WASHINGTON, August 1 (RIA Novosti) – A new British reality television series in the works is vowing to give viewers a behind-the-scenes glimpse at the swanky London lives of wealthy Russians and other émigrés from the former Soviet Union, The Hollywood Reporter said Thursday.
The nine-hour series, titled “Meet the Russians,” promises to tell the stories of a “captivating cast of characters,” including a financier turned art collector, a Russian soccer player and his wife – described by producers as the “Russian Victoria Beckham” – and Ukrainian pop star Kamaliya and her husband Mohammed Zahoor, a Pakistani businessman who became a steel magnate in Ukraine, according to the report.
London has become a second home for many wealthy businesspeople from Russia and the former Soviet Union who have snapped up multimillion-dollar homes in the city and other expensive assets, including professional soccer clubs.
Media reports in recent years have estimated that around 300,000 people from Russia or former Soviet republics currently live in the British capital, a figure cited by Fox International Channels, which is financing the British-produced series.
The show is set to premiere on Sept. 25, the British website TV Wise reported Thursday.
The program is not the first reality show to focus on Russian-speaking communities in the West. The US network Lifetime aired a short-lived series called “Russian Dolls” in 2011 that followed the lives of eight Russian-speaking immigrant families in Brighton Beach, a New York City neighborhood that is home to a large number of émigrés from the former Soviet Union.
The show was likened in the US media to a Brighton Beach version of the scandalous MTV reality show “Jersey Shore” and “The Real Housewives” series on the Bravo Network.
