In the days after President Vladimir Putin sent troops to Ukraine, the Russian School of Mathematics, a network of popular extracurricular academies in the United States, felt that it had no choice but to speak.
Referring to the ongoing war as “a huge, real and concrete source of pain for all of us,” the school said in a statement: “We support the Ukrainian people against Putin, his regime and the Russian military invasion of Ukraine.”
The network also urged contributors not to confuse the school with the actions of the Kremlin.
As Russian bombs devastate Ukrainian cities, the horror is acute among Russian-Americans, many of whom also have family and friends in both Russia and Ukraine.
While Russian-themed restaurants face vandalism and threats in U.S. cities, and Russian musicians and artists are removed from event billboards, some feel that Putin's war has cast a shadow over their entire community and heritage.
Founded in Boston 25 years ago by two Jewish refugees from Belarus and Ukraine, both educated in St. Petersburg, Russia, the school of mathematics explained that it is named after the “historical tradition of Russian mathematics”.
“Regardless of their country of origin, no one is responsible for this war except Putin and his regime,” he wrote.
- 'Endure the shame' -
On the first day of the Russian invasion, Alexander Stessin, an oncologist originally from Moscow living in New York, woke up to a text message from a friend in which he predicted that the world would never be the same again.
“It was an absolute shock, an absolute horror, and that feeling has not diminished,” said Stessin.
“I felt like my whole world fell apart,” he admitted.
Nearly 2.5 million Americans are of Russian descent, according to the United States Census Bureau, and even greater is the immigrant community born in the era of the extinct Soviet Union that has ties to Russian culture, many of them Jewish refugees.
Stessin's own family emigrated in 1990 when he was 11 years old, but he maintained strong ties with his native country, to the point that he published award-winning books in Russia.
The 43-year-old is well aware that his pain “is nothing compared to what the Ukrainian people have to endure.” However, he says, “we will all have to endure the shame of being Russian, we cannot escape it”.
- 'Cancel everything Russian' -
In that environment, Eugene Koonin, a distinguished biologist and member of the United States Academy of Sciences, felt compelled to send an open letter against the invasion.
The letter signed by several dozen Russian-speaking scientists from the then Soviet Union, workers at the National Institutes of Health - a flagship US research agency - condemned Putin's “aggressive, genocidal and senseless war”.
However, in an interview with AFP, Koonin also spoke out against international academic journals returning articles submitted by Russian scientists, and that governments or university councils stop collaborations of Russian academics.
“The Russian scientists who work and live (in Russia) at this time are still our colleagues except those who profess support” to the regime, said Koonin, who has lived in the United States for three decades.
“They deserve our compassion and help,” he said, warning that the “general prohibitive action” against Russian academics was “short-sighted and harmful.”
As the war spreads deeply into the cultural sphere, Stessin also warned against the temptation to “cancel everything Russian”, regardless of any link to Putin's regime.
While the Metropolitan Opera and Carnegie Hall in New York invoked support for Moscow to cut ties with star soprano Anna Netrebko and conductor Valery Gergiev, the Cardiff (Wales) and Zagreb (Croatia) orchestras went further by removing classical composer Pyotr Tchaikovsky from their programming.
In Stessin's view, this approach is both “easy” and “very harmful”.
“Tchaikovsky has been dead for quite a few years now, and it doesn't affect him in any way,” he said, while the measure “deprives concert-goers and music lovers from all over the world of his wonderful work.”
Echoing that argument, the Portland Youth Philharmonic went ahead with a performance scheduled for March 5 with pieces by Tchaikovsky and Sergey Prokofiev, considering their music “part of the world's artistic heritage.”
- 'Frozen with horror' -
South of Portland, in California (west), where Silicon Valley has seen a boom in Russian-founded tech startups, there is a palpable sense that its prospects have slowed.
“The Russian-speaking tech community has been horrified,” said Nick Davidov, who moved from Russia in 2015 and now runs an investment fund focused on technology companies along with his wife Marina.
Last week, Fridge No More, a new grocery delivery company founded in New York by a Russian businessman, shut down and fired its 600 workers after failing to raise additional funds, partly because their relationship with Russia was deemed too risky, US media reported.
In recent weeks, the Davidovs, both 34 years old, have been raising money and providing aid to Ukrainian refugees, as well as their colleagues fleeing Russia after the repression of dissidents.
They are also saddened by what they described as a loss of their homeland, referring to the fact that their image has been tainted by Russia's aggression.
“I'm sorry to lose part of what makes me me: patriotism, my origin, a sense of identity,” Davidov said.
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