"There's No More Men In Russia!" (#199)

Up until very recent history, Russia was home to a significant German minority. They had come in different waves starting in the 1800s, but their epicenter ended up being the area of Russia around modern day Kazakhstan. Most were forcefully moved there during Soviet times, and most also chose to leave after the fall of the USSR to go to Germany. These people are Russian, but their ancestry is German.I had arrived in Omsk, a city virtually unknown to the West. I didn't know much about it either, but I did know about Russia's strange German history. I wanted to meet the "Germans" that had stayed in the country, turning down a possibly better life in Germany. This is the story of that trip. It's also the story of an eccentric Azerbaijani taxi driver, but we'll get to that.

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