I think confusion about whether Ayn Rand is russian or not comes from the fact that in slavik countries Jews were never considered to be "russians", "ukrainians", "serbian",whatever. The anti-semitism and to some extend any anti-small-ethnic group sentiments are so deeply rooted in the slavic world that they labeled people by "nationality." And Jews who may have lived in Russia for many generations still belonged to nationality "Jews". Which was always very humiliating and degrading to us. This is one of the main things that makes USA so good to us, Jews who come from the slavic worlds; we finally belong to the country where we live. When I fill out custom declaration forms whenever I travel abroad, my nationality is USA.

Thanks for the clarification. I had no idea - but I probably should have since my father was a holocaust surviver.