In southeast New York, far off the beaten track, is the Brighton Beach neighborhood. Immigrants from all parts of the former Soviet Union settled here. Russian is spoken and it is harmonious – but then comes the Ukraine conflict.
Under the terminus of a rattling elevated train in the far southeast of New York City is Brighton Beach. Behind the railway line, the Atlantic sloshes to the coast, in summer squeaky children’s laughter and splashing water can be heard through the neighborhood, and it smells of sun milk and salt water. Tourists rarely come here, the train to Manhattan’s skyscrapers takes about an hour. Outside the bathing season, residents have their Brighton Beach to themselves. Then mostly Russian is spoken, because almost everyone here comes from the former Soviet Union.
Shops, cafes and restaurants line up under the elevated train on Brighton Beach Avenue. “Kalinka Gifts”, “Eugenias Corset Shop”, “Paris Moda” and the “St. Petersburg Bookstore”, almost all offers are advertised in Cyrillic letters. “You don’t feel like you are in America here, to be honest,” says Alina, who works in a clothing store. “It’s actually more like Russia.” He comes from Azerbaijan, says a customer. “I like America better. In the Soviet Union I had no money, no work, just hunger.”
Brighton Beach, with its wooden boardwalk, was once a seaside resort at the gates of New York, modeled on the British Brighton. The Marx Brothers and Fred Astaire enjoyed themselves here, there were racetracks and theaters. Then it became a densely built-up residential area and was connected to the metropolis by rail.
During the economic crisis and World War II, it was mainly Jewish immigrants who settled in Brighton Beach. The collapse of the Soviet Union brought new immigrants, including many Jews from the Ukrainian Odessa, which earned the neighborhood the nickname “Little Odessa”. After that, many immigrants came from Russia and other parts of the former Soviet Union. Around a third of the residents of the district do not speak English even today.
Money letters in the home
Many Brighton Beach residents have deep ties to Russia.
(Foto: picture alliance / dpa)
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Brighton Beach is like a great social experiment. Despite the many conflicts in the home region, the quarter always remained peaceful and harmonious. But the conflict between Russia and Ukraine is now also noticeable here, the crisis has arrived in everyday life in Brighton Beach. Like Marina from Uzbekistan, who runs a small kiosk in a hallway from which people can send money. “A lot of my customers come from Ukraine and Russia. Everyone sends money to everyone. Only we don’t send anything to Crimea, we don’t even know whether it’s Russia or Ukraine.”
Yelena Akthiorskaya came to Brighton Beach with her parents in 1992. Her grandparents had immigrated three years earlier. The 28-year-old processed her experiences in the 2014 novel “Panic In A Suitcase”. “I wrote the book because I had to deal with this absurd situation in which I grew up,” says Akthiorskaya, who now lives in Manhattan but visits her parents in Brighton Beach almost every weekend. “It is schizophrenic to be an immigrant here. You are in a new country, but you are not really in the country because it is not really America.”
The similarities between Odessa and Brighton Beach are huge, says Akthiorskaya, whose grandfather and great-grandfather were also writers and poetry. “Odessa is on the Black Sea, which is known to be quite large, but much quieter than the Atlantic, and it has a completely different color. It is lighter and turquoise, not like the strange dark gray of the sea here. Apart from that, everything is surprisingly similar The only difference when you go to the beach in Odessa is that the people all look the same. Not as different as here. “
As a child in Brighton Beach, Akthiorskaya always spoke Russian. “Although I was quite young when I came here, I never got rid of my accent. And I grew up in a kind of ghetto, my childhood was quite special. We were immigrant children, our parents worked like crazy and were mostly absent . We were wild. It was a free, rough childhood. ” Akthiorskaya is walking down Brighton Beach Avenue on the way to see her parents.
