Meet Svetlana Gromenkova, who defected from Russia (Moscow) years ago and now lives in Brooklyn, New York. Providing yet more evidence that doing so is the key to success for Russians (Maria Sharapova, who did likewise, is the only Russian woman ever ranked #1 in tennis and the only one to win more than one grand slam title and to do so beating a non-Russian), on June 10th Gromenkova won this year's "ladies' event" at the World Series of Poker in Las Vegas, Nevada, defeating a field of 1,190 other players and winning $224,702.

If only more Russians would learn from this example.

Gromenkova still has a bit of work to do on shedding her Russian personality, though. The WSOP blog reports: "Gromenkova is a woman of few words. Before play started ESPN's Howard David had asked her what she wanted the world to know about her. Gromenkova's reply? 'Nothing.'"

Interestingly, a New York Times story recently reported that the number of Russians on the voting rolls in New York City expanded dramatically over the last four years. When Russians should have, according to the Kremlin's propaganda, been staying and returning home due to Russia's wonderful alleged improvement, in fact they continued to flee just as quickly as they were able. We lift our lamp beside the golden door, Russians!