In Brighton Beach, Brooklyn, the fall of the rouble has not gone unnoticed.



The Russian currency has conspicuously crashed, driven in part by falling oil prices that help drive the Russian economy and economic sanctions from the US and Europe.

Life in Russia has become more difficult, in particular for the most vulnerable, such as pensioners on fixed incomes. Ordinary Russians have flooded shops looking to buy durable goods with little deprecation in value as they try to find any way to preserve their hard-earned salaries and savings.

After waves of immigration in the 1970s and 1980s, along with smaller moves in the 1990s and later, the US – and in particular New York City – has a sizable Russian expatriate community. The different immigration waves had different identities: refugees from the Soviet Union; emigres after the fall of communism; more recently, children of oligarchs. The barrage of information on the Russian economy is top of mind for many, especially in traditional ex-pat enclaves such as New York City’s Brighton Beach.

Galina said she did “care about falling rouble and overall situation in Russia,” just as she cares about “the image of Russia in the international arena.”

She added: “And I think in general, Russians here [in the US] care about the situation there; that is why you saw protests outside the Russian consulate for fair voting in Russia, people still go and vote (those who have a right). Many of us have relatives and friends [there], and some own apartments that are pretty much falling in price as we see the rouble crumble.”

Brighton Beach, Brooklyn, where immigrants from Russia and the former Soviet republics discuss the fall of the rouble. Photograph: David Lefranc/Kipa/Corbis

Marina and Oleg are a married couple. Marina, in her 50s, came to the US two years ago and still has many ties to Russia. Her husband, who is in his 60s, immigrated to the US more than 25 years ago and long ago established a new life here.



Marina’s grown children are in Russia, along with family, friends and an apartment she left behind when she moved. Marina believes in Putin, calling him her “boss,” and noting that she is often left defending Russia’s president to all her friends here.

While Marina frets about the situation, Oleg takes a more stoic view. “I have no one and nothing left in Russia, so I have nothing to worry about”, he says, adding that he sees the situation “objectively, not like a resident of the country but like any outside observer, the same way I would look at a place like China”.

Oleg says he no longer discusses politics with his wife.



“It is a difficult situation”, Marina tells me. “But the price of food is still fine; in fact a loaf of Russian bread costs more here than it does in Russia. It is the luxury goods that no one can buy now – the European shoes – but you can still live, [and] buy food.”



Unfortunately, airline tickets fall into the luxury category. “My children were going to visit for Christmas, but airline tickets have to be bought in dollars or euros, so they can’t visit now”, Marina says.



Despite the potential hardships ahead for those that are near and dear, Marina is an optimist: “this is the fourth crisis in my lifetime,” she says with a half-laugh, half-sigh. “It will get better at some point.”

Runs on the banks have taken their toll. A relative of this reporter who years ago immigrated to Canada still owns an apartment in St Petersburg. As the rouble started its decline, this relative felt it was time to finally sell the place, which represented her last financial tie to the country.



But when she started to make inquiries, she was informed that even if she managed to sell it, the banks did not have the ability to exchange a large sum of roubles into dollars.



Too many people had gone straight to the bank with their savings to try to save what they had before the value of the rouble fell further. She can sell the apartment, but she would be left holding a lot of fast-falling roubles.



A friend of hers who moved to Bulgaria was already in that exact situation. Having sold her apartment in Russia recently, the newly minted Bulgarian now tries to exchange the roubles into euros each day. The amount she can exchange daily is capped, and each day she goes to the bank, the money in her hands grows ever smaller.



The more prosperous Russia of recent years is shifting with the fall of the rouble; Russian immigrants to the US have noticed the difference. Photograph: Yuri Kochetkov/EPA

Immigrants fear speaking out



I was also born in Russia, though I was raised in the US. When I set out for Brighton Beach to speak to regular people about their views, my mother offered to accompany me. Considering she has not chaperoned me since I was about 14, I was a little surprised by the offer. But she was concerned about potential anger and political vitriol that my questions might elicit, and with her fluent Russian and better cultural understanding, she felt she could better help me navigate. Much has been made of the cult of personality that exists around Vladimir Putin, and the incredible grip on power he holds. But I had not expected how far his – and the phantom Soviet reach – still held. Attempting to speak with people, what amazed me was the fear that remains in immigrants that some political retribution will befall their relatives in Russia if they speak about the turmoil in the economy with a newspaper. After reassuring one woman in her 50s who has lived in the US for 15 years that her last name would not be used – so there was no way to identify her – she still refused to speak on the grounds that her mother still lived in Russia and could be put in danger.



When I tried to get a few points of view at a local bookstore in Brighton Beach, the staff panicked and shut down completely when I said I was a reporter.



At first, one woman at the bookstore said she did not understand my question, so I translated it into Russian – at which point she admitted, in Russian, that she understood everything I had said, and her eyes wide, muttered that she needed to go and ran from me.



A third woman, who has lived in the US for more than 30 years and has never been back to Russia since leaving in the late 1970s, said she could not talk even if no name was used at all, because she believed the Russian government could somehow still find out she had spoken to a newspaper.

Russian soldiers wearing Second World War-era Red Army uniforms take part in a military parade general rehearsal in Moscow. Russia’s economy reaches deep into the US immigrant enclave of Brighton Beach. Photograph: Kirll KudryAVTSEV/AFP/Getty Images

That my question was about the recent fall of the rouble made little difference; this a part of New York has a deeply ingrained fear of denouncing the Russian government.

While the people living now in Russia had gotten used to occasionally hearing dissidents on non-state TV programs, to reading views against the government in some independent press, to seeing some demonstrations against the government on the streets, those living in the US for years still held fast to the Soviet views. They feared the retribution of past regimes, the secret police and most of all, the press, which for years was closely connected to the Russian government.



Clearly, the only people I was going to be able to speak to had to be young enough not to have lived through the worst of the Soviet Union or had to have left Russia at a time when the grip on free speech had been loosened a little.



Turning to online parenting groups for Russians with young children and connecting through friends of friends of friends, responses finally began to trickle in. They varied from concern and worry for those left behind to total disregard about the issue.



Veronica says she is “paying attention” but “disconnected from that region mentally and emotionally.” Oleg H summed it up best, saying that people who had moved to the US long ago were “disconnected” from Russia: “For those of us who left the communist state, Russia is no more important than France, or Germany or South Africa.”

Another Oleg put it succinctly when he said: “I care about falling Russian rouble no more than Japanese yen or Turkish lira”. Meanwhile, Inga joked that maybe it is “time for another Russian revolution”.

Felix, similarly, said he could not “give a shit about the currency or current financial situation”, adding that “Putin is a smug, arrogant SOB; Russia is no longer so powerful when oil is at $55 [a barrel]”.



Ksenia said: “Of course I care. The falling rouble affects the middle class and poor people the most. Those who were not able to afford a lot will be the most affected now. Frankly, my heart aches for all the Russian people who fell victims of the political games”.



Vladislav worried that “the brunt of the hardship will fall on regular people. I have no concerns about the fall of the currency; it actually benefits me, as my dollar can now buy more.

“I really feel bad for the people. The single mom, who is struggling to make ends meet. The families with many children, who were just getting by. The elderly, whose pensions just got tinier. Unfortunately, it will not change much. Just like in 1999, when Putin’s scapegoat was the Chechen people, he will find scapegoats again”.