Being in a room with an openly lesbian professor and knowing that I was valued, rather than vilified, for the ways in which I didn't fit in was a soothing antidote to all those adolescent years of self-loathing and doubt.
That could be because the rest of the world still envisions the New Russia as a land of rhinestone-encrusted SUVs and mink-swaddled mistresses. (Think of the guy in the DirecTV commercial with the tiny giraffe.) Snob may be the antidote to that image, but its name doesn't convey that.