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Slavs of New York now on Tumblr

2011-12-22T14:47:00.000-05:00

Slavs of New York is now updating on tumblr. This site will remain up as an archive.

Check us out now at http://slavsofnewyork.tumblr.com/!

Czechs and Slovaks in New York

2010-01-09T18:13:00.006-05:00

The excellent New York blog Bowery Boys ran a post on Friday about Bohemian Hall in Astoria, 100 Years Ago: Beer, tradition and the new Bohemians, as part of a series on old New York nightlife haunts. Bohemian Hall, celebrating its centennial this year, certainly fits the bill. The post also includes good information on the history of the Czechs in New York.

Since Bowery Boys was gracious enough to advise checking Slavs of New York for more info on the city's Czechs and Slovaks, we figured we would make it easier for readers and give the key links:

Some background:

And some more history:

Slavs at the 1939 World's Fair in Queens

And a walking tour of Manhattan's Yorkville, just in case:

Czech and Slovak Yorkville

Ukrainian Christmas at Veselka (including recipies!)

2010-01-09T15:39:00.004-05:00

On 6 January, the New York Times published an excellent article about Ukrainian East Village stalwart Vesekla, "A Ukrainian Beacon in the East Village."

Nicely timed for Old Calendar Christmas Eve, the article describes the history of the restaurant, and the Ukrainian Sviata Vecheria Christmas Eve tradition. The article even includes recipies for Ukrainian Christmas Borscht, Ukrainian Mushroom and Onion Dumplings (Vushka) and Spiced Dried Fruit Compote (Uzvar).

And for more recipies, check out the Veselka Cookbook, published late last year.

Walking Tour: Ridgewood

2009-01-17T11:47:00.027-05:00

R idgewood is perhaps a bit out of the way for the average New Yorker, but the effort to get there is well worthwhile. Historically, this is a German neighborhood but today it is as diverse as anywhere else in Queens – and is home to a major Polish enclave (mainly along Fresh Pond Road), and a smattering of former Yugoslavs, among many other groups.

The neighborhood is home to a major historic district, focused on its fantastically preserved early 20th century residential buildings. When the historic district was declared in 1983, it was the largest in the country, with nearly 3000 buildings included. Even beyond the Slavic sites here, the historic architecture makes Ridgewood a nice place to spend an afternoon.

Though there are several transportation options, Slavs of New York came from Manhattan on the L line to Myrtle-Wyckoff Avenue, and walked across Myrtle Avenue (though there is also a connection to the M line that runs straight through Ridgewood).

The Balkan presence is quickly felt on Myrtle Avenue. Walking across, you’ll first hit the Bulgarian grocery Parrot Coffee Grocery (58-22 Myrtle Avenue). Nearby is the Serbian-owned European Music & Video Store (59-13 71st Avenue), then Muncan Meat Market (60-86 Myrtle Avenue).

A bit further down, the deli Balkan Express (64-02 Myrtle Avenue), featuring a Socialist Federative Republic of Yugoslavia flag on its awning has unfortunately closed, though the awning (and the flag) remain for now. From here, it’s a quick walk over to the next neighborhood in Queens, Glendale, home of the Serbian Club (72-65 65th Place).

An outpost of the Greenpoint-based Polish & Slavic Federal Credit Union (60-95 Myrtle Avenue) on the corner with Fresh Pond Road is the gateway to a Polish enclave second only to Greenpoint itself. Walking up Fresh Pond Road, you’ll first hit Bona Restaurant (71-24 Fresh Pond Road).

The road has a string of Polish delis, too numerous to list here. They include Teddy's Market Polskie Delikatesy (71-08 Fresh Pond Road), Wawel Meats (68-33 Fresh Pond Road), Pulaski Deli (67-12 Fresh Pond Road) and Okruszek Polish Bakery (67-10 Fresh Pond Road). Just around the corner, down Putnam Road, is a Polish bookstore.

After a couple more delis, including Jantar (66-66 Fresh Pond Road) and Starowiejski (66-51 Fresh Pond Road), there are two excellent Polish restaurants: Kredens (66-36 Fresh Pond Road) and Krolewskie Jadlo (66-21 Fresh Pond Road). Either is a good place for lunch or dinner.

Further up, you’ll find many more Polish delis, as well as Video Random (66-02 Fresh Pond Road) and Aga Book Store (65-18 Fresh Pond Road).

A short walk down Linden Street from Fresh Pond Road will take you to Gottscheer Hall (657 Fairview Avenue), which is worth poking your head into. The well-preserved deco lobby is impressive, as is the beer-hall on the first floor.

Along with the early German presence came the Gottscheer Germans, a group from what is today Kočevje, in Slovenia. Very few Gottscheer Germans remain in Slovenia because of post-World War II repression of German culture in Yugoslavia, and so their presence in Ridgewood is rather unique. The Gottscheer community here has a number of institutions – most visibly Gotscheer Hall, but also a dance group, a hunting club, a women’s chorus and more.

Down Fairview, the excellent restaurant Bosna Express (7-91 Fairview Avenue) sits next door to the Albanian Café Tirana, a sight possible perhaps only in Queens. Also nearby are even more Polish delis, joined now by a few Balkan ones. Check out Old World Bakery (66-91 Forest Avenue), Europa Grocery (99 Forest Avenue), Korona Deli & Grocery (66-65 Forest Avenue), and Burek's (68-55 Forest Avenue). Also nearby is St. Matthias Roman Catholic Church (58-15 Catalpa Avenue), a German parish that now serves the Polish enclave.

And from here, you will be within striking distance of the Myrtle-Wyckoff Avenue L train.

Slavs at the 1939 World's Fair in Queens

2008-11-27T21:50:00.052-05:00

The other week, Slavs of New York was lucky enough to join the Municipal Arts Society’s walking tour of Bohemian National and the Sokol Halls, led by Joe Svehlak. Everyone is encouraged to visit Bohemian National Hall, but Sokol Hall is a bit less of a public space so getting inside was a treat.

Just inside the door is a small pub, and among the decorations are five large medallions – one each for Bohemia, Moravia, Silesia, Slovakia and Subcarpathian Rus (Ruthenia), the five parts of Czechoslovakia from 1918 to 1939. The guide said they were originally from the Czechoslovak pavilion from the 1939-1940 World’s Fair in Flushing Meadows, Queens.

The Munich Agreement was in September 1938, and Hitler invaded on 14 March 1939. Slovakia declared independence on 14 March, and Ruthenia on 15 March (the latter was then occupied by Hungary just about 24 hours later). The rest of Czechoslovakia was reorganized as the Nazi Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia. Czechoslovakia would not reemerge until the close of World War II.

So how was there a World’s Fair pavilion for a state that did not exist?

Turns out, the contract with the fair organizers was signed in 1938, and at the time of the Nazi invasion the following March the building was already about half-done. The plans were scaled down, but preparations went forward.

Mayor Fiorello La Guardia emerged as a leading proponent of Czechoslovak independence, quickly meeting with Czechoslovak representatives and assuring that so long as the United States did not recognize the German moves the Czechoslovak envoys would keep their titles and authority. When Nazi Germany (the only major country not participating in the fair) tried to keep the Czechoslovak pavilion from opening, La Guardia set up a “citizens’ committee” to raise funds to help complete the pavilion and its exhibits.

The pavilion became a symbol of Czechoslovak resistance to Nazi domination. Former Czechoslovak president Edvard Benes spoke at the dedication of the pavilion on 31 May, highlighting the struggle of the Czechs, Slovaks and Carpatho-Russians (Rusyns) in Europe and thanking La Guardia, noting that “This pavilion, ladies and gentlemen, is the free and independent Czecho-Slovakia of the near past and the free and independent Czecho-Slovakia of the near future.”

The Czechoslovak pavilion stood between the pavilions of the Soviet Union and Japan. Here’s a description of the finished pavilion from the New York Times on 30 April 1939:

The progress of the country during its twenty-year existence is the central theme, and the products and resources of the land and people are represented and demonstrated – such products as iron, steel, textiles, shoes, beer, hams, Glass blowing and etching are shown. A restaurant and open-air beer garden are included in the project.

Yugoslav pavilion featured a large, illuminated map of the country, as well as a model of the oldest pharmacy in the world, from Dubrovnik. Also highlighted were Yugoslavs who have made contributions to the United States, such as Nikola Tesla and Michael Pupin.

Mayor La Guardia spoke in Croatian, a language he learnt while stationed in the United States Consular Service in Fiume (Rijeka), at the opening of the Yugoslav pavilion in May. Among his comments:

The people of Yugoslavia are generous, kindly and peace-loving. Whenever there is trouble in the Balkans, look for the reason, and it will be found to come from without and not from within. Let the strong and big nations leave the Balkans alone and peace will prevail there.

Among the 60 states participating at the 1939 World’s Fair were three more Slavic states: Yugoslavia, Poland and the Soviet Union.

The

The Polish pavilion was built around the 348th anniversary of the first Polish Constitution, and included – among a wide variety of exhibits – the Jagellonian globe, which is believed to be the first to show the name “America.”

The statue of King Jagiello by Stanisław K. Ostrowski, originally placed in front of the Polish pavilion, is one of the rare artifacts of the 1939-1940 World’s Fair still publicly displayed in New York. The statue now sits in Manhattan’s Central Park, near the Turtle Pond.

The Soviet Pavilion was universally acclaimed as a major highlight of the fair. The building was the tallest on the fairgrounds, other than the iconic Trylon structure. Estimates for its cost ranged from $4 to 6 million, by far the most of any World’s Fair structure. Among the materials used in its construction were nine different sorts of marble brought over specially from the USSR.

The building was topped by a 79-foot-tall worker holding aloft an illuminated red star, nick named Big Joe. After complaints, Fair officials had to put a US flag atop the Parachute Jump (which was later relocated to Coney Island) to ensure it flew higher than the Soviet star.

Exhibits inside included a map of the Soviet Union covered in precious stones, two cinemas, a restaurant, and even a full-scale replica of a portion of Moscow’s Mayakovsky metro station (the station was brand new, having just been completed in 1938).

At the end of the 1939 season, the Soviet Union pulled out of the fair, and its building was taken apart and shipped back to Moscow.

On 3 January 1940, the New York Times ran a story about the dismantling of Big Joe entitled “Soviet Worker at Fair is ‘Purged’” commenting tongue-in-cheek that “Stalin’s extended his purge to the United States yesterday and ‘Big Joe’… was decapitated by a derrick.”

Initially, there were plans to reassemble the pavilion at Gorky Park in Moscow, but this was never done and the final fate of Big Joe and the rest of the exhibits remain a mystery.

Walking Tour: Brighton Beach (with sidetrips to Manhattan Beach, Sheepshead Bay and Gravesend)

2008-11-09T17:57:00.014-05:00

Brighton Beach has a long history, but its status as Little Odessa dates from just the 1970s. The relaxation of emigration laws by the Soviet Union saw around 30,000 Russian-speaking Jews settle here and they in turn attracted more Russian-speakers (though perhaps not so many ethnic Russians) after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. Today, the neighborhood is one of the most authentically “foreign” in the city.

Take the Q train to Ocean Parkway, and you're at the start of Brighton Beach Avenue. There are not a lot of cultural activities in the neighborhood for the casual visitor – no museums, for example. But the key draw is definitely the vibrant street life, and the exoticness factor from hearing Russian being spoken all around you. Rather than rush from place to place, your best bet really is to just walk along the avenue and take it all in.

Brighton Beach Avenue is home to a huge number of Russian businesses. The first ones truly interesting for the casual visitor are certainly St. Petersburg Books (230 Brighton Beach Avenue) and M&I International Foods (249 Brighton Beach Avenue), and, a bit further down, Russian DVD (269 Brighton Beach Avenue). All are great spots for souvenirs and unique gifts.

Nearby is the famous supper club National (273 Brighton Beach Avenue), but for something a bit more casual try Varenichnaya (3086 Brighton 2nd Street), just around the corner.

You will certainly not want for food in Brighton Beach. Highlights further down Brighton Beach Avenue are Primorski (282 Brighton Beach Avenue), Ocean View Café (290 Brighton Beach Avenue) and Cafe Arbat (306 Brighton Beach Avenue).

At Brighton 4th Street, you can turn right and walk out to the boardwalk where there are a few Russian restaurants with outdoor seating with views of the ocean. Check out Tatiana Grill (Boardwalk at Brighton 4th Street) or Volna Restaurant (3145 Brighton Fourth Street).

