Russian Blacks Weigh In On Obama Visit

While President Obama failed to get the same rapturous reception in Russia that he's gotten in other parts of Europe, there was one segment of Russia's society that was keenly interested in his visit – Russia’s blacks.

It's estimated that there are between 40,000 and 70,000 people of African descent in Russia today (out of a total population of roughly 140 million) - most came in one of two waves of immigration: socialist-leaning African-Americans who fled racism in the United States in the 1920's and African students who went to universities in the Soviet Union following World War II.

The place of the Russian-African community within Russia is interesting. Most of those interviewed by Radio Free Liberty said that, as Russia's most visible minority group, they often felt excluded by Russian society, yet said it was something different than the racism some of their ancestors faced in the United States (though in recent years there have been several high-profile race-based attacks on Africans by Russian skinhead groups). Grigory Siyatinda, an actor interviewed for the story said this about growing up as a black man in Russia: "it wasn't racism, what I experienced during my childhood in Tyumen (a city in Siberia). I was the only black person in Tyumen...there was simply this heightened curiosity toward me. It was heightened so much at times that it crossed over the borders of tact."

While some blacks, like Grigory, have had success in the entertainment and sports fields in Russia, members of the community hoped that Obama's visit would now spur Russian-Africans to gains in other fields like the sciences and politics as well.