Leonid Bershidsky, Columnist

Russian-Americans Don't All Back Trump

The Republican nominee's supposed soft spot for Putin doesn't please everyone in the community.

September 21, 2016 at 1:30 PM UTC

Leonid Bershidsky, formerly Bloomberg Opinion’s Europe columnist, is a member of the Bloomberg News Automation Team. He recently published Russian translations of George Orwell’s “1984” and Franz Kafka’s “The Trial.”

Mutual admiration society.
Photographer: Andrew Harrer/Bloomberg

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Stepan Pachikov says he has a problem every time he gets in a New York taxi. "I have to tell the driver, 'Trump Place, please.'"

As Hillary Clinton's campaign suggested a link between Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin, the Russians who own apartments in Trump developments were often mentioned as proof. Outwardly, Pachikov fits the mold: He is from Russia, and even though he is a naturalized U.S. citizen, he has kept his Russian passport. He is also wealthy enough to afford a large apartment with panoramic views on one of the top floors of a Trump-branded building on Manhattan's West Side. Pachikov is the founder of Evernote, which developed a note-taking application with about 150 million users. Until recently, it was considered a "unicorn," a private company valued at more than $1 billion, though it ran into some turbulence last year. After a management change, it has posted a profit for the last two quarters.