Other restaurants celebrate the cuisines of other groups from the former Soviet Union, particularly Georgians, and even Moldovans – Spoon (615 Brighton Beach Avenue) bills itself as the only Moldovan restaurant in the city.

Fed and with shopping bags in hand, you can now head back to the subway station, or go a bit farther afield:

To take a peek at Manhattan Beach, continue along Brighton Beach Avenue, cross Corbin Place and continue along Oriental Boulevard. At the corner of West End Avenue is a branch of Anyway Cafe (111 Oriental Blvd. (at West End Ave), and between Oriental and Hampton on West End is Ukrainian Entertainment (132 West End Ave. Walk up to Hampton and turn left onto Corbin Place, where nearby you'll find Babi Yar Triangle, a small park with memorials to victims of the Holocaust as well as the Jasenovac World War II concentration camp in Croatia.

And if you're up for something a bit more adventurous try the border area between Sheepshead Bay and Gravesend. The Q will get you to Gravesend Neck Road station, and right there is another branch of

Anyway Cafe (1602 Gravesend Neck Road). Not far, at the intersection of Gravesend Neck Road and Sheepshead Bay Road, is a true cultural experience: the Russian Baths of NY (1200 Gravesend Neck Road), with a Soviet hockey theme and a small restaurant inside.

A little further away, at the intersection of Coney Island Avenue and Avenue X is the supper club Rasputin (2670 Coney Island Avenue at Avenue X) to cap off your evening with dinner and a show!

Walking Tour: Bedford-Stuyvesant

2008-11-09T17:30:00.008-05:00

Bedford-Stuyvesant, in north central Brooklyn, is not an obvious neighborhood to get the Slavs of New York walking tour treatment. While the neighborhood may have been home to some Poles long ago, they did not leave much of a trace. This is the district that elected the first Black woman to Congress – Shirley Chisholm in 1968 – and today it is a major center of African-American life in the city.

Our tour starts at the Classon Avenue G station (this can easily be accomplished together with a visit to Greenpoint, also serviced by the G train). Coming out of the station, walk up Classon towards Kalb Avenue, turn right onto Taaffe Place and you’ll find Sputnik (262 Taaffe Place).

The place lies slightly out of the area normally though of as Bed-Stuy, but it’s close and the burgers are highly recommended. The restaurant has a 1950s space-age theme that has as much in common with the Jetsons as it does with the Russian space program, but has a great vibe.

After a quick bite (the burgers are highly recommended!) head back down to Kalb and keep walking straight, to Nostrand. From there, two streets up is Pulaski Street, one street down is Kosciusko Street. Between Marcy and Dekalb Avenue is the Kosciusko Street Pool, a public swimming pool.

Kazimierz Pulaski (1746-1779) was a Polish nobleman who came to the American colonies and rose to the rank of General of the Continental Army during the Revolutionary War. Pulaski does not seem to have been active in New York, but memorials to him abound across the United States. Aside from this street, the Pulaski Bridge between Greenpoint and Long Island City is also named for him. Pulaski Day is celebrated on the Sunday closest to 11 October with a massive parade down Fifth Avenue in Manhattan.

Kosciusko Street is named for Thaddeus Kosciuszko (1746-1817), a major figure in the American – and Polish – wars of independence. Though he is not known to have spent much time in New York (he was, however, the chief engineer at West Point, and his one-time home in Philadelphia is a National Memorial), he has also given his name to the Kosciuszko Bridge, over the Newtown Creek between Brooklyn and Queens.

Kosciuszko is also the only Slav honored in the New York City subway system - the Kosciusko Street J train station. When you’ve finished exploring the neighborhood, walk down to Lafayette Street and hop the #38 bus to catch the train!

Bohemian National Hall Grand Opening!

2008-11-02T13:04:00.015-05:00

Last night was the grand opening of the rededicated Bohemian National Hall at 321-325 East 73rd Street in the Yorkville neighborhood of Manhattan, historically a major Czech and Slovak area.

The building was built between 1895 and 1897 by architect William C. Frohne as a cultural and community center for New York’s Czech and Slovak communities. After closing in 1986 and falling into disrepair, the building was bought by the Czech government from the Bohemian Benevolent & Literary Association in 2001, and renovations were undertaken by Czech-American architect Jan Hird Pokorny, along with another Czech-American architect, Martin Holub.

As of last night, the Czech Consulate General and the Czech Center have moved into the building, from their landmark building at 1109 Madison Avenue. The exhibition space there is intended to remain open to the public as an annex to the Czech Center.

At 1109 Madison Avenue, the exhibit Check Stories of the 8 runs through 3 November, and Catherine Cabaniss – Recent Work will open on 6 November with a reception from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. That exhibit will be on view through 31 December.

The Czech Center gallery on the second floor of Bohemian National Hall is featuring an exhibit, Check Places, Memory Traces, through 19 December. The exhibit focuses on the rennovation of the building, interspersing historical artifacts that present the building in the context of Czech and Czech-American history. An extensive catalogue for the exhibit was produced and is available at the Czech Center.

Also making their home in the newly refurbished Bohemian National Hall are the Bohemian Benevolent & Literary Society and the Dvorak American Heritage Association. Through 8 November, the Bohemian Benevolent & Literary Society is featuring an exhibit Some of Us, in its third floor space. The exhibit presents some of the victims of communism in Czechoslovakia on the 60th annversary of the brutal repression of 1968's Prague Spring.

Beyond all this, the building also features a small cinema, a major ballroom and a roof terrace. A bid has recently been put out for a restaurant planned for the first floor, which is expected to be open soon.

A 1987 Cityscape column by Christopher Gray in The New York Times tells the tale of the building, and Slavs of New York recently published a walking tour of Yorkville that features the building.

On Sunday, 16 November, the Municipal Arts Society is organizing a walking tour that will take in not only Bohemian National Hall but also nearby Sokol Hall (420 East 71st Street between First Avenue and York), led by Joe Svehlak, a Czech-American urban historian. The tour meets at 11:00 a.m. at the southeast corner of First Avenue and 71st Street, and costs $15.00.

Update: Recent News

2008-11-02T12:12:00.006-05:00

As we're catching up on our blogging, here's a selection of recent news:

Stalin on Cooper Square

The Cooper Union's main building on East Seventh Street is displaying a 1952 Picasso portrait of Stalin, part of an exhibit entitled Stalin by Picasso or Portrait of Woman With Mustache by Lene Berg. The exhibit runs through 6 December. The New York Times notes that Stalin joins the statue of Lenin atop the Red Square building on East Houston Street and links to a 1997 note explaining how that statue got there.

And while you're checking out the Cooper Union exhibit, check out the Slavs of New York East Village walking tour as well!

Hot Kielbasa!

Meanwhile, in Greenpoint… Sikorski Meat Market got busted last month for serving up cocaine when customers ordered “hot kielbasa.” The Brooklyn Eagle reports that 26 defendants now face between 10 years and life in prison. And, it turns out the FBI and NYPD have a Eurasian Organized Crime Task Force operating in the city – who knew?

The Mosque?

Another controversy last month concerned an “ironic” hipster bag produced by Brooklyn Novelty that features Greenpoint, and shows the Russian Orthodox Cathedral of the Transfiguration labeled as “The Mosque.” New York Shitty broke the story, and the New York Post followed up with unhappy comments from clerics at the church. The bag remains on sale…

Future of Protection Cathedral

Finally, big changes are afoot at the Russian Orthodox Cathedral of the Holy Virgin Protection (59 East 2nd Street). Curbed reports that the church, currently being considered for landmark designation, is looking to put an eight-storey residential structure above the existing building.

(Cooper Union photo: Gianni Cipriano for The New York Times; Photo of Rev. Wiaczeslaw Krawczuk from the New York Post)

Walking Tour: Slavs of Greenpoint

2008-09-24T21:45:00.015-04:00

Greenpoint is the preeminent Polish enclave in New York – and one of the largest outside of Poland itself. According to the 2000 Census, New York had the second-largest Polish community in the country after Chicago, and the majority seem to live in Greenpoint.

The Polish presence is so strong that even though you downloaded that Polish-language primer from GreenPunkt as a joke, it turned out to be pretty useful in the end. Kirk Semple wrote recently in The New York Times that the booming economy in Poland is luring more Poles home and may leave Polish Greenpoint a part of history. But for now, there’s still much to see – even if gentrification is an ever-increasing force in the neighborhood and the promise of a better life now has many local Poles rethinking life in their homeland.

Since they’re close, this walk actually starts in Williamsburg, at the Bedford Avenue L station. Walk Up Bedford Avenue and you’ll immediately pass both Raymond's Place (124 Bedford Avenue) and Kasia’s Restaurant (146 Bedford Avenue). Turn right along North 12th Street, walk to Driggs Avenue and you cannot miss the landmark Russian Orthodox Cathedral of the Transfiguration of Our Lord (228 N.12th Street at Driggs).

From here, go back out to Bedford Avenue, keep walking north and you’ll hit Father Jerzy Popieluszko Square. Popieluszko was a priest martyred by Poland's Communist government in 1984 for supporting the emergent Solidarity movement. The monument was erected here just six years later, in 1990.

At the fork, keep right and walk along Nassau Avenue (passing the Nassau Avenue G station), and you should see a number of Polish milkbars and restaurants, including Lomzynianka (646 Manhattan Avenue), Pod Wierchami (119 Nassau Avenue) and Pyza (118 Nassau Avenue).

At Eckford Stret, turn right and walk down to Driggs Avenue to the Polish National Home (a.k.a. the Warsaw) (261 Driggs Avenue). This former ethnic social club in recent years has recast itself as a major club venue.

From here, walk down Driggs to Humbolt, where you’ll see Walesa-Solidarity Square (a.k.a. Humbolt Street) and Pope John Paul II Plaza (Driggs Street) near the center of Greenpoint’s Polish community, St. Stanislaus Kostka Church (607 Humboldt Street at Driggs).

Turn right and walk up Humbolt St. back to Nassau Avenue, where you’ll find Old Poland Bakery and Restaurant (192 Nassau Avenue). Have a snack, or continue on to Manhattan Avenue and turn right. Near Norman Avenue is Krolewskie Jadlo (694 Manhattan Ave), guarded over by a Polish knight.

At the next intersection (Manhattan and Meserole), you’ll find Club Europa (98 Meserole Avenue) to the left, and the fantastic Wedel chocolate shop (772 Manhattan Avenue) on corner to the right. If you can, make SURE to check this place out around Christmas time!

Further along Manhattan on the next block is yet another Polish restaurant, Christina's (853 Manhattan Avenue), and Polonia Bookstore (882 Manhattan Ave) where you can get books in Polish as well as books to learn Polish. If you turn right onto Greenpoint Avenue, Club Exit (149 Greenpoint Avenue, check out Clubbing in Greenpoint) is just off Manhattan Avenue.

The next intersection is with Kent Street, and just past Manhattan Avenue to the left is the former Carpatho-Rusyn Greek Catholic Church of St. Elias (149 Kent Street (Manhattan Avenue & Franklin Street) and to the right, the Polish and Slavic Center (177 Kent Street and the Polish and Slavic Credit Union (175 Kent Street), two major local institutions.

And at the next intersection, turn right on Kent Street and you’ll find Ksiegarnia Literacka (161 Java Street). This one is the classiest of Greenpoint's Polish bookstores, and even if you don't read the language it's well worth dropping in just to take a look. It's also the end of the tour - unless you're feeling adventurous and want to check out the Pulaski Bridge (keep waking up Manhattan Avenue to the end and turn right on Ash Street and hike out to McGuiness Boulevard).

When you're done, you can walk back to the Bedford Avenue L train or the Nassau Avenue G, but the closest will be the Greenpoint Avenue G station at the intersection of Greenpoint and Manhattan Avenues.

Walking Tour: The East Village

2008-08-10T23:01:00.030-04:00

Start at Union Square, and walk east along the northern side of 14th Street. You will soon hit a small shop, Russian Souvenirs (227 14th Street), between Second and Third Avenues. The shop has seemingly been there forever, and is a great place for traditional Russian arts and crafts, and Soviet kitsch.

Once you hit Second Avenue, you can walk north one block to Stuyvesant Square (not really part of the East Village, but close enough), where you will find the Byzantine (Ruthenian) Catholic church of St. Mary (246 East 15th Street), dating from 1964.

