Black Russians: The Red Experiment is a three-part, work-in-progress documentary that reveals the little-known story of a band of African American professionals who in the 1920s and 1930s fled segregation and violence in the U.S. to seek a better life in the most unlikely of places: Stalin's USSR.

Part One (the Roughcut finished) introduces the main character, Yelena Khanga, a well-known Black Russian TV personality of the 1990s through mid-2000s whose grandparents were among the hopeful migrants.  Her historical narrative unfolds throughout the film and brings us up to the present day. This journey begins with the turbulent historical events in the Soviet Union and America in the 1920s and 1930s. In 1928 her grandfather, Oliver Golden, an African American scientist, met Bertha Bialek, the daughter of a Polish rabbi. The two married and in 1931 moved to Russia. 

The project is still in search of sponsors and executives.  

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CUNY TV Interview with the Director, Yelena Demikovsky

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