The New Russians

Just read an article in New York Magazine about the "new Russians" exemplified by Mikahil Prokhorov. The piece identifies what used to be four "distinct varieties" making up the Russian community in New York arranged by when they arrived in the country, with what mentality and for what reasons.

1) Heirs of exiled Czarist-era blue bloods, paper-skinned, cradling their titles; you’ve probably met one if you ever took a ballet class.
2) Soviet immigrants of the seventies, the generation of Joseph Brodsky that would never let you forget their plight.
3) The “sausage immigration” of the nineties, mostly Jewish, mostly provincial, seduced less by freedom than by comfort yet squeaking in on political-refugee papers: More than 60,000 came to the U.S. in 1992 alone.
4) There were the latest arrivals, treating New York as a prize for having made it in Moscow: the cocky, scowling post-Soviet oligarchs and Fifth Avenue shoppers.

Pretty interesting. Read the article HERE.

Also check out the "Russian Invasion" listing famous Russians in New York starting with Emma Goldman in 1885 through Prokhorov in 2009. View it HERE.