When the Black Sea is very close
“For me that is the metaphor for Brighton Beach. A moment of peace and then oh, the train. There it comes. The two defining noises of Brighton Beach could not be more different. On the one hand the sound of the sea, the soft gurgling of the ocean “Soothing, wonderful. And then that old train rattling along the ancient tracks, squeaking and – ah, yeah, and here’s another sound. There’s always a lot of honking here, cars are important in Brighton Beach and people drive aggressively.” “
Akthiorskaya turns towards the sea. “Here on the right-hand side we see the Oceana Condos. Pretty new. This is where the nouveau riche Russians live. The apartments in these strange stucco houses cost millions and have caused a real estate bubble here because so many Russians want to live here. Oceana is for them all the highest, no matter what part of the former Soviet Union they come from. They form their own society in there, with a lot of things that we normal people out there know little about. That goes from super good yoga classes to the fact that there is one there was huge health insurance fraud, and the Russians who were arrested almost all lived in Oceana. “
People jostle on the boardwalk or sit in front of one of the many restaurants. “This is Tatiana and there is the Tatiana Grill. The Beach Café also belongs to Tatiana and was formerly also called Tatiana. But they changed the name because – I mean, how many Tatianas can you tolerate? But all three restaurants are owned by Tatiana from Odessa. She lives in Miami now. I only know because I grew up here and we’ve been to these restaurants about 500 million times. They’re not Russian, they’re Ukrainian. And that’s when it gets tricky to separate, because Odessa is in Ukraine, but Russian is spoken there. It was always an international city with a majority of Russian speakers. It was never Ukrainian, linguistically. The borders are fluid. “
The conflict in the middle of New York
Nevertheless, the Ukraine conflict is now forcing people in Brighton Beach to make up their minds, says Akthiorskaya’s mother Paulina, who is serving lunch in her sixth-floor apartment with a view of the Atlantic Ocean and Tatiana’s restaurants. There are vareniki dumplings, pierogi, filled dumplings, pickles, ham, cheese and fruit. “Now we really have to say that – Russian or Ukrainian. Before we weren’t that fussy. A lot of food is very similar, but not just food, the whole lifestyle. It’s very sad what’s happening. I’m going to say Ukrainian now. We’re on the Ukrainian side. Vareniki are Ukrainian dumplings. “
The Akthiorskayas have not watched Russian television for a long time. Intentionally. They even weaned their grandfather off. There is a crunch between the Ukrainians and Russians in Brighton Beach, says Paulina Akthiorskaya. Yet the district has always stood for the fulfillment of the dream of a good Soviet Union, says David Akthiorskaya, Yelena’s father.
“Our house is actually a wonderful example of Brighton Beach,” adds mother Paulina. “If you step into the hall, you will meet an old lady who speaks Ukrainian, nothing else, only Ukrainian. Next to her lives a huge, overweight girl from Georgia who is towing one guy after the other. Her Russian is pretty shattered. But she makes for stories. The other day a guy tried to get into her window at night and mixed up the window, he ended up with an old man who almost had a heart attack. Ambulance was here, everything. That’s how we live here. We live together . If I need onions, I’ll knock next door. “
Actually, the people in Brighton Beach are apolitical, says daughter Yelena Akthiorskaya. “The Ukrainian Jews here stay pretty out of it. The tougher Ukrainian community is in Manhattan, in the East Village, there is also the Ukrainian Church and the cultural center. It’s more political there. One is almost apolitical here, a little apart. Just like it has always been in Odessa. The spirit of Odessa has always been more fun than politics. “
Vasyl Machno works in the Ukrainian community in Manhattan. The poet and author from western Ukraine came to New York in the 1990s and now lives in the Staten Island district. Brighton Beach fascinates him. In 2006 he wrote a play about the neighborhood, but he doesn’t want to live there. “When I get to Brighton Beach I think I’m in the Soviet Union. It’s so different from America. I don’t see that Brighton Beach is in any way integrated into American society. It seems stuck. I have life in the Soviet Union never liked. Every moment there has a negative memory. “
The conflict in Ukraine is a constant concern of Machno. “The Russian language and culture are not enemies of the Ukrainians. It is the Putin regime that carries out propaganda and turns Ukrainians into bad people, enemies instead of brothers. And the brotherhood between Ukrainians and Russians divides. After Putin, Ukrainians and Russians have to build a completely new relationship with one another. “
Machno wrote several poems about the war in his homeland. “In one of them I say: Even if you live in New York, you live in the Ukraine, in your city, in your military unit. Many of my friends are currently at the front. They are my friends from school, from university . I talk to one of them on Skype or by e-mail. Many Ukrainians who live in America try to help the Ukrainian army, the Ukrainian soldiers. For example, we send money for weapons. I’m also currently looking for a uniform, because a friend from my university will probably join the army. I’m looking for an American uniform. They are very good. The Ukrainian ones are poor quality. “
But even when the Ukraine conflict arrived in Brighton Beach, the people there still tried to hold on to their tolerance, says artist Alisa Minyukova. “Even Russian Republicans, who tend to be right-wing, seem to adhere to democratic values here that allow people to accept one another and be tolerant.” The New Yorker with Russian roots spends a lot of time in Brighton Beach, where she gets inspiration for her projects. “I think you can see at Brighton Beach that something is obviously wrong with the politics in Russia, which makes people there so hungry for conflict. I’ve lived in Russia for seven years, I know it’s homophobic , chauvinistic and sexist and all that. In Brighton Beach it’s all less noticeable. “
The Soviet peace in Brighton Beach is in danger, says author Yelena Akthiorskaya. Through the war in Ukraine – and through time. More than a quarter of the residents are older than 65 years. “Brighton Beach is full of old people because they came here from Odessa, for example, and their children didn’t want to leave. They stayed behind, the older ones and those who never really learned English. And now they are all getting old. I love going to Brighton Beach, but I come with mixed feelings. I sense something sad, worn, defeated. It’s like one last breath. “
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