The unraveling of the Soviet Union released a tidal wave of educated emigrants, thousands of whom settled in Brooklyn, New York's Brighton Beach and other vibrant Russian enclaves. Their intellectual curiosity and growing affluence have given rise, by one count, to 38 Russian-language papers, plus a cable television channel, the Russian Television Network.
Until recently, New York's only Russian daily, Novoye Russkoye Slovo, founded in 1910, seemed stalled in a pre-revolutionary time warp, with a dated Cyrillic logo and drab format that put off all but the most homesick émigré. But the conservative paper -- whose name means New Russian Word -- has redesigned itself, with a stylistic face-lift and a livelier editorial content, and claims a circulation of 65,000 copies.

Within its pages and to ease the strains of immigrants settling into their new world, advertisements promote Russian-speaking immigration and accident lawyers, insurance agents, budget travel agencies, used-car lots and English-language lessons. "Get rid of the Russian accent in your English within 30 days," a language school urged.

[It staggers the imagination to think that immigrants, contrary to popular multicultural theory, might prefer to learn the language of their adopted nation. And, so strongly do some feel, they actually see an advantage in losing their accents. While, native born Californian Americans advocate Ebonics and the National Education Association and local teachers' unions support ESL, English as a Second - not primary -Language.]