“I was bored, my Russian was appalling, I needed a way to reconnect,” she says. She recalls that the young Russians who floated around London in 1994-1997 – the children of oligarchs mainly – were “thoughtless, reckless and not focussed.”

Determined to find out if the Russians of her own age in 2006 had a changed mentality she launched a networking evening and was pleased to find that her fellow Russians, newly armed with university degrees  were “more focussed, harder working and more independent.”

Heartened that these were the kind of people she would want to communicate with Anya launched RUSSIANSinUK and it has gone from strength to strength.  Along the way she has coached Russian graduates on how to fit in to multinational corporations, control their passions and retain their pride in Russian cultural events in London from the ballet to classical orchestras.

Oh, and at least two couples who met at her events became married.

Anya Portnick at a RUSSIANSinUK Meeting