Read without ads and support Scribd by becoming a Scribd Premium Reader.
See Premium Plans
 
Clouds Of Grey: A Week In Moscow At The International Conference World Without Nazism: Global Goal Of TheEntire Humanity.
My grandfather, Louis Brodsky, fled Odessa for America in 1905, in the aftermath of that year'suprising across Russia, with the Tsar hot on his heels. Until December that was the last we heardfrom the Russian government.On December 5 I received a two page letter, in Russian with translation attached, from SenatorBoris Shpiegel, Vice Chairman of the Federation Council of the Federal Assembly of the RussianFederation (the Russian Senate): Would I please come to Moscow on December 17 to attend theInternational Conference World Without Nazism: Global Goal Of The Entire Humanity.It wasthe kind of title and the kind of letter that you read more than once.Grandpa Lou would have been proud. Or appalled. We were a wealthy family with major sugarinterests. (The major shuls in Odessa and Kiev were built by the Brodskys) He and mygrandmother Fannie were left-wing troublemakers. He came here and became a cutter in thegarment business. A government invitation to visit Moscow wasn't in the realm of possibility. Ihad never been. Mother Russia beckoned. I'm firmly anti-Nazi. What to do?I've been around politics enough to ask the right questions. Why me? Who in Russian knowsanything about me? Who's in charge? There were two possibilities. The interesting but unlikelyexplanation is my genuine anti-Nazi credentials. In 1985 I helped lead a delegation to witnessand protest Reagan's bizarre visit to an SS cemetery in Bitburg, Germany, an awful mistake that seemed to shrug at the truth and smile at Nazi apologists. Maybe they knew? The more likelyreason is my relationship with the extraordinary community of Russians in Brighton Beach. Andthat is a story of its' own.
THE INVITATION 
A few blocks east of Coney Island sits Little Odessa, 40,000 Russian emigres largely from theReagan wave beginning in the 80's. Theyre overwhelmingly Jewish, some observant, mostlywhat we used to call secular Jews, but a lot of them spend time in shul. Theyre from all over theold Soviet Union, Minsk, Pinsk, Odessa, Moscow, Belorussia, Moldavia, Moscow, Kursk, Kiev, somenot really European (Forest Hills is now populated by 40,000 Bukharian Jews from Uzbekistanon the old Asian Silk Road who speak Russian, Yiddish and Farsi) united by a little religion, ashared experience under Communism, and a great joy in being outside of Russia. They're older,survivors of the Great Patriotic War and the insane last years of Stalin, deeply suspicious of government and authority, and resigned to the injustice and venality of the world. But the placeis hopping, by any standard. Night clubs, restaurants, the boardwalk, a commercial strip underthe El that feels like 1948, and a gruff, sharp-elbowed, look-you-in-the-eye feel. I had been goingthere for years for the food and the reminders of what my grandparents had looked and soundedlike. But my 2010 run for New York Attorney General brought me close to Brighton's business,political, and media leaders who were supportive and smart, and really trying to move thecommunity forward. They tend to be Republicans out of a sense of loyalty to Reagan and theysimply dont believe anyone from government will help them at all. They listened hard when Ispoke about the distasteful stereotypes of a Russian Mafia and sex trade and criminal behavior
 
that does in fact dominate news coverage of the new Russian communities. They took me undertheir wing when they saw me clutching my last remnant of Brodsky Odessa memorabilia, a sharp,jaunty Odessa studio photo of Lou and Fannie before they were married.The variety of character and type bumped into my preconceptions. Gene Borsh is a small, pink,cherubic master politician, who had been a hitter in the Soviet labor union movement and fled tothe US with his Red Army father when the Army blacklisted him. He's now the head of theRussian Section of the Hebrew Immigration Aid Society, the venerable organization that hasbrought Jews to American for 135 years. He smiles real smiles, knows all the backstories, and hasan unfailing instinct for people and situations. Gregory Davidzon, a tough bull of a man who hasbuilt the closest thing to a media and political organization, and owns the Russian language radiostation, with television and publishing capacities. He works the streets, brooks no opposition,sleeps from 6 am to 2 pm, and is never where you expect him to be. Dr. Igor Branovan, a suaveand diffident physician at NYU, who has succeeded as an American thoracic surgeon and runs theChernobyl Project tracking thyroid cancer in Russians around the world. He has a broad view of moving the community forward culturally as well as economically and politically, and moveseasily in both Russian and New York circles. Michael Belogorodsky, a wiry, young New York Citypoliceman who heads the organization of Russian-speaking law enforcement officers and whowarned me about the corruption endemic in the various Russian police forces. Tatiana, thewoman who built the boardwalk nightclub of the same name where the entertainment mixesTexas, Los Angeles, and Minsk, and where vodka and orange soda is often the drink of choice.Assemblyman Alec Brook-Krasny, a 54 year old Russian bear who emigrated from Moscow, drovea cab, ran an amusement parlor and became the first Russian-born American state legislator inabout a century. He's a focal point for the political interest in the growing Russian community inthe metropolitan area ( about 1,000, 000 souls, ten newspapers, five television stations ) and therest of the US (about 4,000,000 souls with innumerable media and cultural outlets ) And dozensmore who I met and liked and who were living in 2010 the kind of life which Louis Brodskyexperienced in 1905.They could help me figure out what was going on. I knew the Kremlin wanted a relationship withthese expatriate communities, and that the Brighton folks hated anything Russian and wantednothing to do with the old country. My prominence in New York as as Assemblyman and politicalfigure with Brighton ties was known. The invitation was probably part of a predictable attempt tocreate a Kremlin/Brooklyn link.That there was a global resurgence of Nazism was itself a surprise. What little I knew about contemporary Nazis was the American experience with kooks and white supremacists in Idaho.The Holocaust deniers and Islamist factions circulating the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, thesoccer hooligans beating up immigrants, the aggressive military rhetoric from Iran and NorthKorea, ethnic cleansing, I had never seen them as a coherent or even nascent movement. Was thisjust plain silly, was it Russian self-interest, was it real? Was there a change in the centuries-oldintense Russian anti-Semitism?I called Borsh and Davidzon and others, who were generally negative and cautionary about theregime and the dynamic across Russia. Nothing good could come from any contact with the oldcountry. I called Brook-Krasny. He was cautionary on the side of engagement, careful about disagreeing with his friends, but he was going, and so should I. So I did.
 
