What has Regina Spektor found in the poet-singers of her native Russia?

NEW YORK IS JUST WAKING UP TO spring, but inside Russian Samovar on 52nd Street hearty borscht and warming horseradish vodka are still on the menu. Regina Spektor is at the bar among the Soviet memorabilia, small and neat and radiantly red-headed, and already chatting away. Though she left Moscow for the Bronx at the age of nine, 23 years ago, her accent still has a tinge to it — nothing on Cate Blanchett's in the last Indiana Jones, but enough to make swearing sweet rather than tough, and to give an exotic edge to the New York-isms.