A Ukrainian-themed store on March 11, 2022 in the “Little Odessa” neighborhood of Brighton Beach, south of Brooklyn (AFP / ANGELA WEISS)
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When Russia invaded Ukraine in late February, Bobby Rakhman changed the name of his grocery store from “Taste of Russia” to “International Foods” in Brooklyn’s Little Odessa neighborhood in “Solidarity.” with the Ukrainians.
Unlike other Russian restaurants and businesses targeted in Manhattan, the main island of New York, Bobby Rakhman assures that he was neither threatened nor harassed and that he did not lose the core of its customers.
But, underlines this 51-year-old American of Russian origin to AFP, “we had the feeling that + Taste of Russia + had become inadequate” for this “first Russian store” in Little Odessa, opened 40 years ago by his parents who arrived in New York as refugees from the Soviet Union in the 1970s.
In the warmth of his grocery store, where Ukrainians who have family in Ukraine work, the “clientele is mixed” and there has never been a conflict, assures Mr. Rakhman.
However, he does not want to get involved in any disputes in the streets of this piece of Eastern Europe in the south of Brooklyn, one of the five boroughs of the New York megalopolis.
– “Anger and sadness” –
Because even if there were no scuffles between Russians and Ukrainians in Little Odessa, people “are very angry and sad” and “everyone is talking about the war”, he says.
A Ukrainian-themed store on March 11, 2022 in the “Little Odessa” neighborhood of Brighton Beach, south of Brooklyn (AFP / ANGELA WEISS)
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In this renowned neighborhood well beyond the borders of Brooklyn, the majority of the population is Russian-speaking, made up of Jewish immigrants from Europe originating from the Ukrainian “pearl of the Black Sea”, Odessa, today threatened by the Russian army.
Many survivors of the Holocaust who have taken refuge in the United States have settled in Little Odessa, part of Brighton Beach, the southern seaside of the immense Brooklyn, a cultural and community mosaic.
Russians and Russian-speakers were added to it after the fall of the USSR from 1991.
According to US census figures, 45% of Brighton Beach residents speak a Slavic language at home.
In the streets of this historic district, the signs are in Cyrillic and display flags in the yellow and blue colors of Ukraine.
There are also posters against the war.
– “Lost Russian friends” –
But the conflict has already fractured the population of this middle class of Brighton Beach.
The Ukrainian flag hangs on a street in the “Little Odessa” neighborhood on March 11, 2022 in Brighton Beach, south of Brooklyn (AFP / ANGELA WEISS)
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“We have lost a lot of Russian friends here,” said Liliya Myronyuk, a 56-year-old Ukrainian who has lived in Little Odessa for 18 years.
“I live as if at war, for me it’s war every day,” she confesses to AFP before bursting into tears, referring to the “suffering” of her relatives in Ukraine.
For Ms. Myronyuk, “many Russians are for (Russian President Vladimir) Putin” even if “the majority of people are in favor of peace”.
Before the US government cut off Russian media, channels like RT were the only sources of news for many older people who don’t speak English.
Liliya Myronyuk, Ukrainian, even admits that if she had to “spend another three days watching Russian TV”, she “would end up hating Ukraine”.
The beachfront in the “Little Odessa” neighborhood on March 15, 2022 in Brigthon Beach, south of Brooklyn, (AFP / Ed JONES)
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In fact, “the community of Brighton Beach has been the target of Russian propaganda for too long,” said Victoria Neznansky, a 60-year-old psychotherapist who came from Odessa with her parents in 1989.
Now, some residents “don’t know who to believe anymore” and consider Ukraine as “a Western foreign country that betrayed Russia”, she thinks.
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