"pretending it [blond hair] came from a dead Macedonian king is cooler."
I believe Russia occupied Central Asia long before communism. In my master's thesis I made mention of the 1916 draft riots in Karshi, Uzbekistan (14,000 killed in a single day!). Never dreamed that years later I'd be stationed just down the street, so to speak.
Anyway, my last haircut in country was provided by a blond girl. When I asked her if she was Russian, she replied, "Nyet! Ya Uzbyechka!" Seems one parent (I forget which) was Russian, but she was born and raised in Karshi, and that meant, by golly, that she was Uzbek.