What foreign cities look like, where most of the population is Russians

2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55

There are Russian diasporas in many countries of the world. Sometimes former compatriots live far from each other, sometimes they prefer to settle in the same area - this is how the famous Brighton Beach arose. But there is outside the city, where on the streets you can hear mostly Russian speech.

Narva and Sillamäe, Estonia

The North-East of Estonia is the most "Russian" part of this country. There are Estonian inscriptions on price tags in shops, street names in Latin letters - but you can live in Narva all your life and never learn Estonian.

Before the war, Narva was no different from other Estonian towns: it was a cozy place with a town hall, narrow streets … and a predominantly Estonian population. The war destroyed Narva almost to the ground. The historical center was never restored - now the "Stalinists" and "Khrushchevs" dominate in Narva. And the descendants of the restorers live in the city, as well as those who came to work at the Krenholm manufactory and other enterprises, their children and grandchildren. In Narva and the nearby town of Sillamäe, the Russian population is more than 85%.

The manufactory went bankrupt in the 2000s, and many other factories that “fed” the North-East went bankrupt a little earlier. Thousands of people were left without work. Now Narva lives off its proximity to the border - Russians come to the resort town of Narva-Jõesuu for shopping and on vacation. Not so long ago, a new building of the Narva College of the University of Tartu was opened - both Narvites and residents of Russia get a good education there. The Estonian government also wants to locate the Academy of Internal Security in Narva - future police officers, border guards, and rescuers study there.

Thanks to grants for reconstruction, in recent years, Narva has become prettier. A "promenade" was built - a wide embankment, the central streets were ennobled, the Narva Castle was restored. The Russian Ivangorod, located opposite, on the other bank of the Narova River, is very inferior in appearance to Narva.

Daugavpils, Latvia

According to statistics, this second largest city in Latvia is home to about 90 thousand people. More than 50% of them are Russians. They are also mainly migrants from other regions of the former Soviet Union. Daugavpils was two-thirds destroyed by the war, during the Second World War almost 165 thousand people died in it - a German concentration camp was located next to it.

Under the USSR, factories and new districts were built in the city. There they created an airfield, a military school - and Daugavpils turned into a strategically significant place. The population grew rapidly - in 1959 it was home to about 66 thousand, and in 1992 - already 120 thousand people.

The nineties became fatal for Daugavpils. As in the Estonian North-East, workers were no longer needed by anyone after enterprises were no longer needed. A massive outflow of residents to other regions and abroad began. Latvia's accession to the European Union only strengthened this process. So it is difficult to say how many people actually live in Daugavpils - many are registered there only formally.

Now in Daugavpils there are few young people, a lot of unemployed and a shortage of doctors. There are some of the cheapest apartments in Latvia: a square meter costs a maximum of 350 euros.

Ust-Kamenogorsk, Kazakhstan

Kazakhstan is the leader in the number of "Russian" cities. In addition to Ust-Kamenogorsk, the list also includes Petropavlovsk, Temirtau, Rudny and some others.

From its very foundation, there were many Russians in this city: Siberian Cossacks, immigrants-Old Believers, exiles, peasants. During the war, enterprises from different regions of the USSR were evacuated to the city. Now there are more than 67% of Russians in it out of more than three hundred thousand inhabitants.

After the war, its own production began to develop: the city became the center of non-ferrous metallurgy in Kazakhstan. This did not have the best effect on the ecology of Ust-Kamenogorsk: it is even listed in the Guinness Book of Records as a city where the world's largest toxic cloud was formed.

But people continue to live here. Ust-Kamenogorsk is famous for its hockey team and the Sports Palace: the Kazakhstan national hockey team consists almost entirely of Ust-Kamenogorsk hockey players.

Tiraspol - the capital of the unrecognized republic

The history of Tiraspol is reminiscent of the stories of other "Russian" cities: the settlements, which were badly damaged during the war, began to develop rapidly during the Soviet era with the appearance of factories and infrastructure. But with the collapse of the state, the orderly life of many thousands of people who came to work in enterprises, to build new houses and industrial facilities, ended.

Tiraspol's position was complicated by the fact that in 1990 it became the capital of the Pridnestrovian Moldavian Republic. The military conflict and the lack of international recognition also negatively affected the economic condition of the city.

Now it (and the neighboring town of Bender) is inhabited mainly by Russians and Ukrainians. In recent years, many buildings have been intensively reconstructed, new facilities are being built, although it is still far from a prosperous city.

Lappeenranta: the city that Russians love

The name of this city is familiar, it seems, even to those who have never been to Finland. Minibuses from St. Petersburg travel to this border town almost more often than to many cities of the Leningrad Region.

In terms of the number of Russians, Lappeenranta ranks only sixth in Finland: about 15 thousand Russians live in the capital, and about 2, 5 in Lappeenranta. This is only a few percent of the total number of 72 thousand inhabitants. But in the city, Russian is often heard. In some stores, price tags are duplicated in Russian. Special shops are also opening for Russian citizens who come for shopping. There are especially many of them right after the border, even before the city.

The number of people buying apartments or land for construction in Lappeenranta is constantly growing. Many Russians have or are doing business here. Several years ago, the authorities of six Finnish cities, including Lappeenranta, proposed introducing compulsory study of the Russian language in the schools of these settlements instead of Swedish. But the initiative did not receive full approval. Perhaps, after a while, the situation will change.

Although the "Russian" cities are located mainly in the states that were part of the USSR, in many world megalopolises Russian communities reach the size of an average city. For example, in New York there are about 600 thousand Russians and Russian speakers, about the same in Los Angeles, in Chicago - about 300.

Cities are different, and if someone still thinks that a foreign resort is definitely cool, then he should see 25 shocking photos of New Brighton's beach town.