One morning this april, in a conference center near west-minster Abbey, London Mayor Ken Livingstone welcomed 1,200 Russian government and business guests. Large and powerful corn-panies, including Sibneft, Norilsk Nickel and Alfa Bank, were rep-resented. The mayor, known as Red Ken for his left-leaning ways, invoked the "warmth and sympathy" Britons feel for an old ally against Hitler. He encouraged business leaders to look upon the London Stock Exchange as the world's "most approachable" financial market. And he noted that Russian tourists now spend as much as Americans. "Russians," he concluded, "are welcome in this city, both as individuals and for the business that they bring." Yet Russians need no invitation. After seven decades of communism and two of gangster capitalism, an estimated 250,000 of them and other Russian speakers from the former Soviet Union now live in London. Countless more have property or a financial presence there. It is a launching pad for personal or professional ambitions. Many are seeking Western partners for investment and are burnishing their image with a coterie of Western lawyers, investment advisers and public relations agents. They have injected hundreds of millions of pounds sterling into the U.K. economy, buying houses and luxury goods.
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