Russian American: Map

Categories: Russia �?�?�?¢�?�??�?�?��?�??�?�?? United States relations > Russian diaspora by country > Ethnic groups in the United States > American people of Russian descent

Wikipedia article:

Map showing all locations mentioned on Wikipedia article:

Russian Americans are Americans whose ancestors were born in Russia

. Non-ethnic Russians in this group could be Jews, Ukrainians, Armenians, or any other ethnicity who were born and grew up in Russia.

Demographics

The Russian American population is reported to be around 3 million., but less than half a million were born in Russia. Many Russian Americans do not speak Russian, having been born in the USA and brought up in English-speaking homes. According to the year 2000 U.S. Census, only 706,242 Americans use Russian as the primary spoken language in their homes., and according to Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies at Harvard

, 750,000 Russian Americans were ethnic Russians in 1990..

Sometimes Carpatho-Rusyns and Ukrainians who emigrated from Galicia in the 19th century and the beginning of 20th century are confused with Russian Americans. More recent emigres would often refer to this group as the 'starozhili', which translates to mean "old residents". This group became the pillar of the Russian Orthodox Church in America. Today, most of this group has become assimilated into the local society, with ethnic traditions continuing to survive primarily around the church.

Chronology

Russian America

The territory that today is the United States state of Alaska

was settled by the Russians and controlled by the Russian Empire

. The southermost such post of the Russian American Company was Fort Ross

, established in 1812 by Ivan Kuskov, some 50 miles north of San Francisco

, as an agricultural supply base for Russian America. It was not part of Russian America, but was established under an agreement with the government of New Spain. After the Independence of Mexico, the lease arrangement was renewed with the new government of Mexican California.

Russian America was not a profitable colony, due to high transportation costs and declining animal population. After it was purchased by the United States in 1867, the majority of the Russian setters went back to Russia, but some resettled in southern Alaska, California and parts of Oregon.

First wave

The first massive wave of immigration from all areas of Europe to the United States took place in late 19th century, following the 1862 enactment of the Homestead Act. Although some immigration took place earlier -- the most notable example being Ivan Turchaninov, who immigrated in 1856 and became a Union army brigadier general -- millions traveled to the new world in the last decade of the 19th century, some for political reasons, some for economic reasons, and some for a combination of both. Between 1820 and 1870 only 7,550 Russians immigrated to the USA, but starting with 1881, immigration rate exceeded 10,000 a year: 593,700 in 1891-1900, 1,6 million in 1901-1910, 868,000 in 1911-1914, and 43,000 in 1915-1917.The most prominent Russian groups that immigrated in this period were the groups seeking freedom from religious prosecution: the Russian Jews, escaping the 1881-1882 pogroms by Alexander III, moved to New York

and other coastal cities, the Molokans, treated as heretics at home, settled in the Los Angeles

and San Francisco

areas, two large groups of Shtundists moved to Virginia

and the Dakotas

, and, finally in 1908-1910, the Old Believers, prosecuted as schismatics, arrived and settled in small groups in California

, Oregon

, Pennsylvania

, and New York

Second wave

A large wave of Russians immigrated in the short time period of 1917-1922, in the wake of October Revolution and Russian Civil War. This group is known collectively as the White emigres. United States of America

was the second largest destination for those immigrants, after France

. This wave is often referred to as the first wave, when discussing Soviet era immigration. The head of the Russian Provisional Government, Alexander Kerensky, was one of those immigrants.

Since the immigrants were of the higher classes of the Russian Empire

, they contributed a lot to American

science and culture. Inventors Vladimir Zworykin, often referred to as "father of television", Alexander M. Poniatoff, the founder of Ampex, and Alexander Lodygin, arrived with this wave. The American army benefited greatly with the arrival of such inventors as Igor Sikorsky (who invented the Helicopter and Aerosan), Vladimir Yourkevitch, and Alexander Procofieff de Seversky. Sergei Rachmaninoff and Igor Stravinsky are by many considered to be the greatest composers ever to live in the United States of America

. Vladimir Nabokov, considered a novelist of the highest level, helped American literature gain a higher status.

Soviet era

During the Soviet

era, emigration was illegal, and limited to very few defectors and dissidents who immigrated to the United States of America

and other Western Bloc countries for political reasons. Some fled the Communist regime, such as Ayn Rand in 1926 or Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn in 1974, some were communists themselves, and left in fear of prosecution, such as KGB

operative Alexander Orlov who escaped the purge in 1938 or Svetlana Alliluyeva, daughter of Joseph Stalin, who left in 1967. Some were diplomats and military personnel who defected to sell their knowledge, such as the pilots Viktor Belenko in 1976 and Alexander Zuyev in 1989.

Following the international condemnation of the Soviet reaction to Dymshits-Kuznetsov hijacking affair in 1970, the Soviet Union temporarily loosened emigration restrictions for Jewish emigrants, which allowed nearly 250,000 people leave the country, escaping covert anti-semitism. Emigrants included the family of Google co-founder Sergey Brin, which moved to the US in 1979, citing impossibility of advanced scientific career for a person of Jewish descent.

The slow Brezhnev stagnation of the 1970s and the following economic and political reforms of 1980s prompted an increase of economic immigration to the United States, where artists and athletes defected or legally emigrated to the US to further their careers: ballet stars Mikhail Baryshnikov in 1974 and Alexander Godunov in 1979, composer Maxim Shostakovich in 1981, hockey star Alexander Mogilny in 1989 and the entire Russian Five later, gymnast Vladimir Artemov in 1990, glam metal band Gorky Park in 1987, and many others.

Post-Soviet era

With the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991 and the subsequent transition to free market economy by means of shock programs came hyperinflation and a series of political and economic crises of the 1990s, culminating in the financial crash of 1998. By mid-1993 between 39% and 49% of Russians were living in poverty, a sharp increase compared to 1.5% of the late Soviet era. This instability and bleak outcome prompted a large new wave of both political and economic emigration from Russia, and one of the major targets became the United States, which was experiencing an unprecedented stock market boom in 1995-2001.

The major group of post-Soviet immigrants were the political refugees, persons who claim persecution or reasonable fear of persecution in Russia. 50,716 citizens of ex-USSR were granted political refugee status by the United States in 1990, 38,661 in 1991, 61,298 in 1992, 48,627 in 1993, 43,470 in 1994, 35,716 in 1995 with the trend steadily dropping to as low as 1,394 refugees accepted in 2003. For the first time in history, Russians became a notable part of illegal immigration to the United States, the most common example being mail-order brides—Russian women would advertise themselves in international marriage agency with the express purpose to marry American citizens. Nearly half of all mail-order brides to come to the United States in 1996 originated from Russia and Ukraine Together with illegal immigration, the influence of the Russian Mafia became prominent in the United States

.

A notable part of the 1991—2001 immigration wave consisted of scientists and engineers who, faced with extremely poor job market at home coupled with the government unwilling to index fixed salaries according to inflation or even to make salary payments on time, left to pursue their careers abroad. This coincided with the surge of hi-tech industry in the United States, creating a strong Brain drain effect. According to the National Science Foundation, there were 20,000 Russian scientists working in the United States in 2003, and the Russian software engineers were responsible for 30% of Microsoft products in 2002.

The Soviet Union was a sports empire, and many prominent Russians sportsmen found great acclaim and rewards for their skills in the United States. Examples are Maria Sharapova, Alexander Ovechkin, Alexandre Volchkov, Andrei Kirilenko, and most recently, Nastia Liukin.