Are there any people from African decent in Russia?

Question

I'm writing a story about a girl who was stolen from a Russian orphanage, but she's got African roots, I wanted to know if this could happen.

Answer 1

There are at least four possibilities:

1) Her parents could be from a group of black people in Abkhasia. I knew about a group of African Americans living in Georgia (a part of it called Abkhasia), but I always thought it happened long before 50s.

2) There were sporadic cases throughout 18th-19th centuries. Pushkin is the most famous example.

3) In late 20s - early 30s quite a few Americans came to the Soviet Union as foreign specialists to help with industrialization. Soviet propaganda was contrasting racism and economic depression in the U.S. with economic development and "internationalism" in the USSR. There was a famous movie Soviet movie "Circus" about that.

4) Soon after the 6th World Festival of Youth and Students in Moscow in 1957 a wave of black-born children started in the USSR. These children were called "children of the festival." Soon after that African students started studying in Soviet Universities and many of them had children too. I believe one of them is a quite famous TV talk-show anchor in Russia now - Elena Khanga (I don't know the details of her biography, it's just my guess - her father was a minister of Tanzania and she was born in Russia)

Answer 2

Many African Americans left America and went to Russia during the McCarthy era. Most settled in the area of Russia called Georgia (no, I am not joking!). Of course you can look this up as well. So she could have African roots via America. As far as pure African roots, I could not tell you.

Answer 3

Maybe it could! As well you may read Esenin, you could go to Russian Submarine in Long beach, CA!!!

Answer 4

Yes, Pushkin.