Maidan-on-Brighton

What do Russian New York say about events in Ukraine

Russian-Ukrainian conflicts like food for acute discussions in Russian New York

“Occupation”, “annexation”, “and Obama-weakly”-the breeze reports fragments of phrases on Brighton (in the picture: “dumplings” on Brighton Beach)

On the shelves of an eternally busy supermarket inviting visitors by hits of the 90s, Ukrainian borsch, Leningrad brine and Caucasian soup Kharcho are peacefully adjacent. The cutlets shining with a fried glossy skin in Kievsky compete with the open gfilte Fish, Siberian dumplings-with Ukrainian dumplings. Eggplants are offered in Moldavian, in Georgian, in Hebrew and Odessky. Behind the transparent lid of the freezer, the “seal of the USSR” is visible by 99 cents apiece. Ah, Brighton, ah, scourge ...

A wooden flooring laid out along the ocean “Herringbone” on a terrible weekend reached out the sun - to thaw from a prolonged winter. And on all shops without exception on this day they talked about one thing - about the Crimea.

Lesson of politeness

“Occupation”, “annexation”, “ridiculous sanctions”, “what they want, then do”, “Obama Slabak” - the breeze reports fragments of phrases. The people, who turned into political formators, are hiding from the blinding sun by local newspapers, the headlines of which leave no doubt that the Russian-speaking community Brighton Beach is generally jointly in solidarity with the official position of the United States: the Crimean referendum on joining Russia is not recognized.

“Crimea, without any doubt, is the original ours!” A man in a black leather jacket is specifically loudly loudly loudly, so that everyone can hear.

“Tell me, what is your America,” an intelligent lady from a neighboring bench, however, does not want to enter into a discussion maliciously.

“And America is also ours - the Russians were the first to land in California, and Alaska is generally ours,” the speaker continues confidently.

- Of course, and Brighton is directly Russian! - the lady does not give up with the open book.

- And you do not rude, dear! - Strictly turns to her. - You will be rude - we will ask Russia and send here “polite people”. There is not everything from Zhmerinka, here, by the way, there are St. Petersburg.

Economic expediency

- And for me there are no national borders, what to argue about them? The Ukrainians and I are one people, only some are charged east, while others are west. Why are we made by enemies? - convinces the neighbor in the bench by Konstantin Sinitsyn.

Sakhalinets Sinitsyn, who considers himself a Don Cossack, and Mikola Farak from under Lviv, for several years, divide one room into two in the Brooklyn communal woman into Oshenu Avenue. Sinitsyn like a social worker - the elderly at home visits. Farak is working on a construction site, creating an economic tank for a prosperous future, because there is no work in their homeland.

The confrontation between Russia and Ukraine subjected a serious test to the established community. Sinitsyn is convinced that Yanukovych was illegally overthrown - it was necessary to wait before the elections - and that the “Bandera” would not lead to the power to good. Fecrah, on the other hand, stands for the Maidan, believes in the revival of Ukraine and its return to the family of European peoples. But while Lviv, the West supplies the largest army of Ukrainian labor migrants: the average salary in those regional regions is only about $ 370.

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“And you do not rude, dear! You will be rude - we will ask Russia and send “polite people” here. There is not everything from Zhmerinka - and there are St. Petersburg "

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Kostya and Mikola were shared bread, borrowed money, went into the same Protestant temple. And here, like enemies, it came to the point that they called each other with the “fascists”.

- For three days we were silent, at first anger burst out, and then the bitterness came: why are we now at each other with an ax? - says Sinitsyn.

Well, economic expediency-again, the matter is not the last. To move in the way, and not with everyone you will share four walls. And then they got rid of, got sick. Sinitsyn gave Feraka his sofa, and he himself was content with a folding chair. But the computer is mycols, but it always gives us to use and does not abuse the right of the owner.

One-Badrum (two-room room with a passage hall-if in our opinion) an apartment in Oshenu Avenue and the Cossack Bones are divided by three more migrants-a Muscovite and two Western Ukrainians: two in each room. “Cossack, Moskal and two“ Bandera ”,” Sinitsyn laughs silently.

