Sep. 7--When Russian leader Nikita S. Khrushchev toured the United States in 1959, he visited Mesta Machine Co. in West Homestead to see a mill that made machine tool and steel mill equipment for the thriving steel industry.

Today, the Russians are doing more than just visiting steel mills and steel-supply plants to see how they work -- they're buying some of the nation's steel industry assets, thanks in large part to Russian tycoons who are worth billions of dollars, experts say.

"The buying of U.S. companies by the Russian firms is a function of the size of these companies" that are bigger than Pittsburgh-based U.S. Steel Corp., said Bob Donnorummo, associate director of the Center for Russian and East European Studies at the University of Pittsburgh.

Russian companies own about 8 percent of the nation's raw steel production capability, according to the American Iron and Steel and Institute, a Washington,D.C.-based trade group. The Russian companies, which employ thousands through their North American subsidiaries, have spent more than $5 billion alone on steel companies and mills in Pennsylvania, Ohio, West Virginia and Maryland over the past year.

Among the players buying mills like they were property on a Monopoly game are the giants of Russia's steel and mining industries: Evraz Steel Group, Russia's largest steel and mining company; VSMPO-AVISMA, the world's largest titanium sponge producer; OAO TMK, Russia's largest exporter of steel pipe; OAO Severstal, a leading international steel producer; and Novolipetsk Steel, one of Russia's four largest steel producers.

"They've made a lot of money in the steel business ... and it's probably better for those people to get their money out of Russia these days," said Charles Bradford, a steel industry analyst at Bradford/Soleil Research in New York.

The metals and mining companies are booming because of the global demand, particularly from China, and are indirectly benefiting from the flood of petrodollars coming into Russia as a result of the sale of its oil and gas resources, Donnorummo said.

The weak dollar is a factor, among other things that are attracting the Russians to the U.S. steel industry, said Valery Yakubovich, associate professor of management at the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School in Philadelphia.

"I believe they want higher value-added products, better access to the American market and technological and management expertise," said Yakubovich, a graduate of Moscow State University.

The Russians have an advantage over U.S.