afternoon recently, immigrants from Russia, Ukraine, and other countries that made up the former Soviet Union sipped coffee and ate pies outside the Babushka Babushka deli in the heart of Hollywood.
“We never asked each other where we were from,” said Mark Goren, 75, sitting at a patio table with friends from Uzbekistan and Moldova. “We are united by the Russian language,” said Mr. Goren, who came to the United States from Kyiv, Ukraine, more than four decades ago.
From New York to Chicago, from Los Angeles to Seattle, whether Jews, Christians or Muslims, members of the diaspora from the former Soviet Union have long been linked by the Russian language and history, testifying to the common origin of immigrants from more than a dozen countries. which once made up the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, which collapsed in 1991. The Americans also mixed them together with the Russians.
“Today I brought my car to the mechanic, they heard my accent, and the first question was: “Are you Russian?” said Yevgeny Levin, publisher of two Russian-language weeklies in California, who immigrated from Ukraine more than three decades ago. He replied that he was an American and spoke Russian, but from Ukraine.
“I’m really concerned that there could be hostility towards the Russian-speaking community,” said Mr. Levin, who is still haunted by the hostility he faced as a Jew in the former Soviet Union. Jewish families make up a significant proportion of immigrants from the former Soviet bloc, where they were disenfranchised and where discrimination limited their economic and educational development.
Since the attack on Ukraine, governments, sports organizations and businesses around the world have imposed bans or sanctions against Russia. Apple has suspended sales of its phones and computers there. A bartender from Vermont poured Russian vodka down the drain.
About 1.2 million immigrants from the former Soviet Union called home the United States in 2019, according to census data tables conducted by the Migration Policy Institute. The two largest groups, Russians and Ukrainians, number 392,000 and 355,000. Among them are Sergey Brin, who was born in Moscow, who co-founded Google, and Jan Koum, originally from Kyiv, who created the messaging app WhatsApp.
The label “Russian” is applied to multi-layered religious and cultural identities, as well as to people with a variety of motives and circumstances that brought them to the United States from all over the region – Belarus, Moldova, Uzbekistan and other former Soviet republics. Among them are dissidents who fled the totalitarian government in the 1970s and 80s. Jews and evangelical Christians came in search of religious freedom in the 90s.
Other immigrants arrived in pursuit of prosperity as the region fell into economic chaos after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Among those who arrived in recent years are students, wealthy entrepreneurs and people who illegally moved to the US from Mexico.
Two thirds are not from Russia. But the former Soviet Union made Russian the de facto official language. As a result, the vast majority of immigrants and their families speak Russian, even if they also communicate in the languages of their home countries. And they bring up closeness to Russian culture.
They watch Russian TV online and follow Russian rock bands such as Time Machine and Bolshoi Ballet. They shop at grocery stores that sell Russian products and prepare the traditional Olivier salad, known in the United States as Russian Salad, for New Year’s and other holidays.
“It’s easier to tell your American neighbors and colleagues that you’re from Russia than to go into detailed explanations of convoluted geopolitical events,” said Zhanna Batalova, 47, a senior policy analyst at the Migration Policy Institute, an independent think tank.
But that dynamic is changing after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. According to her, self-identification is not fixed.
“The old self-identification collapses under the weight of the unthinkable and unimaginable. A new self-identification is emerging as Ukrainians, Moldovans and Georgians,” said Ms. Batalova, who grew up in Moldova and is the daughter of a Russian father and a Jewish Ukrainian.
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March 4, 2022 1:31 pm ET
While some immigrants are now trying to separate themselves from Russia from people outside their communities, they are not pointing fingers at each other.
“The Russian-speaking community sympathizes with people in the places where they grew up and supports each other, whether they come from Russia, Ukraine or another former Soviet republic,” said Mr. Levin, the paper’s publisher.
In total, the Soviet diaspora in the United States, including immigrants and their US-born children and grandchildren, numbers over four million people.
When they see Russia’s relentless advance into Ukraine, they, like much of the world, are chained to the news with disbelief and horror. Many have relatives and friends in their countries of origin. But the split with Russia is more subtle in Southern California’s 600,000-strong Russian-speaking community, one of the largest in the country.