Diagonally across the park, at East 17th Street and Nathan D. Perlman Place is a bust of Czech composer (and Slav of New York, at least for a time in 1892) Anton Dvořák by Yugoslav sculptor Ivan Meštrović

Leaving Stuyvesant Square, the Slavic heart of the East Village unfolds southward down Second Avenue. On the west side of the street, you pass the Ukrainian Orthodox Federal Credit Union (215 Second Avenue) and then the Ukrainian Congress Committee of America (203 Second Avenue), and across Second Avenue on the east side are the diner Little Poland (200 Second Avenue), and the Jozef Pilsudski Institute of America in the Polish National Home (180 Second Avenue).

One of the most important blocks for our purposes is Second Avenue between St. Mark’s Place and 9th Street. On the northeast corner you’ll find the popular Ukrainian diner Veselka Restaurant (144 Second Avenue), and right next door is the Ukrainian National Home (142 Second Avenue). Though there are no windows, the food inside is top notch. Also in the building are the Karpaty Pub, and Lys Mykyta bar.

A couple doors down is a building with an impressive medallion of Ukrainian national poet Taras Shevchenko but no other signage (136 Second Avenue). Inside are the Dibrova Social Club (CYM) and the Ukrainian Free University Foundation Inc. Across the street you’ll find the last of the great Slavic meat markets, Baczynsky’s (139 Second Avenue, note that it is closed until September 2008).

One more block down, you’ll see the small Polish diner Stage Restaurant (128 Second Avenue), and a few doors down the Ukrainian Sports Club (122 Second Avenue).

From here, cross Second Avenue and continue west along East 7th Street to find the cultural center of the local Ukrainian Community. The landmark St. George Ukrainian Catholic Church (30 East 7th Street) dates from 1977, but a much older structure, St. George Ruthenian Catholic Church, once stood on the same spot. On the north side of the street is the excellent Surma Book & Music Store (11 East 7th Street), well worth a visit.

Take the short side street Taras Shevchenko Place next to the church down to 6th Street. You’ll find St. George Academy (215 East 6th Street) on the corner, and walking east toward Second Avenue you’ll find the new Ukrainian Museum (222 East 6th Street). Check out the latest exhibits, and make sure to visit the gift shop (though the selection at Surma is much wider).

Now walk back out to Second Avenue, cross to the east side of the street and walk north a few doors. You’ll see a building with a Cyrillic inscription that is the Self Reliance Federal Credit Union (108 Second Avenue). Turn onto 7th Street and walk east towards First Avenue.

A newcomer to the Slavic world of the East Village is the Polish-themed bar Klimat (77 East 7th Street), with a wide selection of beer and wine from Slavic countries, as well as traditional Polish food. Next door is the stalwart Ukrainian bar Blue and Gold (79 East 7th Street). If you’re interested, you can continue along 7th Street and pick up the Slavs of New York Walking Tour of Alphabet City to venture further.

Otherwise, on First Avenue between 6th and 7th Street you’ll see the restaurant Polonia (110 First Avenue), and between St. Mark’s Place and 9th Street is First Avenue Pierogie & Deli (130 First Avenue).

Around the corner is the Slovenian parish of St. Cyril (62 St. Mark's Place), a reminder that the East Village historically was much more than Ukrainians, Rusyns and Poles. Earlier times also saw vibrant Bulgarian, Czech, Slovak, and, yes, Slovene communities (among others).

Walk back to Second Avenue and continue south. An interesting sight is KGB Bar (85 East 4th Street), just around the corner. The building in a previous life was the home to the Ukrainian Communist Party in the United States, but today is home not only to the bar but also the Kraine Theatre.

Further down Second Avenue is the Russian Anyway Cafe (34 East 2nd Street), and between First and Second Avenues is the Orthodox Cathedral of the Holy Virgin Protection (59 East 2nd Street). Formerly a Russian-oriented parish, the church today takes in a wider audience. The building was originally the Mt. Olivet Memorial Church, and became an Orthodox church in 1943.

Continuing along East 2nd Street and crossing First Avenue you’ll find the small shop Arka - Ukrainian Arts (26 First Avenue). The store keeps somewhat irregular hours – right now, they’re open from 10:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Fridays.

At the end of First Avenue is Little Veselka, which operates out of a kiosk in First Park, between 1st Street and Houston Street. Seating is available in the park.

And finally, if you’re feeling adventurous, walk down Houston and you’ll find the apartment complex Red Square (250 East Houston Street) between Avenues A and B. On the roof is a statue of Lenin rescued from the last days of the Soviet Union.

For some good background on the Ukrainians of the East Village, check out "Ukrainian East Village: A Shortened Oral History of an Immigrant Neighborhood” from the New York Press back in 2001. And for something a bit more substantial, taking in Ukrainians, Poles, Russians and Carpatho-Rusyns (Carpatho-Russians), try Yuri Kapralov’s Once There Was a Village, documenting the author’s time in the neighborhood in the late 1970s.

Spoke too soon: Greenpoint church to become condos

2008-08-04T15:38:00.002-04:00

No sooner do we note a resurgence of Slavic life in the East Village in the face of gentrification than we discover a new loss in Greenpoint: the Byzantine (Ruthenian) Catholic Church of Saint Elias (143-149 Kent Street) is to be converted into condos.

The church was built in 1870 and bought by the Byzantine Catholic Eparchy of Passaic in 1943. The congregation (originally at least) was primarily Carpatho-Rusyn. The congregation has since dispersed, and the building has sat vacant for a few years.

Curbed reported today that the building is being handled by “voracious real estate machine” Massey Knakal. The exterior has landmark status and cannot be altered, but the idea seems to be to turn the inside into condos.

Back in March, the New York Sun reported the asking price as $4.2 million. The Brooklyn Paper says that “close to 40 units” will be created in the building, at a cost of $7 million.

The Brooklyn Paper also noted that the stained glass windows and Byzantine crosses on the roof are being removed “in hopes of not scaring away potential tenants.”

The Return of the Slavs

2008-08-04T13:49:00.007-04:00

Kurowycky Meat Products used to be at 124 First Avenue between 7th and 8th Street, but it closed after 52 years on 2 June 2007.

Today, Jeremiah's Vanishing New York reports on what is happening to the building. Apparently there was interest in opening the space as a restaurant, but the local community board turned down the liquor license application and the interested restaurateurs backed out.

So now rumor has it that it will be turned into a porn store. Jeremiah comments, “When a high-end restaurant is passed over for porn, maybe it’s time to say welcome back, bad old East Village!” But it seems there is still a chance that a liquor license will be approved, and the space will open as a restaurant.

The loss of Kurowycky Meat Products followed hot on the heels of the final demise of Kiev diner, a major landmark for the local Ukrainians, the latest in a long string of Slavic establishments closing up shop in the face of gentrification.

Lately, though, the gentrification of the neighborhood has taken a new twist: the return of the Slavs.

First up was the Klimat (77 East 7th Street), near the unreconstructed Blue & Gold bar and the gentrified Café 81 (pregentrification: Verchovyna Tavern). Klimat is officially Polish, but has a beer menu and a wine list that covers most of Eastern Europe. The menu also includes pierogies, kielbasa and other Slavic East Village soul food.

And just last month, the Serbs set up an outpost in Alphabet City: Kafana (116 Avenue C, between 7th and 8th Streets). The most detailed review seems to be in the Village Voice. The menu is extensive, the food is excellent. And the Slavs are back in town.

Addendum: New York Magazine has just annouced that Veselka (144 Second Ave. and Ninth Street) is going ahead with the creation of a new location - Veselka Bowery - on East First Street, to be open next summer. Meanwhile, the original location is continuing with its planned expansion into a neighboring space on East Ninth Street.

Photos: Kurowycky from Jeremiah's Vanishing New York; Klimat from New York Magazine.

Croatian Hijacker to be Paroled

2008-07-19T13:48:00.005-04:00

Sunday’s New York Times noted the parole of Zvone Busic, a Croat involved in a hijacking of a TWA flight in 1976 designed to draw attention to the Croatian independence movement (Croatian Leader of 1976 Hijacking Is Granted Parole, but Faces Deportation).

When Croatian hijackers took over TWA Flight 355 not long after its departure from La Guardia on 10 September 1976, they announced they had put five bombs on the plane and a sixth in Grand Central. As it turned out, there were none onboard, but the one in Grand Central was real – and one New York City police officer, Brian J. Murray, was killed trying to defuse it. Another officer was blinded in one eye and two more were injured.

Busic, now 62 years old, served more than 30 years, and was granted parole on Friday but will not be allowed to remain in the United States.

About a week after the hijacking, the Times ran the story, New York’s Croatians: Close-Knit and Fiery, which describes the community at that time. The article states that up to 35 percent of the 60,000 Croats in the city in the late 1970s arrived after World War II and were very politically active; they tended “to think of themselves as exiles rather than immigrants…” Many fled following the 1971 of the “Croatian Spring” reform movement in Yugoslavia, which was quickly extinguished by the Communist authorities.

Yugoslav Communist leader Josip Broz Tito died on 4 May 1980, but already on 23 March the Times published Violent Acts in U.S. Feared on Tito’s Death, which predicted “Croatian separatists, Serbian nationalists and Yugoslav security police officers” in the US and elsewhere would see Tito’s death as an opportunity to advance their causes. Croats and Serbs in New York, Chicago and elsewhere often alleged that Yugoslav security services had executed terrorist attacks to tarnish their names, complicating the situation.

An earlier hijacking by Croatian nationalists, that of JAT Flight 367, saw the plane explode above Srbska Kamenica, Czechoslovakia. Of the 28 people on board, only stewardess Vesna Vulovaic survived – having fallen 33,300 feet.

She ended up in the Guinness Book of World Records (highest fall without a parachute) and in the New York Times again in April (Serbia’s Most Famous Survivor Fears That Recent History Will Repeat Itself) in the run-up to the recent elections in Serbia.

Captive Nations Week

2008-07-17T11:57:00.002-04:00

Who’s captive now? on the website of The Economist today highlights Captive Nations Week in the United States, an annual observance since 1959 born of the Cold War. The Captive Nations Parade, a regular feature of the observance, was held on Fifth Avenue this past Sunday.

Originally, the list of “captive nations” included most if not all of Slavic Europe: “Poland, Hungary, Lithuania, Ukraine, Czechoslovakia, Latvia, Estonia, White Ruthenia, Rumania, East Germany, Bulgaria, mainland China, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, North Korea, Albania, Idel-Ural, Tibet, Cossackia, Turkestan, North Viet-Nam, and others”. Captive, of course, to Soviet Russia.

The Presidential Proclamation from last year (2008’s is, as of yet, nowhere to be found) has a very different list of “captive nations” – Belarus, Burma, Cuba, North Korea, Syria, Iran, Sudan, and Zimbabwe. Local Belarusans were out in force, as the photos from ZMBA attest.

Walking Tour: Czech and Slovak Yorkville

2008-07-06T13:37:00.013-04:00

Czechs and Slovaks have a long tradition in New York City - Czech immigrants began arriving to the city after 1848, and Slovaks soon following after 1870. By the late 1870s, enough immigrants had settled on the Lower East Side for Avenue B to referred to as “Czech Boulevard.”

In the late 1890s as Lower East Side Germans migrated north to Yorkville (and particularly following the General Slocum Disaster in 1904), other Central European groups slowly followed. A new face of Yorkville emerged, with the area around 86th Street home to a strong German population, 79th Street home to the Hungarians, and 72nd Street the center of Czech and Slovak community life.

The golden age of the Czechs and Slovaks in Yorkville faded in the 1930s, as more and more moved to the suburbs. Even as late as the 1990s, a number of Czech bars, restaurants and shops could be found along First Avenue between 73rd and 74th Street, but little has survived. What remains, however, are a number of monumental buildings well worth a look .

Start at the southern edge of Slavic Yorkville, at the Slovak Catholic Church of St. John Nepomucene (#1., 411 East 66th Street at First Avenue). The parish was founded by Slovak immigrants, and began at St. Bridget on Tompkins Square Park around 1891. By 1895, the parish had raised enough funds to build its own church, St. John Nepomucene on East 4th Street.

As the Slovak community moved northward in Manhattan, the parish moved to East 57th Street briefly, and settled into its current home on East 66th Street in 1925.

Nearby is one of the few remaining Czech or Slovak owned businesses the area, Krtil Funeral Home (#2, 1270 First Avenue at 70th Street), opened in 1885.

