As for how I worked in Russia its a long and very tedious story.
So Russians are racist - if you are a Jewish Russian you are considered not Russian but Jewish. However while the average Russian knows you are racially inferior to him, that will not stop his sister from dating you and if she did so it wouldnt particularly bother him. Similarly if you are black. Russians seemed to have no doubt at all that black and brown people are ethnically inferior, however that shouldn’t get in the way of business or socializing.
Compare that with the City of Boston, and you soon begin to miss the Russian version of racism. That said, your grandparents made the right call.
I should add that this is true of most Russians. There is a sizable minority who will beat black people to mush should they catch them at the end of a subway line late at night. Same with the Russian police. However this is not different in the US.
