I just got back from a week in Williamsburg Virginia and was absolutely amazed at the incredible number of Russians working in the Hospitality and Service Industry businesses there.
Our Holiday Inn had 7 (!) Russians [all 20 maybe early-30 somethings] on staff. Maybe 10% of the folks working at Busch Gardens were Russians. We ate out breakfast everyday and dinner every night and at 3 different places (out of 8), a Steakhouse, Pizza Chain Joint and Pancake house we had Russian waitstaff.
I’m not sure if there’s any connection, but Russians seem to have a fairly high level of interest in the American Colonial period. Just from my observations living there during college, there is a fair amount of Russian (or at least, Russian-language) tourism to CW. Perhaps some of the businesses have actively sought Russian and Slavic-language-group speakers for this reason.
Wierd fact: the Charter of The College of William & Mary is believed to be misfiled somewhere in the National Archive of St. Petersburg. (It is strongly believed that a Russian diplomat stole it around the time of the Revolution)
Lots of Eastern European kids come to America to work for the summer, because even with the cost of plane tickets, “handler’s fees”[sup]1[/sup], and visa application fees, they can make more in a summer working two minimum wage jobs than they could over there. My dad lives in a beach town, and in the summer he looks out for about 20 kids from Poland, Lithuania, and a few Ukrainians – finds them a big house they can all rent, finds bicycles for them to take into town, stuff like that. Anyhow, it’s pretty profitable, and there must be some sort of benefit to the employers (like, I don’t know, kids who are reliable and show up on time and don’t bitch about their jobs).
Williamsburg has lots of tourist attractions that create summer-only jobs, and these kids probably take advantage of it.
As I understand it, the “handler’s fees” are pretty exorbitant, and to hear my dad say it, those guys don’t really do much other than bribe someone to get the kid a visa, because a lot of kids come over without adequate English skills or any idea what kind of job to get or even a map of the town they’re going to.
If the people were Williamsburg residents, it’s probably the same as the arab population in Dearborn or the Salvadoran population in D.C. One family moves to the U.S. and settles there for no particular reason. Then their cousins or in-laws move to the U.S. from the Old Country (whatever it is) and, because they only know one other family in the whole country, they settle nearby. That happens once or twice more, you’ve got a community which becomes self-increasing – now, whenever anyone comes to the U.S. from the Old Country, they can move to this enclave or they can go somewhere else where they’ll know no one and where all customs will be foreign. As the enclave gets bigger, it begns to offer traditional food, dress and churches, and so it becomes a more and more attractive place for people from that background.
A huge number of Russians and Eastern Europeans also work at Kings Dominion just north of Richmond.
As to why they are in the service industry, I’m guessing that it is because the jobs are plentiful (at least during the summer) and relatively easy to qualify for (a few of the people I spoke with at KD had a pretty shaky command of English, but that didn’t stop them from selling bottled water and other stuff).
I was on a sailboat on the Charles River (Maryland?) in the late 80s. The owner of the boat dropped anchor at on point and got everyone (there were 6 or 8 of us) together. He passed out binoculars and asked us all to scan the shoreline. We were all surprised to see people on the shoreline with binoculars looking at us!
Turns out the Russian Embassy (IIRC) had a summer retreat, and the guys with binoculars were security/spies/whatever. The owner of the boat liked to mock them by carrying many pairs of binocs and looking back at 'em.
Ditto what Jurph wrote. The VA Beach resort area has a large contingent of foreign students working in the service industries during the summer. And most of 'em work 2-3 jobs, sleep 10 to a hotel room, and generally bust their butts. There has been some media play concerning the city and some hotel owners on setting aside some subsidized rooms so the kids don’t have to live like rats while they are here. Williamsburg is just a 45 minute drive from here.