It is widely known that roughly half a million ethnic Koreans live in the former Soviet Union. It is less well-known, though, that the Soviet Korean community essentially consists of two distinct groups, the history, culture and worldview of which are remarkably different.

More than 90 percent of former Soviet Koreans are people who once lived in the Maritime Province, the area around Vladivostok. In 1937, these people were forcibly relocated to Central Asia, where most of them have been ever since (though after the end of the USSR a significant number eventually migrated to Russia). The other group are