Around the corner is the landmark building, Sokol New York Hall (#3., 420 East 71st Street between First Avenue and York). Built in 1896 by architect Julius Franke (who also designed the building that was later the site of the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire of 1911), the building continues today to serve as an athletic club, with a full schedule of classes as well as cultural events and a library and archive.

Back on First Avenue, a few blocks north and around the corner is

Jan Hus Presbyterian Church (#4., 347 East 74th Street between First and Second Avenues), founded in 1885 by Czech Protestants. The church is home to the Neighborhood House, formerly a social center for local Czechs and today a social center for the entire neighborhood, Czech or otherwise.

Perhaps the most significant building remaining in the area – and a beacon for the future of Czech and Slovak Yorkville – is the Bohemian National Hall (#5., 321 East 73rd Street between First and Second Avenues), currently being renovated and completely disguised by scaffolding.

The hall was built between 1895 and 1897 as ground zero for Czech and Slovak community life in Yorkville. Designed by architect William C. Frohne, the building replaced the original Bohemian National Hall in the East Village, at 533 East 5th Street. (Not much is known about Frohne, but he did design the spectacular German Shooting Club at 12 St. Mark’s Place in 1888). Though the building remained in Czech hands, as the community began its exodus to the suburbs more and more of it was rented out to others and by 1986 the city had declared it unfit for occupancy.

The Czech government stepped in to rescue the building, and results are already being seen. The façade has already been completed (though is currently hidden under scaffolding), by Czech-American architect Jan Hird Pokorny. The third floor performance space is also completed, and is periodically used for events (watch the Czech Center website for announcements). More renovations are underway by another Czech-American architect, Martin Holub.

When complete, the Bohemian National Hall will be home to the Consulate General of the Czech Republic, the Czech Center and the Bohemian Benevolent & Literary Association, as well as a Dvorak Room, a restaurant and performance and events spaces.

The tour of Yorkville essentially ends here, though there are a few other places nearby that could be included: the Czech furniture design shop Atelier of Prague (970 Lexington Avenue between 70th and 71st Street) is just on the western edge of the old neighborhood, and the current center of Czech life in Manhattan, the Czech Center (1109 Madison Avenue at 83rd Street) is a short walk to the northwest.

Any Czech tour of New York, however, must end across the river from Yorkville, in Astoria at the landmark beer hall and community center Bohemian Hall (29-19 24th Avenue). As the Czech and Slovak community began migrating from Yorkville to the suburbs, Astoria was the first stop thanks to the ferry that used to run from a pier at East 72nd Street across to another at the end of Astoria Boulevard before the Queensboro bridge went up. Today, you have to take a taxi or a bus or subway, but it’s a perfect end to a day exploring Czech and Slovak New York City.

Field Trip: Cedar Rapids

2008-06-24T21:43:00.004-04:00

The recent flooding in the Midwest has sadly affected a major landmark in Slavic America – the National Czech and Slovak Museum and Library in Cedar Rapids, Iowa.

Set up as a local historical institution to document the area’s Czechoslovak immigration, the museum was recognized in 1992 by Congress as a national institution. A new landmark museum and library building was inaugurated in 1995, with US President Bill Clinton, Czech President Vaclav Havel and Slovak President Michal Kovac in attendance.

Founded in 1974, the museum collection includes Czech and Slovak folk art and costumes, fine art, political history materials, maps and military objects, and a Czech immigrant’s house from 1880 was moved to the museum’s grounds, restored and opened to the public. The library includes a wide variety of books and archival materials about Czech and Slovak history and culture.

Some of the museum’s collection was able to be stored safely before the flood hit, but the scope of the flooding was unanticipated and the museum ended up under 15 feet of water. In Cedar Rapids, some 25,000 out of a population of 120,000 have been left homeless. Metropolis has more information about damage to the museum as well as to other Cedar Rapids architectural landmarks. Radio Praha also has an article, with audio.

The Czech government has announced it will donate $1 million towards restoring the museum, and the museum has also established a Flood Relief Fund to help towards its recovery efforts. Gifts may be made online at the museum’s website, at any Wells Fargo Bank location in the US or by mailing a check to: National Czech & Slovak Museum & Library, 30 Sixteenth Avenue SW, Cedar Rapids, Iowa 52404.

Fieldtrip: Jordanville, NY

2008-03-22T11:39:00.015-04:00

The head of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia, Metropolitan Laurus, was buried yesterday at Holy Trinity Monastery in Jordanville, near Cooperstown and Utica in central New York State.

The highlight of his career was perhaps his leadership in reunifying the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia with the Patriarchate in Moscow last year.

Holy Trinity Monastery has an interesting story itself. Holy Trinity Monastery was founded in 1928 by Russian emigres living in Jordanville. The community was helped by another Russian emigre, Igor Sikorsky, of aviation fame.

A second strand of the monastery’s history traces its beginnings to a group of monks who fled the Pochaev Monastery in Ukraine in the face of the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution of 1917. They ended up in the Carpatho-Rusyn village of Ladomirova (Ladomyorova), today in Slovakia.

Metropolitan Laurus, then known as Vasyl’ Shkurla, was born in Ladomirova on 1 January 1928, and was active in the monastic community at an early age. He later joined the community, and fled with it when the Soviets occupied Czechoslovakia in World War II. The community ended up at the monastery in Jordanville, where it remains today. The current monastery church is a replica of the one at the Ladomirova monastery.

An interesting side note is that when the monks fled Slovakia and landed in New York they brought with them a Cyrillic printing press originally donated by the Carpathian Student Union in Prague with the help of Rusyn émigrés in the United States. The press printed a major inter-war newspaper aimed at Carpatho-Rusyns in Czechoslovakia and Poland, Pravoslavnaia Karpatskaia Rus’(Orthodox Carpatho-Rus’, 1928-1944) that continues to this day as Pravoslavnaia Rus’ (Orthodox Rus’, 1947-present).

Printing remains a major activity at the monastery. Elsewhere on the monastery grounds is the Holy Trinity Orthodox Seminary.

Holy Trinity Monastery was named one of the “Seven to Save” by the Preservation League of New York State in the face of a large-scale wind power project that would see the surrounding area planted with nearly 50 wind turbines.

A full history of the monastery can be found in three parts on the ROCOR website: one, two, three. And a video report about Metropolian Laurus, as well as about the funeral, can be found on the website of Russia Today.

More photos:

Forum of Slavic Cultures finally online!

2008-03-03T12:20:00.000-05:00

Founded in 1994, the Forum of Slavic Cultures has only recently debuted on the internet. The international cultural organization unites representatives from all 13 Slavic countries to join forces to promote Slavic cultures at home and abroad. The organization is based in Ljubljana, Slovenia.

The Forum's members are: Belarus, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Macedonia, Montenegro, Poland, the Russian Federation, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia and Ukraine, with The Czech Republic as an observer status. Attention is also paid to Slavic minorities in non-Slavic countries, including the Lusatian Sorbs in Germany.

While the Forum has a variety of projects, among the most pressing right now are those designed to highlight Slavic cultures in Brussels in honor of Slovenia's current stint as the first Slavic president of the European Union.

So far, no activities have been planned for New York, but Slavs of New York is nevertheless very proud to be among the Forum's links!

Local reactions to Kosovo independence

2008-03-02T19:45:00.003-05:00

The declaration of independence by Kosovo on 17 February has sparked interest and concern on the part of many Slavs of New York, not the least of which local Serbs.

On 19 February, Columbia University's Morningside Post ran Jackie Carpenter's "Independence Day for Kosovars in New York," documenting the celebrations in Times Square in support of the move.

The flip side showed up a few days later. The New York Times on 24 February ran an article, "Upheaval Over Kosovo’s Independence Echoes in a New York Enclave" by Anthony Ramierez, which features reactions by Serbs in the Ridgewood neighborhood of Queens.

Down the Jersey Shore, the Press of Atlantic City ran Amy Kuperinsky's "Independent Kosovo splits expatriates living in area" on 2 March.

And video from WNBC 4 of local Serbs (and Bosnians) at Stari Most in Astoria can be seen on the restaurant's website.

Below are photos from Sunday's protest near the United Nations.

OHNY: South Side of Ellis Island Tour

2007-10-09T09:31:00.001-04:00

This past weekend was the 5th annual Open House New York, and among the more than 200 sites was special tours of the South Side of Ellis Island – otherwise off limits to the public, and of the recently restored Ferry Building.

While the main museum opened more than 15 years ago and the Ferry Building opened just this year, almost 30 other buildings are spread across Ellis Island. They are in varying states of deterioration, as stabilization and restoration efforts are moving slowly.

More than 12 million immigrants passed through Ellis Island from the time it opened at the end of the 19th century until its closure in 1954. Among the buildings on the South Side being restored are two massive hospitals, administration buildings and the home of the Island's chief administrator.

If you missed the OHNY tour, you can take a virtual tour of the South Side of Ellis Island here. Otherwise, here’s some photos from the tour:

Czechoslovak Independence Day Weekend

2007-10-08T12:20:00.000-04:00

Once again, Sunday’s City Section of the New York Times featured a bit of Slavic New York – Bohemian Hall and Beer Garden in Astoria (Joseph V. Tirella’s Welcome. But Don’t Call Them German).

Last week, the Times featured the perseverance of a group of Ukrainian women in the East Village struggling to keep their luncheonette going. Formerly home to significant communities of Poles, Ukrainians and Carpatho-Rusyns, the East Village in recent years has been shedding more and more of its Slavic character.

In Astoria, however, the problem is similar but very different. Bohemian Hall is one of the city’s oldest and most impressive Slavic sites, but is lately becoming a victim of its own success. As the beer hall gets more and more popular among New Yorkers at large, few are aware of its Czech (and Slovak) character. Many, such as one of the people quoted in the article, are under the impression that if it is a beer hall, it must be German.

Bohemian Hall is full of Czech and Czechoslovak memorabilia, Czech beers, Czech food, and a large Czech flag flies above the front door. If people are not aware of its role in the local Czech and Slovak communities, it is not for lack of trying.

The management is trying to play up its pedigree by hosting cultural events – this summer’s Czech film series, for example. Some, though think it won’t matter and the public will continue to overlook Bohemian Hall’s Czech and Slovak character. One Czech patron concluded, “They don’t know because they don’t care.”

Meanwhile, Saturday was the annual Czech Street Festival on 83rd Street between Park and Madison. The festival celebrates the independence of Czechoslovakia in 1918, and even though it is primarily a Czech event today, it also features New York’s Slovak and Carpatho-Rusyn communities who also made up Czechoslovakia at that time.

Erik Sunguryan sent some photos from the event:

Little Odessa on Gridskipper

2007-10-04T09:01:00.000-04:00

The kids over at Gridskipper put up a useful map and guide to Brighton Beach - New York's Little Odessa - this week. Most of the sea-side neighborhood's 350,000 residents are from the former Soviet Union, and virtually all of the local shops and restaurants cater to the community.

Among the sites featured are the grocery store M&I International Foods (249 Brighton Beach Avenue), supper clubs National (273 Brighton Beach Avenue) and Rasputin (2670 Coney Island Avenue), the massive St. Petersburg Book Store (230 Brighton Beach Avenue) and a few restaurants.

The major find, however, is Gambrinus Bar (3100 Ocean Parkway). Though all of Brighton Beach carries the tag "Little Odessa," this is the real deal: it is modelled after an actual bar in Odessa with the same name. Among its other draws, it features a German-style beer hall just off the boardwalk, with the requisite array of beers.

Shche Ne Vmerla (Mala) Ukrayina - (Little) Ukraine has not yet died!

2007-10-01T16:42:00.000-04:00

Sunday's City Section of the New York Times included an article (and a video on the website) by Adam B. Ellick about the Ukrainian luncheonette in the East Village across the street from St. George Ukrainian Catholic Church on 7th Street at Taras Shevchenko Place.

Local Ukrainian women have run the luncheonette for more than 30 years as a way to raise money for the church and its school. According to the Times, they manage to turn varenyky (pierogies), borsht and holubki into as much as $80,000 each year.

The luncheonette closed last spring after the deaths of four of the women, but reopened on 9 September - and will be open Fridays through Sundays for the forseeable future.

The women's resilience is much appreciated not only by local Ukrainians but also by other Slavs of New York. Once a major center of Ukrainian, Polish and Carpatho-Rusyn life, the East Village has lately been losing much of its Slavic character.

