[morzh]

Welcome!

Soviet textbooks were always heavy on math and theory. Soviet education was the same, it overemphasized theory but underemphasized practice: lab works etc, which were very theoretically skewed. And the equipment was outdated by at least 2 decades compared even to the one existing in the USSR, and about 3 decades to the Western one.
However if a Soviet trained specialist ended up here and succeeded in landing a job, after having learnt the modern technology he would have the advantage of better math and theory understanding.
Soviet math school (and at some point also physics) was second to none indeed.
Russian sounding names were normal as many of Russian emigres, especially at the dawn of 20th century, being already accomplished researchers and scie tists ended up working for Anerican corporations.
People like Sikorsky (he was a Russian of Polish descent), Sarnoff (Russian jew), Zvorykin (Russian, ethnic Russian). Also bunch of folks from Slavic part of the world like Pupin or Tesla.
Pyotr Ufimtsev is the father of the Stealth anti-radar technology and is still active as a consultant.

One would question why with talents like these Russia a the country hasn't invented much.
I guess this is where the analogy of seeds and soil fertility comes to play.

And this goes for many other countries too.
People who flourish here include Italians, English, Canadians, Chinese, Indian, French, and many more.