BY PETER DORFMANTristra Newyear Yeager admits these are peculiar times for an admirer of Russian culture. “New York City is not America, and Moscow is not Russia,” Yeager points out. It was eye opening for a 16-year-old girl from the Midwest.”After learning Russian at Wesleyan University, Yeager lived in Russia in the mid-1990s, teaching English and performing in a basement theater. In the early 2000s, Yeager went back to Russia and worked as an editor at The Moscow Times, an expatriate newspaper. “They were fascinating, literate people who created their own society,” Yeager says.