Yelena Khanga was born in Moscow, Russia. Khanga is the daughter of Abdulla Khanga, who was the onetime vice president of Zanzibar, and Lily Golden, a Russian woman who was a historian and educator.

She was also the granddaughter of a black Christian, Oliver Golden and a Polish Jew, Bertha Bialek. The pair met in jail after being arrested during a union demonstration and migrated to the Soviet Union in 1931 after being disowned by Bialek’s family for being in an interracial relationship.

Khanga grew up in Moscow, attending schools where she was often the only child of African ancestry.

She realized that she was different and often felt like an outsider. Khanga started playing tennis and traveled the Soviet Union as a member of the Army Tennis Team.

BLACK RUSSIAN PAGE

Journalist and Television Host Yelena Khanaga

After finishing public school, she attended Moscow State University and graduated in 1984 with a degree in journalism.

Khanga became the first black TV correspondent in Moscow for Moscow World New. In 1987 she participated in a journalist exchange program where she wrote for an American newspaper, the Christian Science Monitor in Boston.

She was the first female journalist to be selected by the Soviet government to be included in this type of journalist exchange.

She officially emigrated to the United States. this occurred during the collapse of the Soviet Union.

Khanga traced her roots to Poland, Tanzania, Mississippi, and several other large American cities. She attempted to track her family background led her to a number of discoveries about racism in Russia and the United States.

Those discoveries became the basis for her writings. In 1990, Khanga began writing "Soul to Soul: The Story of a Black Russian American Family: 1865-1992." It was published in 1992. She also wrote a number of articles for the Chicago Tribune.

Khanga lives in New York and divides her time between the United States and Russia. She is working on an autobiography and social history of her uniquely diverse family background and ancestry.

James E. Brunson

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