Sir Peter Ustinov, a brilliant British actor of partly Russian descent, when applying for his first American visa, had to fill in a questionnaire where there was a question about his skin colour. He wrote ‘pink’, provoking the indignation of the embassy staff. When they told him severely that his skin colour was white, Ustinov would bring them to a mirror, showing that in reality it was pink.

Ustinov playing Emperor Nero. His skin colour is really pink, don’t you agree?

Finally, American embassy granted Ustinov his visa. He concludes that they were just people, even if their colour perception was flawed.

So yes, Russians are people of colour. Most of us are pink, just like Sir Peter Ustinov (look at my profile photo, for instance). Some may be tinted in a slightly different way.

Sergey Sobyanin, the Mayor of Moscow.

Yelena Khanga, a popular TV journalist.