Leshko's closed in 1999, followed by Kiev in 2004. And on 1 June this year, Teresa's Polish restaurant on First Avenue closed due to high rent, according to Fr. Christopher Calin of the 2nd Street Cathedral.

Photo: Joe Fornabaio for The New York Times

Photos from last weekend's Slovak Festival

2007-09-26T20:17:00.000-04:00

Sunday was the 30th annual Slovak Heritage Festival at the PNC Bank Arts Center in Holmdel, NJ, and thanks to Erik Sunguryan, we have a selection of photos from the event:

Slavic sites in Chicago compete for funding

2007-09-25T16:39:00.000-04:00

Through 10 October you can vote for a site in Chicago to win $1 million in preservation assistance from American Express in partnership with the National Trust for Historic Preservation. Even though this does not deal with New York, two of the 25 sites up for the funding are major parts of Slavic history in the United States.

First up is Bohemian National Cemetery [official website], founded in 1877 by Czech, Slovak and Moravian immigrants and is the final resting place of former Chicago Mayor Anton Cermak. The site has been on the National Register of Historic Places only since 2006. Apart from the grounds and the memorials, the cemetery is also a major source of genealogical information.

The other site is Holy Trinity Russian Orthodox Cathedral [official website], the only existing church in the world by Louis Henry Sullivan – one of the greatest American architects of the 20th century. The church was founded with money from Czar Nicholas II and built in 1903 to serve the local Carpatho-Rusyn communities. It has been on the National Register of Historic Places since the late 1970s.

Take your pick, just make sure you vote before 10 October!

Serbs shine in Brooklyn water polo team

2007-09-19T23:04:00.000-04:00

Earlier this week, the New York Times highlighted the water polo team of St. Francis College in Brooklyn Heights, made up of three Americans, one Israeli, three Hungarians and eight Serbs.

The team has been wildly successful despite the fact that its Hungarians and Serbs were recruited without ever having met the coaches before showing up at JFK.

Stepan Gencic, a freshman from Belgrade, told the Times, “Everybody knows ‘that college which has eight Serbians,’ Most of them don’t know the name of the college; they just know that there is a good water polo team.”

Nemanja Pucarevic, a senior from Belgrade pointed out that Serbs may have had a rough time of it in recent years, but can take pride in sports. "Someone like Novak Djokovic, who played at the U.S. Open, he makes the country proud.”

Photo: Joshua Robinson for the New York Times

Russia Today on Time Warner Cable

2007-09-18T22:30:00.000-04:00

As of the end of August, Russia Today is now available to viewers in New York and New Jersey as Channel 135 on Time Warner Cable.

Russia Today is an English-language 24-hour news channel providing a Russian view on world events. It started broadcasting in December 2005 and has bureaus in Moscow, Kiev, Vladikavkaz, Tbilisi, London, Paris, Washington, New York, Jerusalem and Cairo.

The station was founded by the Russian national television service RIA Novosti and is somewhat controversial for its close ties to the Kremlin.

If you don’t have Time Warner Cable, you can also check out the station’s programs on YouTube.

Loss of another East Village Slavic landmark...

2007-05-30T14:26:00.001-04:00

When Kurowycky Meat Products (124 First Avenue between 7th and 8th Street) was forced to remove fresh meats from its windows last fall, owner Jerry Kurowyckyj commented to the New York Times, “…this place looks like it’s going out of business tomorrow.”
Sadly, Kurowycky Meat Products - one of the East Village’s last remaining smokehouses - really is going out of business on 2 June, after 52 years.

By way of explanation, owners Ezya and Jerry Kurowyckyj have posted this message on their website:

“Today's economic climate just does not support a small business on the scale that ours endeavors to survive in. Thank you all for all your years of support. We are closing as of this Saturday, June 2nd. It was a great ride and again, we thank you all.”

Photo by Shanna Ravindra for New York Magazine.

Reunification of the Russian Orthodox Church

2007-05-17T13:09:00.001-04:00

Yesterday, the Moscow-based Russian Orthodox Church and the New York-based Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia (ROCOR) reunified after 90 years. The ceremony was held on 17 May at Moscow’s Christ the Saviour Cathedral.

There, Russian Orthodox Patriarch Aleksey II and ROCOR Metropolitan Lavr formally signed a document restoring relations and then celebrated a joint service.

ROCOR broke away from the Russian Orthodox Church in Russia when the Revolution began in 1917. White Russian bishops set up a separate Church body first in Stavropol, then in Karlovac in Yugoslavia. The body moved to its current headquarters on East 93rd Street in Manhattan in the late 1930s.

ROCOR today claims 500,000 members in over 30 countries. The Russian Orthodox Church is the largest Orthodox Church in the world.

Ties with Moscow were severed completely in 1927, when the then-Patriarch of Moscow formally declared his loyalty to the Soviet regime. Supporters said he acted to preserve the Church in Russia; opponents saw it as treachery.

Even though the two Churches will now be reunified, the ROCOR will maintain its separateness. In fact, it seems that little will actually change other than ROCOR acknowledging the leadership of the Patriarch of Moscow.

Of course, now there is the risk of ROCOR believers resisting the reunification and splitting of themselves, but talk of that is being downplayed. Another controversy concerns the role of Russian President Vladimir Putin.

End of Siberia

2007-05-15T12:08:00.001-04:00

Last week marked the end of Siberia, the vaguely Sovietesque bar just beyond Port Authority. The Village Voice covered it in its "The Fall of a Perfect Dive."

The bar closed once before, but this time seems to be for real. Previously, it was located in the subway station at 50th street and Broadway, and had served in the past as a KGB drop point – if the rumors are to be believed.

Check out the Village Voice’s slideshow of the bar’s last night.

Photo: Tricia Romano for the Village Voice

Slavs of Yonkers!

2007-05-01T14:09:00.001-04:00

Starting 1 May, New York Water Taxi is offering commuter service to Yonkers, with boats making the trip between Yonkers, the World Financial Center and Wall Street Pier 11. All through May, email your name, phone number and mailing address to mailto:info@nywatertaxi.com, and New York Water Taxi will send you a free pass (normal one-way $12.00).

You can use the free pass to explore the Slavs of Yonkers!

Yonkers’s Czech connections date from colonial times, when Frederick Phillipse arrived from Bohemia. His homestead today is the Philipse Manor State Historical Site (corner of Warburton and Dock Streets).

The city’s Slovak pedigree is equally as impressive. There is the Catholic Slovak Club (49 Lockwood Avenue) as well as a number of Slovak churches, including St. Paul’s Slovak Evangelical (15 Old Jerome Avenue), Holy Trinity Slovak Lutheran Church (60 Mulberry Street) and Holy Trinity Roman Catholic Church (18 Trinity Plaza). The history of that last church has been documented in Thomas J. Shelley’s 2002 book Slovaks on the Hudson.

Poles in Yonkers congregate at St. Casimir’s Catholic Church (239 Nepperhan Avenue), in the Hollow/Nodine Hill neighborhood. The parish celebrated its 100th anniversary in 2000. The building itself dates from 1927. The church has maintained a Polish identity even as Polish immigrants and their descendants have largely moved out of town.

There is no significant Slovene community to speak of, but at least one Slovene artist is active in town – Marko Gosar. Gosar is a decorative artist trained in Slovenia but based in Yonkers.

Judging from internet presence, however, the largest three groups are also the most complicated: the Russians, Ukrainians and Carpatho-Rusyns. Michel Fokine, the Russian ballet dancer, lived at Chateau Fleur de Lys (170 Shonnard Terrace), but the vast majority of the city’s Russian community was not really Russian at all.

Holy Trinity (Trinity Plaza, 46 Seymour Street) is a Russian Orthodox Church but it was founded in large part by Lemkos. Today, Lemkos usually identify themselves as either Carpatho-Rusyns or Ukrainians but at the turn of the 20th century many also identified as Russians. The building dates from 1905 and the parish celebrated its centennial in 1999-2000.

The centerpiece of Lemko life in Yonkers traditionally was Lemko Hall (556 Yonkers Ave - history in .pdf and one more), but it was sold several years ago and is no longer used by the local Lemko community.

Yonkers also used to be home to the Lemko Association of the US and Canada, publisher of the newspaper Karpatska Rus’/Carpatho-Rus’, but it has moved it New Jersey. The paper started out as Lemko in 1927 and today is the only Rusyn-language newspaper regularly published in North America.

Rusyn-oriented Lemkos congregate at St. Mary's American Carpatho-Russian Orthodox Church (485 North Broadway).

Ukrainian-oriented Lemkos set up the Organization for the Defense of Lemkivshchyna (Lemko Western Ukraine) in 1936, and a Yonkers branch was established in 1957 at St. Michael's Ukrainian Catholic Church (corner of 510 North Broadway & 21 Shonnard Place). While the organization may be having trouble attracting young people, it nevertheless is active. The key annual event is the Lemko Vatra held upstate in Ellenville, NY.

St. Michael’s church building dates to 1978 but the parish was founded in 1899. It is home to the annual Yonkers Ukrainian Heritage Festival. This year, it takes place on 15-17 June (Slavs of New York).
Other Ukrainian groups in Yonkers include the Ukrainian Ski Association, Na Zdorovya band, a branch of the youth organization CYM and a branch of the Ukrainian American Veterans.

Motyl’s Factory

2007-04-30T15:16:00.000-04:00

By Andrew Yurkovsky

Alexander Motyl is on a roll. Call his latest enterprise the “fiction factory.” Having produced six nonfiction books, the Rutgers University political scientist has embarked on a new challenge—the Great American Novel—and added a Ukrainian twist.

Not that Motyl, one of the country’s top experts on Russia and eastern Europe, has anything to prove. The New York City native—he grew up in the Lower East Side’s Ukrainian community—is an accomplished painter as well as an internationally recognized scholar.

Two years ago, Motyl published his first novel, “Whiskey Priest,” a thriller that takes place against the background of Ukraine’s 2004 Orange Revolution. The novel, which begins in Vienna with the murders of three high-profile professors, allowed Motyl to settle some professional scores and to reflect on post-Cold War angst.

Motyl recently completed a second novel, “Who Killed Andrei Warhol,” slated for publication later this year by Seven Locks Press. He will read from “Who Killed Andrei Warhol” and “Whiskey Priest” at the Cornelia Street Café on May 5.

The Warhol book gives Motyl a chance to combine his many interests and to riff, yet again, on things Ukrainian. Warhol’s family hailed from eastern Slovakia and was of Rusyn, or Ruthenian, stock. Rusyns speak a language similar to Ukrainian and are regarded by some as part of the same ethnic group.

As it turns out, identity has been an ongoing preoccupation of Motyl’s. He achieved renown as a Sovietologist for his focus on non-Russians in the former USSR and for his attempt to understand how the socialist state was unique.

Not long ago, Motyl and I sat down to talk about political developments in Ukraine and his extracurricular activities.

Q: Last year, Viktor Yanukovych, the rival of Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko and the Kremlin’s candidate for the Ukrainian presidency in 2004, returned to the prime minister’s office in Kiev. Do you think the victory of Yanukovych and his Party of Regions is a setback for democracy in Ukraine?

“I think the Orange Revolution did not erupt simply overnight. I think there was a long institutional and societal transformation that preceded it. That’s Point One. My argument is Ukraine has changed since 1990. Two: Ukraine has changed since 2004; Ukrainians have changed since 2004. ... It’s not 2004, in other words. We haven’t gone back. Maybe there’s a circle, but it’s more like a spiral.”

Q: You take your fellow academics to task in “Whiskey Priest.” There isn’t an admirable one in the lot. How do you reconcile that depiction of your profession with your own work as a teacher?

“The intellectuals among the professoriate who are on the cutting edge, developing new theories and new visions and things of that sort—I hold them in fairly low esteem. The ones doing the grunt work—teaching the students, taking care of them—those I hold in fairly high esteem. But we don’t know about them. They are like the nurses in a hospital. They do all of the work, but they generally don’t attract too much attention. ... Teaching is the one part of being an academic that I’ve always been committed to. I enjoy it immensely.”

Q: Can you tell me about your new novel, “Who Killed Andrei Warhol”?

“The book is written in the form of a diary by a Soviet Ukrainian journalist based in Leningrad And he’s totally Sovietized. He may even be a KGB agent. He comes to New York in February of ’68 at the height of the garbage strike to cover the impending American revolution. And, of course, part of his cover is he has an office at the CPUSA [the American Communist Party].”

The American Communist Party headquarters shared the same building as Andy Warhol’s Factory, on Union Square in Manhattan.

