Neighborhood-level ethnic tensions are a funny thing. They’re usually stressful, frustrating and embarrassing – even to observers. But in America, they’re also incredibly dependable.
So predictable are they that I can write a template article to be used for the clash between established residents and immigrant newcomers in any neighborhood during any point in history. It would go something like this:
Long-time Sheepshead Bay resident Natalya Serebrennikova created a profound and playful animated short, Cicada, now competing in a PBS 13 contest. The film tells the story of an immigrant girl’s last days in Ozerki, Russia, her transition to Brooklyn, and her first day of school. With a remarkable amount of detail and specificity, Serebrennikova recounts the tale with beautiful, childlike imagery supported by a smattering of text. And yes, the school depicted is right here in Sheepshead Bay.
Go watch the film and vote for it now. The contest ends this Wednesday, August 25, and if Cicada wins it will be broadcast on Channel 13 on Saturday night.
NYC's new voting machines // Source: Vote-NY.com
State Senator Carl Kruger is up in arms over a Board of Elections oversight that omitted Russian-language translations for online voter education materials.
Kruger has fired off a letter to the board after he learned that it failed to include either written or audio instructions for Russian-speaking voters on how to use the new voting machines. The senator was the lead sponsor of a state law passed recently that requires large municipalities to translate all voting materials into Russian.
The Board of Election’s failure to “comply with the law’s specifications and its intent is a grievous insult to the Russian-speaking community that must be corrected at once,” said Kruger.
The board’s voter education website, Vote-NY.com, has posted videos about the operation of new optical scanner ballot machines rolling out this year. In line with other state voter laws, the site offers translation options for Spanish, Chinese (Cantonese and Mandarin) and Korean. But there’s no option for Russian.
Kruger’s office said he has received “assurances” from the board that the mistake will be corrected.
However, none of the site’s other translation options for the videos work, with the exception of the Cantonese version. No mention has been made of whether the city will fix those glitches.
See how it just kind of, uh, ends? That's what makes it a bay, not a canal.
Every community has its quirks, and discovering new ones always gives me a little kick. Even if it is small.
The latest discovery I made was on a recent bike ride with reader Eitan K. We were talking about the Bay when Eitan dropped a little Russian knowledge bomb on me. Our Eastern European comrades call Sheepshead Bay the “Canal.”
By no stretch of the imagination is Sheepshead Bay a canal. Canals are artificial waterways made to connect two bodies of water, usually for shipping and transportation purposes. What we have in Sheepshead Bay is… a bay. Duh.
So the misnomer intrigued me. Just as when I lived in New Jersey, I wanted to know what a “Benny” is (explanation: rich people, usually from New York, who come to the beach during the summer. Benny is short for Benjamin Franklin, whose face is on the $100 bill) or why natives always called going to the beach going “down the shore” (explanation: they’re retards).
So, I put the Sheepshead Bites machinery into action, and solicited help from our Russian-American readers.
Source: I Nancy via Flickr
Eleven people have been arrested in an alleged fraud ring in which 38 day care centers collected $18 million in public funds since 2007, with several of the day cares located in Sheepshead Bay.
In all, four day care operators and seven city workers were charged with conspiring to pay or receive bribes; all but one were charged with conspiracy to commit fraud. Each of the defendants faces a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison on the mail fraud conspiracy charge, and a maximum sentence of 5 years in prison on the bribery conspiracy charge, as well as fines of up to $250,000 or twice the gross gain or loss from the offense.
The complaint charges that a ring of 38 day care operators known as “The Congregation” paid bribes to city workers from three city agencies: the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, the Human Resources Administration and the Administration for Children’s Services.
The Congregation, allegedly controlled by Sheepshead Bay resident Liudmila Umarov, was exploiting the city’s Day Care Subsidy Program, which covers the costs of care for children from low-income families so that parents can obtain jobs. Umarov and her associates – Lyudmila Grushko, Yana Krugly and Rimma Volovnick – paid city workers for names and social security numbers of children who qualified for the program, and began billing the city for care they were not providing. Bribes were also paid to inspectors to overlook infractions, which included unqualified staff, lack of background checks, and not enough space per child. In at least one instance, hard alcohol was found in the refrigerator next to student lunches.
Among the Sheepshead Bay area day cares named in the complaint are: Paragon II Day Care, Inc., Learning Center Paragon, Amazing World Day Care Center, Banner Learning Center, Inc., and Sesame Street LMN Day Care. All of these centers are on Banner Avenue, just off Coney Island Avenue, though the full reach of the ring went as far as Staten Island.
Investigators hinted that more day care centers may be involved, and that the investigation will burrow further into this “massive fraud and bribery scheme.”
