The Indian Diaspora In Russia

I grew up reading the Soviet Union and Sputnik magazines, Russian folk tales in English, watching my father learn Russian with Linguaphone Institute records, on the old gramaphone. (I grew up at a time when the Sovient Union was big). From there on the transition to Chekhov, Pushkin, Dostoyevsky, the poetry of Yevgeny Yevtushenko, Anna Akhmatova, and later on the movies of Tarkovsky ('The Stalker' still remains my all-time favorite movie), Tchaikovsky's ballet 'The Nutcracker'etc was but a natural progression.

An old article, but interesting  - from PetersbergCity.com:

"...there is a significant Indian and South Asian diasporic presence in Russia. A recent study sponsored by the Russian Academy of Sciences claims that Russia may indeed be witnessing the re-emergence of that once extensive Indian Diaspora that stretched from Sindh through Central Asia and into Russia."

The Indian Diaspora In Russia

http://petersburgcity.com/news/city/2004/11/23/indian_diaspora/