Willi Ivanovich Tokarev was a Russian-American singer-songwriter. In the 1980s, he became famous throughout the Soviet Union for his songs about life as a Russian émigré in New York in Brighton Beach.

Brighton Beach is a neighborhood in the southern portion of the New York City borough of Brooklyn, within the greater Coney Island area along the Atlantic Ocean coastline. Brighton Beach is bounded by Coney Island proper at Ocean Parkway to the west, Manhattan Beach at Corbin Place to the east, Sheepshead Bay at the Belt Parkway to the north, and the Atlantic Ocean to the south along the beach and boardwalk.