“He meets Warhol. They hit it off. They talk about art; they drink vodka. Warhol invites him home, and his mother makes pierogies. All this kind of stuff. And, of course, he also gets involved with [Warhol assailant] Valerie Solanis; he gets involved with the FBI; he witnesses the race riots in Newark; he goes up to Columbia during the student demonstrations in 1968. ...

“So I was able to draw on a lot of the stuff I read about Warhol plus on my own knowledge of what Soviet thinking/jargon was like and bring these two together. At least that’s what I tried to do. The absurdity of the encounter—aside from I think the intrinsic absurdity of a Soviet journalist meeting Andy Warhol—is that the journalist interprets Warhol as a socialist-realist painter: a working-class Ruthenian [Rusyn].”

No more absurd, perhaps, than the working-class Ukrainian who has become a professor, a painter and, now, a novelist.

-----

The Second Annual Ukrainian Night, 5 May Cornelia Street Café (29 Cornelia Street, tel: 212-989-9319). Two sets, $10 per set. First set: 6-8 p.m. Second set: 9-11 p.m. With fiction writer Irene Zabytko, poets Vasyl Makhno and Dzvinia Orlowsky, and filmmakers Andrij Parekh and Roxy Toporowych.

Vychodna Dolina

2007-04-26T16:13:00.000-04:00

Vychodna Dolina, the female folk singing group of St Nicholas Carpatho-Russian Orthodox Church in the East Village, is raising money to fund a trip abroad and is looking for support.

The group will perform on 25 August at the 4th Annual Recognize and Preserve the Traditions of Your Ancestors Festival in Jarabina, Slovakia. The group is made up of 13 Rusyn singers from the New York City area, and is a mix of both American-born and immigrants from the Rusyn villages of Jarabina, Litmanova, Kamienka, and Velky Lipnik, Slovakia. Vychodna Dolina was founded in the late 1980s at St. Nicholas Church.

The invitation to perform at the festival follows the group’s 2001 pilgrimage to their ancestral villages, today located in Slovakia but still populated mainly by members of Slovakia’s Rusyn minority. While in Slovakia, the women met the Jarabina folk ensemble Polana and quickly formed a bond. Last summer, Vychodna Dolina and St. Nicholas parish helped Polana come to New York City to perform for Rusyns and others living here. Now, Polana has invited Vychodna Dolina to perform in Slovakia.

Anyone interested in contributing to the cause can send a check made out to the Carpatho-Rusyn Society with “Vychodna Dolina Donation” in the memo section to the following address: Carpatho-Rusyn Society, Vychodna Dolina Donation, 125 Westland Drive, Pittsburgh, PA 15217-2538.

Another way to help out is to buy tickets for the Majales Zabava (May Dance) at St. Nicholas Orthodox Church (288 East 10th Street at Avenue A) that is being held on Saturday, 12 May, from 8:00 p.m. to 2:00 a.m. The party is sponsored by Vychodna Dolina, but music will be provided by VoxEthnika. They’re asking for a $20.00 donation in advance (before 6 May) and $25.00 at the door. Ticket price includes admission, cake and coffee and more food and drinks will be available for purchase.

To get tickets or more information, call Monika (Kanova) Kormanik at 646-644-6714, Magda Matlak at 718-373-2279 or Stephanie Salony at 908-284-0561.

Bulgarians (and Romanians) in the 5 Boroughs

2007-04-24T17:43:00.001-04:00

Sunday’s Travel Section of the New York Times included the article “Weekend in New York Romanian and Bulgarian Culture: Danube (Both Sides) on Hudson” featuring Bulgarian restaurants on the Lower East Side of Manhattan and in Astoria, Queens.

Seth Kugel writes that there are 22,000 Romanian (not Slavic) and 4,000 Bulgarian (Slavic) immigrants in the five boroughs. The most obvious center of Bulgarian life in the city is Mehanata, (113 Ludlow Street) well known as a bar/disco but less so for its food (which isn’t bad at all). The Times prefers the menu at Bulgara (37-10 11th Street, Long Island City) instead.

The article also points out a couple Bulgarian happenings, including the Bulgarian Film Festival at Scandinavian House (58 Park Avenue). Three screenings are left, all on Friday, 27 April:

7:00 p.m., Sparrows in October (Vrabci prez oktomvri, Henry Koulev, Bulgaria 2006, 100")
9:00 p.m., George and the Butterflies (Georgi i peperydite, Andrey Paounov, Bulgaria 2006, 56")
10:00 p.m., The North Side of the Sunflower (Severnata strana na slunchogleda, Ivan Mladenov, Bulgaria 2006, 51")

The Bulgarian Virtuosi will also perform at Carnegie Hall Weill Recital Hall (154 West 57th Street) on Sunday, 29 April at 2:00 p.m. Performers include the Bulgarian Virtuosi Chamber Orchestra, Stefan Linev, Music Director and Conductor, violinist David Bowlin, cellist Kalin Ivanov and clarinetist Todd Brunel. The program features three 20th and 21st century works from Bulgarian composers. Tickets are $30 and $20 for students and seniors. The Bulgarian Consulate (121 East 62nd Street) also regularly hosts free concert evenings with Bulgarian performers.

And finally, Eleanor Gilpatrick will be showing her painted landscapes of Bulgaria at the Jadite Gallery (413 West 50th. Street) starting on 1 May.

More on the Bulgarians of New York on Slavs of New York.

Photo: Bulgara, by Robert Caplin for The New York Times

Local Belarusians gearing up for protests

2007-03-13T12:04:00.000-04:00

On Sunday, 18 March, the Belarusian-American Association and its youth organization will lead a demonstration in commemoration of a protest on Kalinouski Square in Minsk against rigged presidential election results. The demonstration will take place at 10:30 a.m. near UN headquarters, between 42nd and 43rd street on First Avenue in Manhattan.

Similar events will take place around the world, in Paris, Bordeaux, Berlin, Geneva, Chemnitz, Freiburg, Vilnius, Lund, Stockholm, Brussels, Porto, Lisbon, Riga, Bucharest, Ljubljana, Arhus, Bern, Helsinki, Dublin, Montenegro, Nancy and Boston. More at Charter97 and BAZA.

Information from last year's protests: Sunday: Elections in Belarus, New York’s Belarusians protest, Protests in Belarus continue.

Another protest is planned for the same location on 25 March, the 89th Anniversary of the Declaration of the Belarusian People's Republic (see Slavs of New York from last year’s 88th Annversary). That one starts at 10:00 a.m. (Charter97).

The (Rusyn) Russian Orthodox Church in Jersey City

2007-01-18T08:40:00.000-05:00

On Wednesday, NJ.com featured "An Overflowing Bounty of Beauty," the latest entry in the series of architecture columns by John Gomez. The article presents SS. Peter and Paul Russian Orthodox Church (109 Grand Street) in Jersey City, which has recently undergone some renovation.

Gomez writes:

“The proud parish, readying for its centennial, prepares to look back on the origins of its own story, which began in 1889 when three Slavs - Wasyl Krynicki, Andrej Cislak and Paul Stupinski - established the ‘Sts. Peter and Paul Kranken Unterstutzung Verein of Jersey City,’ a civic and religious ‘brotherhood’ set up to assist Slavic immigrants.”

But those three Slavs were not just Slavs – they were Carpatho-Rusyns. Lemkos, to be precise.

In any case, the church has a long and storied history. After its founding by Lemko Rusyns, it was led by Archpriest Alexander Hotovitsky, a Russian, who was canonized in 1994 as “Missionary to North America and New-Martyr of Russia” (he was killed by the Bolsheviks late in the 1930s after years of persecution). Hotovitsky lived and worked in and around New York from 1895 to 1914, based out of the then-newly-founded St. Nicholas Russian Orthodox parish. He is remembered as a major force in New York City's Slavic history.

As for the building itself, it was built in 1853 as a Dutch Reformed church in the Gothic Revival style. After it was purchased by the Russian Orthodox parish in 1908, it was renovated to conform to the Orthodox community’s needs.

The interior was painted floor to ceiling by Photius Bodasiak, an iconographer from Kyiv, who completed the more than 70s murals that cover the internal walls in just three years, from 1924-1927. On the exterior, onion dome cupolas and Orthodox crosses were added, which were the focus of the recent restoration efforts.

(Photo from http://www.jerseycityhistory.net/2004calendargallery.html)

Slavs of Alexandria

2007-01-16T08:23:00.000-05:00

Last week, it was announced that a memorial plaque is going up in Alexandria, Egypt, to commemorate the contributions of Slovene women to the city (cf. Egiptovski spomin na slovenske aleksandrinke, 10 January in Večer).

As it turns out, these women – called Aleksandrinke – had quite a story. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, about 7000 girls and women from the Primorska area in what is now western Slovenia and the Italian areas around Trieste went to Egypt – mostly Alexandria but also Cairo – to earn money to send back to their struggling families.

The migration was tied to the opening of the Suez Canal in 1869, which saw many European businessmen relocate to Egypt. They were hesitant to hire locals as servants but Slovene women were prized for their cleanliness and trustworthiness. Others worked for wealthy Egyptians – for example, Milena Fagannelli, a Slovene from the village of Mirna near Trieste, was the nanny of Boutros-Boutros Ghali, who was Secretary-General of the United Nations from 1992-1996.

They are remembered today by a small museum in the Slovene town of Prvačina, near Nova Gorica, and in books such as Marjan Tomšič’s Grenko morje (Bitter Sea, 2004) and Južni veter (South Wind, 2006).

And now they will also be remembered by a memorial plaque by sculptor Janez Lenassi, to be unveiled on 8 February, the national holiday of Slovene culture. The plaque reads:

“This plaque is in memory of the fate of the Slovene women, les Goriciennes, les Slaves, les Slovenes, For an entire century they came to Egypt as wet nurses, nannies, cooks, governesses and seamstresses. With their earnings, they saved their families and homesteads from ruin. In the years 1860-1960, thousands of wives and mothers earned their daily bread in Egypt. Their lives and work were unselfishly aided the whole time by the Sisters of Saint Frances of Christ the King of the Province of Trieste in Alexandria and Cairo.”

The plaque will be placed on the headquarters building of the Sisters of Saint Frances, Slovene nuns who helped the Aleksandrinke acclimate to their new city – particularly after it was discovered that some of the Slovene girls were being sold into white slavery. The Sisters will also be awarded the State Honor of the Republic of Slovenia at the unveiling ceremony. More info about the Aleksandrinke (in Slovene) can be found here.

As it turns out, there are other Slavic connections to Alexandria. For one, famous Russian ballerina Anna Pavlova and other artists fleeing the Russian Revolution found refuge in the city, at least for a time. Today, there is a Russian Cultural Center and a Consulate General in Alexandria.

The royal family of Bulgaria also found refuge in Alexandria when it was forced to abdicate in 1946 in the face of its own Communist revolution.

And the Library of Alexandria, the recently recreated wonder of the ancient world, is home to a memorial plaque to Ukrainian poet Lesya Ukrainka, who lived in the city from 1910-1913.

Ukrainian Art Nouveau at the Ukrainian Museum

2007-01-15T08:15:00.001-05:00

Slavs of New York finally made it to the Ukrainian Museum last weekend to check out the show Ukrainian Sculpture and Icons; A History of Their Rescue (through 28 February), but as it turns out, it was the other show, Crossroads: Modernism in Ukraine, 1910-1930 (through 11 March), that really caught our eyes.

Crossroads includes about 65 works from 21 Ukrainian avant-garde artists from private collections and museums throughout the US and Ukraine. The promotional materials feature internationally-renowned artists like Kazimir Malevych and Alexander Rodchenko.

Most interesting, however, were the lesser-known artists and the fact that the exhibition takes in the Ukrainian national variant of Art Nouveau, heavily influenced by the Viennese Secession (western Ukraine at the time was still part of Austria-Hungary).

Art Nouveau was popular among Slavs at the turn of the 20th century, and many tried to use the form to create a national artistic style for national groups still dominated by multiethnic empires like Austria-Hungary or Russia.

One of the key artists of Ukrainian Art Nouveau was Vsevolod Maksymovych (1894-1914), whose work is clearly linked to the Viennese Secession. Maksymovych must have been something of a turn-of-the-century hipster – apparently he was prominent in both Kyiv and Moscow nightlife. Sadly, he died at the age of 21 after a drug overdose. He is represented in the current show by five works, including The Kiss (1913), a reworking of Gustav Klimt’s masterpiece.

