Russians in Toronto

When I found that I will be studying at the York University in Toronto, the first thing my parents did was look for people they know in Toronto. They called friends and relatives, asking whether they had someone who had emigrated from Russia or the former Soviet countries into Canada. As a result, almost everyone we called knew someone who lived in Canada. An astounding fact – at least it would be for someone who hasn't traveled and experienced that there are Russians everywhere, not as tourists as is often noticed of peoples like Germans, but as residents, immigrants in all sorts of countries, both European and American.

So by the time I was flying to Toronto I had a whole list of people whom I could address for advice and help, people from the town of my birth or completely other places, people who had emigrated, as my family has to Germany, about 15 years ago and some who had spent their entire life in Canada. Everyone was very helpful, prepared to offer support to a newcomer, even a temporary one. As I found out, Russian people here are friends with other Russian people, thus creating Diasporic networks and maintaining both ties to the places of their origins and successfully establishing their existence here in Toronto. It is interesting how it is possible to preserve Russian culture – people are viewing Russian television, buying Russian food in Russian food stores, read Russian newspapers such as the “Russian Canadian Info,” and find friends in the Russian community.

At the same time, the extent of their being Russian is questionable indeed, for those people are not only influenced by Canadian mainstream culture but the peculiar experience of living abroad. My friend Marina, an immigrant from Russia of the generation of my mother who was so kind to help me when I arrived, told me: “It is fascinating how Diasporic people can find a common language. When I was talking on the phone to your mother in Germany, we immediately understood each other in a way it never happens when I talk to people in Russia. The common experience is very unifying.” She was telling me this while we were driving up Bathurst Street, and mentioned that they lived there for the first couple of years, but then decided to move away because living in a Russian community made it hard to engage in Canadian culture. After all, having mainly Russian people around and the community publishing own periodicals incites to staying engaged in the culture one is supposed to have left behind, and not only the culture but the economic habits that impede you from entrepreneurship and new ways of earning money.

The Russian community of Toronto is located on and around Bathurst Street, nowadays especially at the intersections of Steeles Avenue, north of Sheppard, and in the direction of Richmond Hill where many immigrants tend to move from the ethnic neighbourhoods into the more middle-class areas. Though famous as the Jewish community, Bathurst locates not only Synagogues but Orthodox Churches, especially closer to Downtown. It is a peculiar experience for a Russian-speaker to walk on Bathurst and see Russian faces, hear Russian speech and pass Russian delicatessen stores, advertisements of Russian lawyers, realtors, and doctors. It is also characteristic that these reside alongside with Jewish kosher shops, synagogues, the Jewish Russian Community Centre, and posters about visiting Israel.

There have been Russians in Canada from the very beginning, starting with people in Alaska. Historically, immigration from Russia to Canada was restricted to certain groups such as the Mennonites, Germans from Russia who emigrated in the late 19^th century, and the Doukhobors, a religious group which was more or less expatriated from Russia and settled mainly in Saskatchewan and partly moved to British Columbia in the early 20^th century. In the same period, many Russian Jews also migrated to Canada (and also USA and other countries), fleeing from the anti-Jewish politics of the Tsarist Regime. A huge wave of immigration from Russia took place in the years following the October Revolution of 1917, with immigration of intellectual elite as well as peasants and workers. More migration from Russia and the Soviet Union occurred after the Second World War, mainly consisting of DPs from Germany and intellectuals who had emigrated to Europe after the Bolshevik Revolution and now fled from Soviet occupation. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, a great number of Soviet Jews left the FSU countries and migrated, among other countries, to Canada.

Confusingly – or interestingly, depending on the perspective – literature about Russian and Soviet immigrants to Canada doesn’t make distinction between Russians and Jews. On the one hand, such a phenomenon is typical and explainable for different reasons. Demographically, a great part of the immigrants from the (Former) Soviet Union are Jews, while non-Jewish immigrants often come from Former Soviet Countries other than Russia, like for example Ukraine or the Baltic countries. These groups are more numerous than “Russian Russians” and tend both to demarcate themselves from Russians, corresponding to the tendencies in their countries of origin, as well as to identify with Russian culture. At the same time, many Soviet Jews have lost their Jewish roots and mainly identify with Russian culture, which is the case especially with more recent migrants whose stimuli to leave Russia consisted more in economic reasons rather than the political and religious motivations of the previous generations. On the other hand, most non-Jewish Russian immigrants stress their non-Jewishness and sometimes reveal a certain degree of anti-Semitism, which is widespread in the whole of Russia and the Former Soviet Countries. Furthermore, those Russian Jews who faced discrimination and anti-Semitism in the Soviet Union and are religiously orthodox, tend to set themselves apart from the other immigrants from the same geographic space and identify more with Canadian Jews rather than Canadian Russians.

The whole question of the different groups from the Former Soviet Union and their different identifications requires more examination. It is interesting how the Russians and the Russian Jews both stick together and distance themselves from each other, depending on the different experiences in the countries of origin and the direction their identification took when they arrived in Canada – having more business with the non-Russian Jewish communities or with other groups of immigrants from the (Former) Soviet Union. Other people from Russia embrace a hybrid Canadian identity, picking up economically useful ways of behaviour while keeping their Russian heritage by associating with both Russians and Canadians (of whatever origins those may be). Some kinds of relationships are even not nationally defined but regionally, as it was in the case of the Russian people I met here, all of whom come from the same region as I do, Chelyabinsk, located in the south and east of the Ural Mountains and connected by relationships prior to migration. Furthermore, it is different for different generations – the second-generation immigrants have a completely own story to tell, having been educated in Toronto, having friends among the different ethnic groups of the city and English being at the least a language of value equivalent to Russian – at least, it was easier for them to talk to me in English than in Russian. Even more interesting is the fact that people from two Russian Diasporas in different countries of immigration can find a common language. It seems that the combination of a common origin with the experience of a host culture provide a valuable background for identification and similar experiences – the nostalgia for home, similar challenges to face, such as finding work, adapting to a new environment, managing two cultures, engaging in social networks. It may be different for different groups, but about the Russian immigrants one can say that there is certainly a Diaspora, for Russians across the nations keep up contact and help each other.