It started way before WW2 with Stalin's propaganda against Trocki. It rose once again after WW2 on political grounds when Stalin saw the birth of Israel as a threat that the vast jew population now having its own nation (and collaborating with the US) will undermine the integrity of the country. Contrary to Hitler's vision, Stalin's xenophobia wasn't based directly on ethnic grounds per se, it were delusions of a tyrant who slaughters its own people wherever and whenever he sees any political threat. The more modern antisemitic propaganda supposedly appeared under Putin's conflict with Jelcyn's oligarchs.

It won't make you feel better, but although anti-semitism is the most 'mainstream' discrimination, Russia is an enormous country full of various ethnic minorities under threat.

Take note although I've read a few about Russia, I'm far from an expert on it and it's a really complicated place for me, so you should investigate the issues I mentioned further to get a better view.

You are correct about the discrimination against many minorities. When it comes to foreign policy, Russia will go to hell and back to protect its people (i.e., South Ossetia, Abkhazia, and the Georgian invasion) but when it comes to internal matters, there is a growing nationalism among the populism.

Navalny, for example, is a known supporter of nationalists despite being "Putin's number one enemy" and the most visible opposer to his regime. Furthermore, you'd have to try not to find videos of Russian nationalists murdering minorities on Google and Youtube. Many people who immigrate from the -stan countries are the equivalent of Mexicans in the United States, having faced constant discrimination for taking Russians' jobs (in construction for instance).

-stans imigrants obviously, but I had also in mind the various native tribes of Syberia.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Jews_in_Russia suggests that it started way before that under Catherine the Great.

I feel OPs question is about the modern era.

Things of today usually have some roots in things of the past.

"in the Soviet Union" And quite a few has been written on the enthusiasm of part of the Russian jews for USSR because they were so oppressed under the Tsarist regime.

Thanks for answer. But I'm looking for some explanation of raise of "official" antisemitism in 70s and 80s. Soviet Union started implemented officially sanctioned discrimination against Jews during Brezhnev regime. I was told that the number of Jews in Soviet universities declined 3x from late 1960s to 1970s - three times.

The question is why?

before that: "Mikhail Brin decided to study mathematics instead, and was offered a place although the entry exams for Jews were sat separately, in rooms that were notoriously known as "the gas chambers." In 1970, he graduated with distinction." -- http://www.haaretz.com/jewish-world/2.209/google-co-founder-...

There has been anti-semetism in Europe for a long long time, e.g. In 1290 King John kicked all the Jews out of England. In about 1805 Napolean (while invading lots of Europe) gave Jews more equal rights with Christians. The Russian Orthodox Church declared him the "Anti-christ" and "enemy of god"