After the end of the bloody Second World War, the Soviet Union (U.S.S.R.) maintained strict communist rule, under which all countries within the Communist Bloc (Russia, Eastern Europe and parts of Asia) suffered in terms of political corruption and economic downfall. Any Russians who managed to escape immigrated to western countries such as the U.S. However, since the U.S.S.R. had such strict restrictions as to who could leave the country, the number of Russian immigrants coming to the U.S. dramatically decreased compared to the past half century. For example, in 1970, there were 50,000 Russian-born immigrants living in Brooklyn compared to the 220,000 living there in 1930. Similar declines occurred throughout other significant Russian populations throughout the United States.

After 1985, during the rule of Mikhail Gorbachev and his attempts in modern reform, the formerly thriving economy of the Soviet Union began to decline due to inflation and shortages in goods and budget. In 1991, the U.S.S.R., along with its economy, collapsed; Russia, along with all of the former satellite countries, became a free country. But conditions grew worse.

By 1993, forty to fifty percent of all Russian citizens were living in poverty. Crime and corruption grew and status of living sullied. By 1998, the country witnessed a financial crash that was completely opposite of what was happening in the United States. Naturally, with Russia now being a free country, a wave of migration towards the U.S. emerged.

This new wave of people was of a different caliber; they were young professionals with training in fields such as software, electronics, medicine and even the arts. They are “more worldly, more westernized, with higher standards of living than their predecessors.” As a result of this wave, about 20,000 Russian scientists were employed in the United States in 2003, and the credit for 30% of Microsoft products could be given to the Russian engineers in the U.S.This new refugee population was large. In the year of 1999, the Department of Homeland Security Yearbook reported 16,882 people of the Soviet Union filing refugee status applications to the U.S., 11,700 were accepted, but 16,962 entered the country.  This was the second largest population of entering refugees that year, and made up almost 20% of the refugee population. The total population increased all over the map, with an increase of about 70,000 people in Brooklyn, and one of about 40,000 people in Los Angeles between 1990 and 2000.

Since the fall of the Soviet Union, the population of foreign-born settlers from Russia has been continually growing, especially in major cities where opportunities exist. A significant population exists, and significant increase is occurring. Although these matters can always be subject to change, the immigration numbers have slowly begun to imitate those seen a century before.