Yelena Abdulaevna Khanga (russian: Еле́на Абдула́евна Ха́нга), also transliterated as Elena Hanga (born May 1, 1962), is a Russian journalist who was raised in

Moscow Moscow ( , US chiefly ; rus, links=no, Москва, r=Moskva, p=mɐskˈva, a=Москва.ogg) is the capital and largest city of Russia. The city stands on the Moskva River in Central Russia, with a population estimated at 13.0 millio ...

USSR The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen nationa ...

, and came to the United States in 1990 to write (with Susan Jacoby) ''Soul to Soul: The Story of a Black Russian American Family: 1865–1992''. Khanga divides her time between

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Un ...

and Moscow.

Early life

An only child, Yelena Abdulayevna Khanga was born in Moscow to Abdullah Kassim, the first vice-president of

Zanzibar Zanzibar (; ; ) is an insular semi-autonomous province which united with Tanganyika in 1964 to form the United Republic of Tanzania. It is an archipelago in the Indian Ocean, off the coast of the mainland, and consists of many small islan ...

(assassinated in 1967) and Lily Khanga (pronounced Han-ga), a historian and educator (née Golden) who was the daughter of an interracial couple from New York City. Yelena's American maternal grandmother was of Polish-Jewish descent and worked as a Russian-English translator for a Soviet news agency. She also claimed to be a distant relative of the well-known violinist Arnold Steinhardt (her grandmother was the cousin of his father). Her African-American maternal grandfather, Oliver Golden, had a college degree in agronomy from the

Tuskegee Institute Tuskegee University (Tuskegee or TU), formerly known as the Tuskegee Institute, is a private, historically black land-grant university in Tuskegee, Alabama. It was founded on Independence Day in 1881 by the state legislature. The campus was de ...

but was unable to find any work in his field in the USA, and moved to the

(

Uzbekistan Uzbekistan (, ; uz, Ozbekiston, italic=yes / , ; russian: Узбекистан), officially the Republic of Uzbekistan ( uz, Ozbekiston Respublikasi, italic=yes / ; russian: Республика Узбекистан), is a doubly landlocked co ...

) with his wife in 1931 to develop the cotton industry there.

Personal life

Khanga is a graduate of

Moscow State University M. V. Lomonosov Moscow State University (MSU; russian: Московский государственный университет имени М. В. Ломоносова) is a public research university in Moscow, Russia and the most prestigious ...

, which is also the alma mater of her mother, who was the first black student to attend the Russian university. Besides Moscow, Khanga has lived in

and Boston, Massachusetts. Khanga is the aunt of Hungarian basketball player

Ádám Hanga Ádám Hanga (born 12 April 1989) is a Hungarian professional basketball player for Real Madrid of the Spanish Liga ACB and the EuroLeague. He was drafted 59th overall by the San Antonio Spurs in the 2011 NBA draft. Hanga won the EuroLeague B ...

. She has been married to

Igor Mintusov Igor Yevgenievich Mintusov (russian: Игорь Евгеньевич Минтусов; born 17 August 1958) is a Russian political consultant, public relations manager and professional manager of election campaigns. Mintusov is Chairman of the ...

, a Russian political analyst/consultant, since January 2002, and they have one daughter, Yelizaveta-Anna Mintusova (born October 25, 2002). The family primarily resides in Moscow but also own a home in New York City, as Khanga has dual citizenship through her American grandparents.

Career

Following graduation from Moscow State University, Khanga was hired by the ''

Moscow News ''The Moscow News'', which began publication in 1930, was Russia's oldest English-language newspaper. Many of its feature articles used to be translated from the Russian language '' Moskovskiye Novosti.'' History Soviet Union In 1930 ''The ...

'' and became the first Russian journalist to participate in a foreign-exchange program with the American-based ''

Christian Science Monitor Christians () are people who follow or adhere to Christianity, a monotheistic Abrahamic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus Christ. The words ''Christ'' and ''Christian'' derive from the Koine Greek title ''Christós'' (Χρισ ...

'' in 1988. Through this exchange, Khanga became well known in the United States for being a black woman from Russia, with many Americans being shocked that black people even lived in Russia. Khanga was the moderator of the Russian television talk show ''The Domino Effect''

. She also moderated Russia's first talk show about sex, called ''About That'' (russian: Про это, ''Pro Eto''), from 1997 to 2000, which tackled such matters as

HIV/AIDS Human immunodeficiency virus infection and acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (HIV/AIDS) is a spectrum of conditions caused by infection with the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), a retrovirus. Following initial infection an individual ...

, homosexuality and workplace sexual harassment; she later commented that the effect of the show "was like a bomb went off". She was also a performer with a comedy show called ''Kanotye'' in

Brighton Beach, Brooklyn Brighton Beach is a neighborhood in the southern portion of the New York City borough of Brooklyn, within the greater Coney Island area along the Atlantic Ocean coastline. Brighton Beach is bounded by Coney Island proper at Ocean Parkway to ...

References

External links

Booklist awards
Afro-Europe, February 22, 2011
"Yelena Khanga"
Answers.com * {{DEFAULTSORT:Khanga, Yelena 1962 births Living people Moscow State University alumni Russian expatriates in the United States Russian television personalities Russian people of African-American descent Russian people of Zanzibari descent Russian people of Polish-Jewish descent Russian journalists Soviet people of African-American descent Writers from Moscow Black Jewish people