Russian Americans in New York City Русские американцы в Нью- Йорке |
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Little Russia in Brighton Beach, Brooklyn
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New York City is home to the largest Russian and Russian-speaking population in the Western Hemisphere. The largest Russian-American communities in New York City are located in Brighton Beach and Sheepshead Bay in Brooklyn. Brighton Beach has been nicknamed Little Odessa due to its population of Russian-speaking immigrants from Ukraine and Russia.
The first wave of immigrants to the United States from Russia arrived during the 1800s. The current wave of Russian immigrants, largely Russian Jews, began during the 1970s and increased along with Russian Christians and other ethnic Russians who immigrated to the United States after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, with the largest number going to the New York metropolitan area.
The New York Tri-State area has a population of 1.6 million Russian-Americans and 600,000 of them live in New York City. There are over 220,000 Russian-speaking Jews living in New York City. Approximately 100,000 Russian Americans in the New York metropolitan area were born in Russia.
New York City also has a large population of immigrants born in Central Asia, Ukraine, Belarus, and other ex-Soviet states. Most of the Central Asian immigrants are from Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan, and due to their Soviet influence, most of them speak Russian.