New York artist John, a supporter of Ukrainian unity, during a single picket on Brighton. March, 2014

Why were they separated?

“This Crimean history reminded me of our Quebec referendum”*, ”Eugene, a longtime friend of Sinitsyn, enters into a conversation on Brighton's benches.

They met in the Montreal’s immigration office, where this, by the way, turned up a native of Ufa, the Canadian according to the passport and “Russian in the soul”, helped to fill out a foreign language questionnaire in a foreign language free of charge.

“I remember in the evening, when the polling stations closed, the people dumped on Saint-Katrin-this is in Montreal like a New York Broadway. One crowd is with red federal flags with a maple leaf, the other with Quebec Blue with lilies. First, the slogans chased, and then agreed in the brawl - let's blow each other with banners ... Excitement - as if you were injected with adrenaline injection. So I wanted to break into the crowd and begin to wet these, under blue flags, rural provincials! But I resisted, I didn’t get into a fight, ”Eugene recalls.

And he continues about his Montreal life: “Nature is marvelous there, and the rivers are so fast that they do not freeze with fierce frosts. From the Russian bath you jump into such a river - the soul over the body is inflated. Medicine is free and the housing is free - you can easily choose for government subsidies. There, even the homeless is supposed to be overnight in the highest category: complain about bread and salt and clean sheets. ” - "Why then wanted to separate if they live so well?!" - Sinitsyn is perplexed. "Yes, as usual - politicians wound up."

That onions, that Tsibulya

In March, the protests swept through New York-Russian-speaking America carried Ukrainian flags, drove up at the UN headquarters, demanding that the community of preserving the integrity of the country. But the resolution on non -recognition of the referendum in the Crimea did not succeed in holding the US Security Council in the UN Security Council: 13 states supported the document, China abstained, and Russia imposed a veto - and the end of the question.

They did not rally on Brighton. In the middle of the street on the dividing strip under the muffled trains of the above-ground yellow branch, describing the arc right in front of the Brighton Bazaar store, there was only one eccentric: in his right hand he held the yellow-blue flag, in the left-Russian tricolor.

"Are you for Ukraine or for Russia?!" - the passers -by John, who survived the activist from the deceased Occupy Wall Street movement, asked perplexedly. Under the rattle of iron wheels, he convinced that on the Maidan of the chief corrupt official they drove off, and the system retained that 1% of the powerful world, as usual, would deceive the remaining 99%, encountering the neighbors with the foreheads. For such words, the yellow-blue columns of the New Yorkis, who greeted the Messenger of the New Ukraine Yatsenyuk at the UN building in the UN building, were rejected by John as a “Putin provocateur”.

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“In Ukrainian is Tsibulya. In Russian-onions. No matter how you name, something has changed?! "

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John - an artist and his views on the Crimean referendum are trying to convey visual and artistically. He takes out a bulb from his pocket and pulls it in an open palm.

“In Ukrainian is Tsibulya. In Russian-onions. No matter how you name, something has changed?! " - he triumphs he lifted the bulb.

In the days when old friends “captivated” each other on Facebook, when the neighbors of different nationalities ceased to say hello, when the husband and wife stood on opposite sides of political barricades, erected in the minds for a recordly short time, Cossack Sinitsyn and West Ukrainian Farak also crawled out of the discussion to the quarrel. For several days, the inhabitants of the communal apartment with windows on Ocean Avenue irreconcilably kept ice silence. But Mikola, who and his wife (she remained behind the ocean) will never yield on Skype, this time the first to offer the world to the world: “We hug, or what?”

Reconciliated, they again spent the evening at the computer. They diplomatically decided not to include political programs, I did not want to argue. As a result, they loaded the Russian melodrama "Faced Sister". And in the dark - one lying on the couch, the other - on an unfolded armchair - with sympathy plundered into the tragic confusion of foreign family ties.

Photos: S. Mostovets/ITAR-TASS, Larisa Saenko