Global City NYC

Once a week, several Brighton Beach residents gather to practice a neighborhood rarity: English.

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Brighton Beach is considered the Russian capital of the United States, but not every Russian is from Russia. Even so, Ukrainians, Azerbaijanis and other immigrants from the former Soviet Union embrace the Russian label.

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Global City NYC reporters explore religious, culinary and cultural traditions in the city’s ethnic neighborhoods.

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New York is home to White Russians, many of whom are deeply nostalgic for a country they have never seen — the Russian homeland of their ancestors.

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When dissident Russian oligarch Mikhail Khodorkovsky toured the U.S. this month to promote his civil society movement Open Russia, he took care to reach out to Russian emigres. “The Russian diaspora outside of Russia could – and I hope will still – play a huge role in the effective development of our own country,” said […]

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One cultural consequence of the international crisis in Ukraine and the worsening of U.S.–Russian relations is that Americans are more interested in engaging with Russian culture than they have been in the last decade.

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A Russian Orthodox Church in the predominantly Jewish area of Brighton Beach is now in dire financial straits, after years of community-building — a growth that reflects a broader turn toward Orthodoxy among both Russian citizens and immigrants.

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Sunday Shkola claims to be the first Sunday School in the U.S. to teach Judaism exclusively in Russia. When it opened in the Park East Synagogue three years ago, it had about 12 children. In just two years, it tripled its enrollment.

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Mikhail Khodorkovksy, the former oil tycoon imprisoned for a decade under President Vladimir Putin, has returned to Russia’s political scene with renewed vigor. Over the past couple of weeks, in a series of meetings and interviews in New York and Washington, Khodorkovsky has promoted a revival of Open Russia.

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Gary Spielberg fills the gap in the market for Russian-American comedy with video series “Sh– Russian Grandmas Say.”

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