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In the dance event at the U.S. figure-skating championships, all the talk is about Russian transplants.

Three of the top five couples have a partner who is Russian-born. Another team has a highly respected Russian coach. And they're in the United States to stay. They're lining up at the citizenship office.

Last night, Peter Tchernyshev, born in St. Petersburg, and Naomi Lang won their second consecutive U.S. ice-dancing title. They even got a 6 for presentation, although Tchernyshev stumbled on a twizzle.

Oleg Fediukov, born in Moscow, and Debbie Koegel won the bronze medal, climbing back from fourth place after the original dance.

Dmitri Boundoukin, born in Moscow, and Alison Newman finished fifth.

Second place went to the exciting homegrown team of Jamie Silverstein and Justin Pekarek, based in Michigan. But one of their coaches, Igor Sphilband, was born in Russia.

Fediukov recently became a U.S. citizen and in another month or two Tchernyshev will follow suit. The 2002 Olympics in Salt Lake City is around the corner, and they need to be U.S. citizens to compete for the United States.

But it's more than that. Fediukov said he feels different. A few days after he became a citizen, Fediukov went to a National Hockey League game between the Philadelphia Flyers and the Florida Panthers and there he heard the U.S. national anthem.

"All of a sudden, I realized that this is part of me," he said. "It was very emotional."

Fediukov arrived in the United States on Sept. 2, 1992, and every year he celebrates that date.

"I became a citizen because I wanted to," he said. "I came because I fell in love with this country. I didn't come just because I can make better money. I came to stay and live in the United States, whether I skate or not."

Tchernyshev arrived in the United States four or five months after Fediukov, whom he knew from skating in the same group in Moscow.

"I have a good feeling because I know that I chose my way," said Tchernyshev, a soft-spoken, musical artist.

He has returned to Russia three times, including taking part in the Cup of Russia competition last year where his relatives filled the seats and cheered him on.

After staying away from Russia for five years, he was struck by one major difference in the cultures when he did return -- how people communicate with each other.

"When you live [in the United States] you feel this friendly attitude," Tchernyshev said. "When you go back to Russia, you feel all the time that you're coming to people in their jobs, even if they're not at their jobs.

"I guess that comes from 70 years of a Russian system of Communist rule. Everybody was afraid to speak up. . . . Every day [in Russia] you come face to face with people who think they are supposed to be in charge," he said.

"Even if they don't really have any effect on what you're doing, they want to let you know they are powerful. There is lots of bureaucracy."

Fediukov and Tchernyshev weren't the first Russians to arrive in the United States. Gorsha Sur, who later became a U.S. champion while skating with Renee Roca, defected a few years before glasnost.

Fediukov encountered a major hassle last fall when he and Koegel were scheduled to compete at the Cup of Russia. Chalk it up to miscommunication, but when the U.S. Figure Skating Association checked with the Russian embassy, it was felt he was still a Russian citizen and didn't need a visa. But as it turned out, he did, and ended up not going.

Koegel has guided Fediukov's transition to the United States. On the way to his citizenship test, she fired 100 questions at him and he couldn't answer half of them. Koegel soon got him straightened out and he passed. Failing the test terrified him worse than competing, he said.

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