“We were concerned about the potential safety risk associated with letting this type of fraud go on,” Preet Bharara, the United States attorney in Manhattan, said in a statement yesterday. “It is fair to say that today’s events mark the end of just the first chapter in a very active and ongoing investigation.”
View the Justice Department’s criminal complaint.
[via The New York Times]
"For next trick, I do pogrom on elephants."
How do you say Greatest Show On Earth in Russian? Is it “Джерси Шор втором сезоне”?
Well, nevermind. The Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey is coming up with its own translation… or perhaps America’s most famous circus is trying to pull in a bit of that “exotic” foreign appeal of Cirque d’Soleil. Regardless, tonight is “Russian Night” at The Coney Island Illuscination.
Planned as a nod to its Russian neighbors in Brighton Beach and elsewhere, Ringling Bros. is partnering with Russian community leaders. Assemblyman Brook-Krasny is serving as “Guest Ringmaster,” and there will be a preshow parade of Russian children in traditional costumes.
The Ruskies are giving back, too. A delicious treat will be presented to the elephants of The Greatest Show On Earth, and a traditional gift of bread and salt will be presented to the cast of the show.
In cooperation with the Be Proud Foundation, Ringling Bros. created special discount coupons for this event which were made available at many local businesses.
Again – this event is tonight. Pre-show activities begin at 5:30 p.m. The Coney Island Illuscination plays in an air-conditioned tent at West 21st Street and Surf Avenue through September 6.
Courtesy of UF Digital Collections via Flickr
While opponents of the Voorhies Avenue mosque some fear a quiet conspiracy among Muslims to convert Jews and turn American society into an Islamic Sharia state, there’s a pair of Brighton Beach pastors they may be more concerned about.*
The Hope of Israel Congregation and a separate Baptist church are targeting the area’s 160,000-or-so Russian Jews for conversion to Christianity.
“We saw a great need to plant the church here,” Michael King, pastor of the Baptist congregation, told Brooklyn Eagle. “In all reality, the church should have been established 20 years prior.”
The paper notes that the two churches have handed out 8,000 Russian and Hebrew-language bibles and 20,000 Russian-language tracts as part of their effort to bring Jews to Jesus.
If you want to see an award-winning Russian movie, mark your calendars for Sunday, June 27, when the Shorefront YM-YWHA will screen The Cranes are Flying. The movie, set in the U.S.S.R. during World War II, was the only Russian film that won the Palm D’Or award at Cannes.
Directed by Mikhail Kalatozov, The Cranes are Flying (Letyat Zhuravli) gives us a realistic look at the impact of war while intertwining themes of loss and love. The movie is not a typical Soviet Union propaganda piece. It is said to take you into the minds of regular people who had to deal with the harsh reality and consequences of the war.
The Cranes are Flying is being presented as part of the “Memories From Our Hearts” series. The movie will be shown with English subtitles so that non-Russian speakers may also enjoy it. The presentation will begin at 6 p.m. The Shorefront YM-YWHA is located at 3300 Coney Island Avenue. This is a free event.
Tickets are $8 for non-members, $7 for members, seniors and students.
A look at the hip new Russian intelligentsia - Courtesy of NYMag.com
When I was growing up, there was just one kind of Russian. They were recent arrivals, abandoning their former country on the heels of political and social oppression. They were Jews. From my experience, they were largely older. They stayed in Brighton Beach – far from my world at the time – and crowded that neighborhood’s main stretch with strange people, strange foods and stranger tongues. They were there; I was here. They weren’t my concern.
In the 1990s, they began populating Sheepshead Bay. Though it didn’t register at the time, I’d say now that they were different. Younger, wealthier. They weren’t just blue collar workers or computer programmers, but they were opening cell phone shops and aптекаs, and then restaurants. Soon the condos came.
I don’t need to tell the Russians this, of course. You talk to those that came in the early years and they’ll tell you that the late arrivals were quite different. Opportunistic, wealthier – they came to America to make money, and not to escape persecution. Some of the old schoolers blatantly describe them as criminals.
There are more “types,” of course. Russians who hate Russians, Americanized children of immigrants, oligarchs, exchange students, Christians and Jews. Different flavors, all with their own quirks, customs and archetypes.
In a recent New York Magazine piece by Michael Idov – a Russian – the demographic is segmented and explored through the lens of Mikhail Prokhorov, the Net’s new oligarch owner. Idov distills the waves, and celebrates the latest iteration of Russian expatriate culture: Global Russians.
Read more about Global Russians, and tell us where Southern Brooklyn’s ruskie population fits in.
From the Village Voice:
For this particular fellow, head to Brighton Beach. We hear that in between posing for romance novel covers, our eligible bachelor enjoys pierogies, long walks in the sand, and clenching his buttocks into perfect, supple spheres.
Original photo courtesy of Jami Attenberg.
