A New Venture : City takes on the role of child-care provider for many Russian immigrants.

“Babushka, babushka!” yelled the preschoolers as an elderly woman entered the classroom to pick up her grandson.

The accent is distinctly Russian at the West Hollywood Preschool, a city-run facility for children from low-income families that opened last week in Plummer Park. About 75% of the 34 children enrolled are from the city’s large and growing Russian community.

Lost on the children was the irony of West Hollywood being in the preschool business. With its unusually large percentages of gay and elderly residents, the city is one of the most child-free communities anywhere; less than 8% of the population is under 18, compared with a countywide average of 26%.

City officials hope their child-care role is temporary. They stepped in to run the preschool, which provides 4-year-olds with free meals and kindergarten preparation, after the agency contracted by the city to head it backed out in August, a week and a half before classes were scheduled to begin.

“We looked at what our options were and decided to put city money in the program because families were already enrolled,” said Daphne Dennis, the city’s social services program specialist. The city is looking for a private agency to take over the preschool next year, she said.

Helen Levin, executive director of the West Hollywood Russian Community Center, said the preschool is a vital service to the city’s recent immigrants from Russia and other countries in the former Soviet Union.

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Levin said the most recent immigrants differ from those who arrived in the 1980s because economic upheaval is prompting the newcomers to leave their homeland with less planning.

“Now we have big, whole families that come from Russia,” she said. “Those who come now are unprepared. They don’t speak English, and child care is their No. 1 problem.”

Elena Lyampert, who emigrated from Ukraine with her husband and daughter, Anna, four months ago, said she sends Anna to the preschool so she can attend a class at a local business college. In fact, Lyampert said, she had to postpone her own start at school because of the monthlong delay in the preschool opening.

“If she was home, I would have to stay at home,” said Lyampert. “They give me the chance to go to school.”

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West Hollywood officials say they believe that more than half of the city’s children are from the Russian community, even though immigrants from the former Soviet Union compose only 12% of the city’s population.

Mela Tarlo, an interpreter at the preschool, said many of the children speak Russian in their homes, and what little English they know before kindergarten is learned from watching television. She often uses pictures to teach English. “Pictures are good because then they know what it is exactly,” said Tarlo, “but sometimes I translate for them.”