THE TRIP 
Day 1, Tuesday, December 14JFK, 4:30 pm Monday, Alec and I on a plane chock full of Russians and a couple of wide-eyedMontana cowboys who had just sold the Russians 1400 head of prime, on-the-hoof Angus beef.We arrived 9 hours later at 10:30 Tuesday morning to be met by a Conference car and a driverwho spoke no English. Moscow is not English-friendly and having Alec and other RussianAmerican friends was really helpful. 1 1/2 hours to travel 15 miles on a road choked with trafficand fumes. And grey skys, grey buildings, grey faces. Grey.The Hotel Sovietsky is a legacy from Uncle Joe. It's 1950 solid and square, with many touches of Tsarist grandeur and Soviet shabbiness, a very good restaurant, helpful and friendly staff, and atop of the line Gentleman's Club, the first of many reminders that Moscow is the world's most transactional city. A charming and sedate young woman sits in the lobby greeting gentlemencallers and escorting them downstairs. Professional, courteous and part of the deal.7:30 that night Alec decided to walk. It's only his third trip back, and he's wary and sensitive tothe artifacts of the old world he left. We walk to Red Square, a goodly 4 miles in bone-cracking,eyelash-shattering cold. I get a wonderful monolog about the things we pass, Tchaikovsky Hall,the other Stalin-era hotels, the new crush of traffic, the Metro, Pushkinskaya Square, the Bolshoi,the Stanislavsky Theatre, the Karl Marx Statue, the old Lenin Museum, and then vasty, iconic RedSquare a a sparkling, crisp moment when he's glad to be back. Ate wonderfully at a little cafedowntown, fish soup, hot bread with egg and butter, grilled lamb. Cabbed to Sovietsky, and so tobed.The City is divided between the thin and the not-thin. It is a reasonably good indicator of status,money, and aspirations, but the divide between the really rich and everyone else is always visible.Sort of like Manhattan. The aesthetic is also notable. There are old, old Russian buildings that speak of the magnificence of autocracy; the merely old of Stalinist stolidity, usefulness and grace,and the newer Modern Misfit and Concrete Shabby of the late Soviet era. Musically, it's firmly inthe disco camp, and aside from the oligarchs, early Barbra Streisand hair and fashion rule
.
Thetraffic and pollution are shocking, and there's a greyness, grimness and graininess that is onlypartially attributable to the weather.Day 2, Wednesday, December 15Even colder, a stark contrast to the waves of dry heat that blast you in most buildings. The City isclearly on edge, as judged from television, newspaper and just-folks conversation. There havebeen a series of what can be called race riots downtown, with Russian soccer hooligans pittedagainst Ingushian, asianish minority hooligans from the Caucasus Another strange duality: theirethnic minority is called Caucasian. (There aren't a lot of them, and the streets are not raciallydiverse, a strange phenomenon if you come from New York). Chants of Russia for Russians, at least one murder, but it seems the kind of spontaneous lumpenproletariat violence seen acrossEurope. It gives the anti-Nazi Conference a push, but there's no certainty about how deep or widethe conflict may be. Troops all over downtown, heavily armed and being held in reserve areas.They look like kids, but they all smoke.
Search
Search History:
Searching...
Result 00 of 00
00 results for result for
  • p.
    • Notes
    Load more