ollowing the Russian Civil War and the Second World War, some Kalmyks fled Kalmykia for Europe, and in the 1950s some of these Kalmyks began arriving as refugees in America. They settled mostly in Philadelphia and in Howell, New Jersey — a town which today is still the heart of the diaspora, with a "Kalmyk Road" and three Buddhist temples. Kalmyk language and culture suffered grievously following Stalin’s deportation of much of the community to Siberia, though there have remained a few places in Kalmykia where everyone still speaks Kalmyk. In the 1990s, following the fall of the Soviet Union, a new group of Kalmyks began to arrive in America, settling mostly in Russian-speaking areas of New York City and including a number of musicians, dancers, and other artists who first came as performers because of a lack of work back home. Today, as many as a few thousand Kalmyks may live in Brooklyn (especially the Bensonhurst/Bay Parkway area). The number who speak the Kalmyk language is small, especially among the newcomers.