“I have always loved Russian culture, music, dances. But I don’t want to be called Russian anymore,” said Victoria Corbett, 46, whose family immigrated to the United States from Ukraine when she was 3 and who grew up speaking Russian.
Ms Corbett said she was disgusted by Russia’s attack on her home country and worried about being associated with the aggressor.
“People will start to hate Russians,” she said from behind the counter of her West Hollywood boutique, along a street lined with Cyrillic-signed grocery stores, pharmacies and other businesses.
Down the street at the Spaulding Pharmacy, Alexander Konopov, the owner from Ukraine, and Ina Siretskaya, a clerk from Moldova, prepared prescriptions for clients who Mr. Konopov said were 80 percent Russian, although they hail from many countries.
Russian-Ukrainian war: what you need to know
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Russian conquests in the south. After taking control of Kherson and cutting off the city of Mariupol, Russian troops pushed deep into southern Ukraine, landing at the port of Nikolaev, just 60 miles from Odessa, a vital shipping center and the largest city in the south.
“We never paid attention to where exactly people came from in the former Soviet Union,” said Mr. Konopov, who arrived in 1989. “Most people fled the regime.
“Americans think we are all Russians: Jews, Georgians, Ukrainians,” he said.
Leaving the former Soviet Union was nearly impossible until the 1970s, when relations between the two superpowers began to dwindle and the Soviet authorities began issuing exit visas to Jews, dissidents and writers. Soviet scientists and artists, including the dancer Mikhail Baryshnikov, defected while visiting the United States to attend events. Before its collapse, the Soviet Union threw open its gates, allowing hundreds of thousands of people to emigrate in the following years. A law passed by Congress brought tens of thousands, mostly Jews and members of other religious minorities, into the United States as refugees.
West Hollywood became something of a port of entry for Soviet émigrés, who quickly transformed the eastern part of the liberal gay district. Soon grandmothers were trudging through the streets, their bags stuffed with spicy sausage and cans of caviar from open national grocery stores. The new restaurants served borscht and other staples of Russian cuisine.
To make ends meet, scientists and specialists took jobs as taxi drivers, electricians, and plumbers. As they and their children prospered, many moved to the San Fernando Valley where they bought their first homes. Newly minted oligarchs, who lived the fruits of Soviet privatization, came later and bought up mansions in Beverly Hills.
On a recent afternoon, Russian-speaking immigrants, many of whom were retirees, played dominoes and rummy at picnic tables in West Hollywood’s Plummer Park, nicknamed Gorky Park after Moscow’s famous green space. Young parents who immigrated from the former Soviet Union as children discussed the war while their sons and daughters took up gymnastics or tennis lessons.
Oleg Sivakov, 72, who divides his time between Los Angeles and Moscow after winning a visa lottery a few years ago, said he felt compelled to apologize for Mr. Putin’s unprovoked aggression against Ukraine. “I feel very bad. Putin is a dictator. I have many friends in Ukraine,” he said.
A woman named Marina, who is originally from Belarus and married to a Russian, said she feared the spread of anti-Russian sentiment in the US.
“I’ve always said I’m Russian, but now is a dangerous time to be Russian,” said Marina, who came to Los Angeles when she was 13 and took her 5-year-old daughter to the park for a tennis lesson. .
“I am 100% afraid of a backlash,” said Marina, who asked not to be named for the safety of her family. “Remember when Covid started, people were beating up Asians. It’s scary,” she said.
A couple of doors away from Babushka deli, at a bakery called Le Balcon, a young Russian couple who arrived in the United States nine months ago said they felt no hostility from their Ukrainian counterpart, whose relatives are stuck in her home country. But they tried to keep a low profile.
“We are for peace,” Max Sinitsyn, 34, said as he stood next to his wife, Elena Esipova, 22, whose fingers were smeared with dough from kneading bread and making Bird’s Milk cake, a favorite in Russia, Ukraine and other countries. post-Soviet space. states.
Their colleague, 28-year-old Yayuna, who immigrated from Ukraine four years ago and also asked not to be named, said she had no ill will towards them. “It is Putin who is destroying Ukraine, not the people of Russia.”
Sheila McNeil contributed to the study.