Also influenced by Klimt was Fedir Krychevsky (1879-1947), who has two works in the show including Love (1925-7), another reworking of Klimt’s earlier work.

Mikhajlo Zhuk (1883-1964) is yet another representative of Ukrainian Art Nouveau. His White and Black (1912-4) is an Art Nouveau masterpiece, though unlike the others it does not show links to the Viennese Secession but rather to the French and Belgian forms of Art Nouveau.

Though not connected to Art Nouveau, another set of fascinating works in the show comes from Anatol Petrytsky (1895-1964). Petrytsky, a Constructivist, is represented by a number of works but the most interesting are three portraits done as part of a larger set of portraits of Ukrainian cultural leaders of the day produced in the late 1920s and early 1930s (M. Semenko, I. Savchenko, P. Kozicky). Many of the portraits’ subjects were killed in Stalinist purges, and the artist destroyed a number of the canvases. Much of what remained were then lost during World War II. The three included in the show offer a tantalizing glimpse of what has been lost.

The exhibit runs through 11 March at the Ukrainian Museum (222 East 6th Street between Second and Third Avenues).

Slavs of Zurich

2007-01-08T08:19:00.000-05:00

The Slavs haven’t made much of a mark on Zurich so far, but there are a couple significant points of interest.

One of the more random Slavic landmarks is Cafe Odeon (Limmatquai 2), where Vladimir Lenin whiled away the hours planning the Russian Revolution. Lenin lived in exile in Geneva from 1903-1905 and in 1908, and then from 1914-1915 in Bern, where he quickly became disillusioned by the locals’ lack of interest in his theories of Communism.

In 1916, he moved to Zurich and found an apartment at Spiegelgasse 14. There, he continued his revolutionary activities. Among the highlights of his carrier in Zurich was the completion of “Imperialism: the Highest Stage of Capitalism.” On 9 April 1917, Lenin was able to return to St. Petersburg to lead the Revolution.

Alexander Solzhenitsyn’s Lenin in Zurich details this period in Lenin’s life. Zurich was also home to Leon Trotsky for a time.

Relations between Switzerland and Russia were strained after a tragic 2002 plane crash, but this has not stopped Russian tourists from visiting Zurich. However, Russians are more likely to come to Zurich to spend money these days rather than to plan revolutions.

Another Slavic point of interest is the grave of Albert Einstein’s first wife, Mileva Maric (1875-1948) of Titel, near Novi Sad, in Serbia. She died in Zurich on 4 August 1948 and is buried in the city’s Northeim Friedhof Cemetery. The grave is currently unmarked, however, and New York’s Tesla Memorial Society is trying to raise funds to restore the site.

About 213,900 strong, Serbian and Montenegrin nationals make up the second-largest group of foreigners in Switzerland after the Italians. Taken together, there are about 370,000 former Yugoslav nationals in the country. They haven’t made much of a mark on Zurich yet, though. There are also a number of Rusyns from the former Yugoslavia living in Switzerland.

Burek!

2006-12-19T08:08:00.001-05:00

Last week, Gridskipper ran a feature on Burek in New York. Djerdan 34-04A 31st Avenue between 35th and 34th Streets in Astoria; 23-01 65th Street at 23rd Avenue in Brooklyn; and 221 West 38th Street between Seventh and Eighth Avenues in Manhattan) topped the list.

Cevabdzinica Sarajevo (37-18 34th Avenue in Astoria) was there too. A few non-Slavic places were there as well, and just might be worth checking out:

Zerza (Moroccan, 304 East 6th Street between First and Second Avenues in Manhattan)
Café Roma (Kosher, 175 West 91st Street at Amsterdam Avenue in Manhattan)
Tony & Tina's Pizzeria (Albanian, 2483 Arthur Avenue in the Bronx)
House of Pita (Middle Eastern, 32 West 48th Street in Manhattan)
Tasty Shawarmy (Middle Eastern, 71 7th Avenue South at Bleecker Street in Manhattan)
Aroma (Israeli, 160 Wooster Street at Houston in Manhattan)

And don’t forget Bosna Express (31-29 12th Street in Astoria), which somehow failed to make the list at all.

Previously on Slavs of New York: Another Cevapdzinica opens in Queens, Bosnian Grocery Shopping and Cravings takes on Bosnian and Polish cuisine

Czech (and Rusyn!) Modernism on Film

2006-11-30T08:02:00.000-05:00

Hot on the heels of the Seventh Annual New Czech Films Festival earlier this month, BAM is running a second Czech film festival, this time focusing on Czech Modernism.

Twelve films are on the schedule, all dating from 1926-1949, when the Communists took over Czechoslovakia. Two highlights are the silent film The Kreuzer Sonata (Kreuzerova sonáta, 1926) and From Saturday to Sunday (Ze soboty na neděli, 1931).

Of particular interest to Carpatho-Rusyns is the first film ever to feature a Rusyn story with sound: Faithless Marijka (Marijka nevěrnice, also known in North America as The Forgotten Land, 1934) directed by Rusynophile Czech director and author Vladislav Vančura.

The film is based on a screenplay by Rusynophile Czech author Ivan Olbracht, with Karel Nový, and features a soundtrack by Bohuslav Martinů - himself a Slav of New York (Check out Unfaithful Marijka, An “Independent Film” – Martinu’s Contribution to the Czech Film Music .pdf, page 15-17).

Many of Olbrachts novels feature Rusyn themes and are set in Subcarpathia Rus, including Nikola Šuhaj loupežnik. Olbracht is also known for a series of journalistic reports on conditions in Subcarpathian Rus from the 1930s.

It was filmed in the Rusyn village of Kolochava (where there is a small museum dedicated to Olbracht) and all of the actors were locals speaking their own languages: Rusyn villagers speaking Rusyn, Jewish barkeeps and shopkeepers speaking Yiddish, police speaking in Czech. Marijka herself is played by a Rusyn girl, Hanna Shkelebei, from another Rusyn village, Vyshnii Bystryi.

The Village Voice review of the festival, Czech, Please, unfortunately uses the outdated “Ruthenians” to refer to the Rusyns but otherwise features Faithless Marijka prominently. J. Hoberman writes: “The movie is a tale of backward development and backwoods passion but, despite a few awkwardly interpolated studio shots, its stark premise is secondary to an evocation of the wild Carpathian landscape.”

For more on Rusyn cinema and Rusyns in cinema, check out this entry from the Encyclopedia of Rusyn History and Culture.

The festival runs through 11 December. Faithless Marijka screens on 10 December at 6:50 p.m.

BREAKING NEWS: Mehanata's BACK!

2006-11-03T17:47:00.001-05:00

At 5:32, Slavs of New York got an email from Mehanata's owner reading:
Mehanata is now open. 113 Ludlow Street.

We'll provide more details when we get them.

Peviously on Slavs of New York: Sofia on the Hudson: The Party’s Over, Friday: Slavic Soul Party at Mehanata?, Mehanata's down but not out (yet), Mehanata to Become… Gypsying?, Mehanata’s BACK!, Save Mehanata! and Mehanata can't open...yet

Reservations for the Russian Tea Room

2006-10-31T08:48:00.001-05:00

New York Magazine's food blog Grub Street (First Look Inside the Russian Tea Room) has come up with the first photos of the Russian Tea Room (150 West 57th Street between 6th and 7th Avenues), just ahead of its reopening Wednesday morning.
The restaurant will be open from 7:30 a.m. to midnight on weekdays, 10:30 to midnight on Saturday and 10:30 a.m. to 10:30 p.m. on Sunday, with a menu ranging from breakfast to tea to elaborate dinners.

Reservations are being accepted from Friday on – Restaurant Girl already snagged hers, but gave no clue as to what the number is but the New York Magazine review says it’s 212-974-2111.

Previously on Slavs of New York: Russian Tea Room Reopening

(Photos: Jed Egan for New York Magazine)

Gorky's Manhattan Sex Scandal

2006-10-30T08:18:00.001-05:00

Always a good source for Slavic tidbits, this week’s The City section of the New York Times came through again with Michael Pollak’s Passed for a Scandal Q&A about Communist agitator Maxim Gorky’s stay in Manhattan.

Turns out this year marks the 100th anniversary of Gorky’s Manhattan sex scandal, which hit the ceiling when The New York World published an article revealing that Gorky’s companion was not his wife, but rather an actress with whom he’d been living since he separated from his wife.

The two had been shacked up in the Hotel Bellclaire (Broadway and 77th Street, check out Christopher Gray’s 1992 Streetscapes: The Belleclaire; A 1903 Home for the Homeless for more) and were kicked out by the manager for offending common morality. No other hotel would take the pair in, and Gorky ended up continuing his speaking schedule in New York while staying with a supporter in Staten Island.

Given the mores of the time, the scandal was a big deal, and one newspaper reported that the Russian Embassy tipped off The New York World in an attempt to discredit Gorky among the American public.

Gorky was in the United States on a lecture tour to raise money for the revolutionary movement in Tsarist Russia. According to Pollack, his rhetoric earned him the nickname “The Jefferson of Russia” at the time.

Previously on Slavs of New York: New York Soviet Socialist Republic

Russian Tea Room Reopening

2006-10-23T08:05:00.001-04:00

Sunday’s New York Times featured a bit of background on the soon-to-reopen Russian Tea Room, Recreating the Sizzle, Going Easy on the Butter.

The Manhattan classic will reopen on 1 November at its old digs at 150 West 57 between Sixth and Seventh Avenues after a four year lapse. Former members of the Russian Imperial Ballet opened the original Russian Tea Room opened in 1926 at the same location.

Florence Fabricant’s Tea Room Coming Back from the 4 October issue of The New York Times has all the details of the new owners.

“When the Russian Tea Room closed four years ago, diners may have wondered if they would ever again see the restaurant’s over-the-top décor, the 15-foot acrylic juggling bear that doubled as an aquarium, the gold-hued Fabergé egg, the red banquettes.” Turns out they will. Most of the familiar details have been restored.

What will be a bit different is the menu, courtesy of Gary Robins (formerly of Chelsea’s Biltmore Room). Much of the menu will be lighter reinterpretations of traditional Russian fare.
Previously on Slavs of New York: The Russian Tea Room

(Photo: Ruby Washington for The New York Times)

Health fears threaten East Village smokehouses

2006-10-11T08:17:00.000-04:00

Sunday’s New York Times City Section featured “A Health Scare Revives the Smokehouse Blues,” about the switch from real meats to fake ones in the window of Kurowycky Meat Products (124 First Avenue between 7th and 8th Street).

The move was taken after the Ukrainian smokehouse was ordered by state officials to remove the fresh meats from their windows. Baczynsky’s and B & M Meat Market – the only other smokehouses remaining in the East Village – were forced to do it several years ago. State agriculture officials are concerned about the meat being tainted, perhaps with E. coli, staph, salmonella or listeria.

Jerry Kurowyckyj, the grandson of the shop’s founder, told the New York Times “It used to look full and it smelled great. Food is a visual, and this place looks like it’s going out of the business tomorrow.” He added that sales have dropped by 20 percent.

Cravings takes on Bosnian and Polish cuisine

2006-10-10T08:27:00.001-04:00

Local foodie website Cravings recently published a feature on ethnic restaurants in the five boroughs, and singled out Bosnian and Polish cuisine for special attention.

They declared Burek of course as the highlight of Bosnian cuisine, after a visit to Djerdan (221 West 38th Street between 7th and 8th Avenues). Slavs of New York would go a bit further and also recommend the cevapci.

As for Polish cuisine, the star at Polam International Market (952 Manhattan Avenue between India and Java Street, Greenpoint) was the stuffed cabbage – at about 70¢ each!

Meanwhile, Cravings enjoyed the smoked bacon spread at Damis (931 Manhattan Avenue between India and Java Street, Greenpoint). The food at this jungle-themed restaurant apparently wasn’t up to snuff, but the meal was saved by this bacon spread which came free with the basket of bread before dinner was even served.

Pulaski Day honors New York's Poles

2006-09-28T08:52:00.001-04:00

This weekend marks Pulaski Day, honoring Casimir Pulaski (1745-1779), a Polish nobleman who fought in the US War for Independence.

For the occassion, the Empire State Building will be lit up in the Polish national colors, red and white, from Friday through Sunday.

Sunday is also the 69th annual Pulaski Parade, a celebration of Poles in New York.This year's theme is Honoring all Our Polish Immigrants for their contributions to the United States.

