This article will concentrate on the interactions between White Russian émigrés and the local population of Istanbul and how the White Russian immigration influenced Turkish nationalist rhetoric in the 1920s. In the aftermath of the Bolshevik Revolution, approximately 150.000 people left the Russian Empire and found a new home in Istanbul. These immigrants included a large number of aristocrats, artists, and anti-Bolshevik intellectuals fleeing from the Russian Civil War that continued into the mid-1920s. For most of these Russian émigrés, Istanbul was a transit point before they finally reached major European or American cities. Only a small number of Russian émigrés stayed in Turkey for more than a few years. Despite their relatively short stay, “the White Russians,” as they were known, left a lasting imprint especially in the cultural life of Istanbul in the 1920s. On the other side of the coin, for the people of Istanbul, the 1920s was a transitory period from empire to nation-state, and the White Russians often appeared in nationalist texts as objects of pity or of suspicion, and their situation was regarded as a warning that the remaining population of the collapsed Ottoman Empire should draw lessons from. The sources for this research will be derived from Turkish newspapers of the mentioned period and memoirs of Russian émigrés. By doing this, the article aims to examine Turkish perceptions and treatment of Russian émigrés from both perspectives. The article hopes to shed light on the formative years of the Republic of Turkey from a different and little studied angle.