How London became ‘Londongrad’, Europe’s largest Russian ex-pat community
London — Rich, glamorous, with hints of a murky past, London’s Russian community has long been the subject of intrigue and is back in the spotlight after the brutal attack on a former spy. Former Russian double agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia are unconscious in hospital after being exposed to a nerve agent in his home town of Salisbury on Sunday. The 66-year-old was one of a sizeable number of Russians living in Britain. The community is concentrated in London, where 100,000 have made their home, more than in any other European capital. They are lured by the language — English is the most popular foreign language in Russia — as well as the ease of doing business and of moving large sums of wealth. "The US is far away, if you continue some kind of activity related to Russia you better be in Britain," says Yuri Felshtinksy, a historian and friend of Alexander Litvinenko, the former FSB agent and Kremlin critic who was poisoned with a radioactive agent in London in 2006. "I...
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