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To those fearful of homegrown Muslim extremism, this city was Londonistan. But now, after the mysterious poisoning death of the former KGB agent Alexander Litvinenko, other sobriquets are more current: Londongrad, Moscow-on-the-Thames.
The new names reflect the changes wrought here by a complicated influx from beyond the Urals, one that has built with ever greater pace since the end of the Cold War.
By several accounts, London is now home to an estimated 300,000 citizens from the former Soviet Union, a third of them arriving in the last two years. Among them and around them twist hazy connections linking spies and former spies, conspirators, ex-dissidents, rich businessmen — and a few of those from the transcendent class of wealth known in Russia as oligarchs.
There is a long tradition of wealthy outsiders gathering here to disport themselves in restaurants and nightclubs:
Arabs in the '70s, Japanese in the '80s, Americans sporadically for decades. But since the economic free-for-all of post-Soviet Russia in the 1990s spawned both a super-rich class and vast networks of organized crime — followed by a crackdown by Russian President Vladimir Putin — the notoriety goes to rich Russians.
While they might have to exercise some degree of discretion back home to avoid drawing Putin's ire, they spend freely in London. Some buy art, some party. Some buy homes in London for their families and commute to work in Russia each week; Moscow is just a three-and-a-half-hour flight away.
"Germany is good for savers, London is for spenders," said Andrei Nekrasov, 48, a Russian filmmaker and friend of Litvinenko who spent many years in London and now lives in Berlin. Russian business executives are drawn, in part, he said, by the ``flexibility of anything to do with banks" in London.
"A lot of them are upper middle class in Western terms," he said. "They can afford a $2 million apartment in cash. That's the middle class by Russian standards — and a Russian would come and bring the money in a plastic bag.''
Russians snapped up almost a quarter of the London homes sold for more than $15 million (U.S.) in roughly the past year, said Liam Bailey, a real estate broker. Some estimates put the level of buying even higher: according to Gulnara Long, a property adviser, Russians buy about 60 per cent of homes costing more than $20 million.
The influx has "changed property prices, it's changed restaurant bookings — you hear a different language being spoken in restaurants now," said Geordie Greig, the editor of Tatler society magazine.
The Russian rich praise London's freedom in financial affairs and its tax code benefits for those who spend significant time outside Britain. Russian dissidents and artists in exile praise it for its adherence to laws and its political freedoms.
Akhmed Zakayev, whom the Kremlin calls a terrorist, is a former Shakespearean actor representing the ousted rebel government of Chechnya. He received asylum here three years ago, "thanks to the law of this country," he said in an interview.
Oleg Gordievski, a high-ranking KGB spy who defected 21 years ago and who blames Russian authorities for the death of Litvinenko, said, "London is attractive because England is the freest country in Europe.''
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