Prior to the parade, there will be a special mass at St. Patrick's Cathedral followed by a special breakfast at the Marriott Marquis ($45.00, contact Penny Donach at 718-389-4150 or email).

The parade runs up Fifth Avenue from 31st Street to 53rd Street, beginning at 12:30 p.m.

Slavs of Chicago!

2006-09-28T08:29:00.000-04:00

Travel blog Gridskipper featured Chicago’s Bulgarian community yesterday with Chicago's Bulgarians at the Gates.

The post includes a Bulgarian tour of the city, including Cafe Florida (4356 N. Leavitt Street), Sofia In Chicago (9439 Irving Park Road, Schiller Park) and Cafe Mirage (9845 Lawrence Avenue, Schiller Park). Gridskipper also advises a stroll down Adams Street, ground zero for the local Bulgarian community. And there’s also links to two local newspapers, Bulgaria-Weekly and Bulgaria 21.

Even more significant is a link to Bulgarians in Chicago, an article from the Encyclopedia of Chicago, which unlike the Encyclopedia of New York is online.

Other gems include the entries on Belarusians, Bosnians, Croatians, Czechs and Pilsen, Macedonians, Poles and Polonia, Russians and Holy Trinity Russian Orthodox Church, Serbs, Slovaks, Slovenes, Ukrainians (including Carpatho-Rusyns) with Icon of the Annunciation at St. Nicholas Ukrainian Church and Ukrainian Village, and Yugoslavs.

Special recognition for East Village Slovene parish

2006-09-27T08:02:00.000-04:00

Slovenia’s Foreign Minister Dimitrij Rupel visited the Church of St. Cyril (62 St. Mark's Place) as the parish celebrated its 90th jubilee.

He bestowed the Award of the Government Office for Slovenes Abroad on the parish, in recognition of the church’s work preserving Slovene culture and language among immigrants, and promoting Slovene culture to the general public in New York City.

"The St. Cyril Parish was for long the door through which Slovenian immigrants entered the US and where they found their first shelter," Rupel said on Sunday, thanking the Slovenian Franciscan order for establishing the church.

Museum of Matches

2006-09-19T08:42:00.001-04:00

Sunday’s New York Times featured an article about the Museum of Matches, which turns out to be more a project about the Cold War rather than matches. The museum was founded and developed by Sasha Chavchavadze, an artist whose grandparents were émigrés from Russia and whose father was a CIA operative.

According to its website, the museum “revisits, merges and matches Cold War history with personal history through an array of art, documents, photographs, books, memorabilia, interviews, readings, and publications.”

The Museum of Matches is located in the same building as Proteus Gowanus, at 543 Union Street at Nevins in Brooklyn near the Gowanus Canal.

Trans-Siberian express to obliteration

2006-09-08T11:05:00.001-04:00

The kids over Gridskipper have embarked on the “Trans-Siberian express to oblit eration,” a crawl through all of New York’s Russian bars. First up was Uncle Vanya (315 West 54th Street), which they seemed to enjoy (doubly so once they hit the house infused vodka collection).

Next up was Anyway Сafe (34 East 2nd Street, and 2nd Avenue). Like Uncle Vanya this one is more a restaurant than a bar, but also like Uncle Vanya it has more than enough liquor to go around. Apparently there was a male stripper on hand back in March (any clue what was going on there??), but when Gridskipper visited there was only a solitary bard singing chanson.

Slavs of Boston & Cape Cod

2006-08-29T08:42:00.000-04:00

New England may not be a hotbed of Slavic culture in the US, but there are a few things here and there if you take the time to seek them out.

Through 21 January 2007, the Museum of Fine Arts (465 Huntington Avenue) is featuring the exhibit Designing the Modern Utopia: Soviet Textiles from the Lloyd Cotsen Collection. The show presents nearly 100 rare textiles and drawings made between 1927 and 1933, and puts them into the context of early Soviet history. On 3 December, the museum is organizing a symposium that will include presentations on topics such as textiles and propaganda, sports in Soviet culture, Soviet textiles in the context of Soviet visual culture and utopianism in the late 1920s and 1930s (Remis Auditorium, time TBD, free with museum admission). And if you can’t make it to Boston, the catalogue can be ordered from Amazon.com.

Boston's historic Russia Wharf area is home to the Russian American Cultural Center of Boston, which seems to be the only such Slavic institution in town. The Ukrainian Research Institute Harvard University has public programs and is a good stand in for a Ukrainian cultural center, however.

There’s no Bulgarian cultural center in Boston, but there must be a good number of Bulgarians. BG Focus Boston is a good place to go for info on the local scene.

One highlight of the Bulgarian cultural scene in Boston is the Monday night dance class (Mondays at 7:30 p.m. at Green Street Dance Studios, 185 Green Street, Cambridge; $12.00 per class).

Another point of interest is Lana Orna (255 Newbury Street), a shop selling jewelry manufactured in Bulgaria, which has just opened on one of Boston’s most fashionable streets.

As far as Boston goes, there are several community websites with helpful information such as Russian Boston, and Polish Boston and PolHome. There are also a few organizations in Boston, such as the Bostonian-Belarusan Organization Committee, the Carpatho-Rusyn Society New England Chapter, and the Serbian American Alliance of New England and the Organization of Serbian Students Abroad.

Out on Cape Cod, the highlight is Pain D’Avignon (192 Airport Road, Hyannis), a bakery owned and operated by one French Canadian and four men who fled Belgrade in the early 1990s (check out Newcomers invigorate the Cape, from The Boston Globe).

Red Square (146 Commercial Street, Provincetown) has a Russian-ish name, but not much else. Cute clothes though.

Cape Cod is also home to the Russian-themed Samovar Gifts & Treasures, the Polish Society of Cape Cod and the Bulgarian Cape Cod community website.

Slavs of Pittsburgh!

2006-08-24T08:08:00.000-04:00

Pittsburgh is one of the few places in the country that eclipse New York for Slavic goodness. Nearly every Slavic group is represented, and a Slavic vibe is everywhere. Where else will you find a full radio dial of Slavic programs, and cut-throat competition among Slavic folk dance troupes? Here are just some of the highlights, since a full treatment would require its own webpage:

A good place to start for general information is Global Pittsburgh, which lists information and resources for various groups in town, among them the Bulgarians and Macedonians, Croats, Poles, Russians, Serbs, Slovaks and Ukrainians. If you’re looking for tours, check out Pittsburgh Neighborhood Tours, and the Visitors’ Bureau Andy Warhol’s Pittsburgh tour, both of which feature local Slavic sites prominently.

Tourists love the Nationality Rooms at the Cathedral of Learning (the tallest educational structure in the world until Krushchev’s 1959 visit, which led him to raise the spire of the main building of Moscow State University to take the title). The Slavic Nationality Rooms are: Czechoslovak (Room 113), Polish (126), Yugoslav (142), Russian (153) and Ukrainian (341). The Senator John Heinz Pittsburgh Regional History Center (1212 Smallman Street, Strip District) also has some Slavic artifacts on display.

Of the numerous annual events, the most popular by far is the Pittsburgh Folk Fest, which regularly sees participation by Bulgarians, Croats, Poles, Rusyns, Serbs, Slovaks and Ukrainians. This past summer (2006) marked its 50th year. And local amusement park Kennywood has Nationality Days each summer, and there are several Slavic ones: Carpatho-Russian Day (since 1930), Serbian Day (1917), Slovak Day (1920), Slovene Day (1995), Polish Day (1931) and Croatian Day (1917). The University of Pittsburgh’s Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures also organizes a number of events throughout the year.

Earlier this year, the Bulgarian-Macedonian Cultural Center (449 West 8th Avenue, West Homestead) celebrated its 70th anniversary. One of the reasons it’s made it so long is that it’s kept up with the times. The 1980s and 1990s saw declining membership in folk dance troupes and fraternal organizations and a general drop off in Slavic cultural activities. The Bulgarian-Macedonian Cultural Center was the first ethnic organization to really recreate itself as a sexy nightspot for young people and a serious destination for tourists.

Local Carpatho-Rusyns organized into the Carpatho-Rusyn Society are hoping to have similar success when they open the National Carpatho-Rusyn Cultural and Educational Center in the currently-under-renovation St. John Greek Catholic Cathedral (Dickson Street, Munhall). Meanwhile, their annual event at the Andy Warhol Museum (117 Sandusky Street, North Side) has made great strides in making Rusyn ethnicity more interesting to young people both within and outside the community.

In October, local Ukrainians will also be opening a museum, at St. John the Baptist Ukrainian Catholic Church (Seventh and Carson, South Side). And next year the Slovaks will get their own museum as well.

Croats are also well represented in Pittsburgh, with The Croatian Fraternal Union (100 Delaney Drive), the Preserve Croatian Heritage Foundation (East Ohio Street, North Side) and churches and other institutions. Serbs socialize at the American Serbian Club (2524 Sarah Street) and Gypsy Café (1330 Bingham Street, South Side). There is also a Serbian soccer team, the Fudbalski Klub Nikola Tesla. Some of the Polish groups include the Polish Hill Civic Association of Pittsburgh, the Polish Cultural and Political Association of Allegheny County and the Polish Falcons of America-National Headquarters.

Czechs, Slovaks and Rusyns have a particular attachment to Pittsburgh. In 1918, Czech, Slovak and Rusyn leaders signed the Pittsburgh Agreement, heralding the birth of Czechoslovakia when the First World War ended (most of the Rusyn territories were later occupied and then annexed to the Soviet Union after World War II). There’s a memorial in the lobby of the Dominion Tower (625 Liberty Avenue, Downtown), though the agreement was actually signed in the nearby Moose Hall, destroyed in 1984. For something a bit more social, try the local Slovak club, the John Kollar Slovak Literary and Library Society, a.k.a. the Kollar Club (3226 Jane St, South Side).

Just outside of Pittsburgh is Pennsylvania’s smallest municipality: SNPJ Borough, population 1. Years ago, the Slovene fraternal organization Slovenska narodna podporna jednota wanted to set up a campground, but the county where the land was situated was dry. The only solution was to secede, and so was born SNPJ Borough. Today, the town is home to a recreational center and the SNPJ Slovenian Heritage Center.

One strange thing is that for all the Slavic places in and around Pittsburgh, there aren’t very many Slavic restaurants (though most of the social clubs do serve food). One notable exception is Pierogies Plus (342 Island Avenue, McKees Rocks). There are a couple of Russian grocery stores as well, such as Gourmet Market (2733 Murray Avenue, Squirrel Hill) and Ethnic Foods, Taste of Europe (4374 Murray Avenue, Squirrel Hill).

Slavs of Atlantic City!

2006-08-23T08:38:00.000-04:00

Atlantic City isn’t exactly a cultural tourism destination, but like Las Vegas, there’s at least a little bit of something once you scratch the surface. The Russian mafia aren’t the only Slavs in town.

A lot about Atlantic City is similar to Las Vegas, and just like it’s desert cousin AC has its own branch of Red Square (at the Quarter at Tropicana, 2801 Pacific Avenue). And just like the Las Vegas venue, this one also features a Lenin statue and someone’s idea of a “distinctly Russian ambiance.” The bar has sub-zero vodka lockers, and women get fur coats and men get Russian army coats to venture inside.

A bit lower key is Globus Polish Service (4005 Ventnor Ave), which has groceries and other products from Poland, Bulgaria and other regional countries, phone cards and offers other services such as package delivery and money transfers to Eastern Europe.

Snejana “Snow” Urbin, a star of Fox’s So You Think You Can Dance was born in Siberia, but for now she’s holed up at the Tropicana promoting her live show Burn the Floor Presents FloorPlay. Catch it before it closes on 1 September.

Finally, Russians, Bulgarians, Poles, Serbs, Ukrainians, Macedonians, and others will descend on the Borgata (1 Borgata Way) on Sunday for Eurofest 2006, starting at 10:00 p.m. The party is being billed as the city’s largest Euro gathering ever and will feature house, hop hop, electro, trance, and pop/folk music. No cover, and there will be drink specials.

Czechoslovak American Marionette Theatre: Once There Was A Village

2006-08-21T08:05:00.001-04:00

Just a few days short of the first anniversary of the death of writer Yuri Kapralov, the Czechoslovak American Marionette Theatre will premier their adaption of his most famous work, Once There Was A Village at Lincoln Center.

The show, like Kapralov's bok, delves into the lives of immigrants in the East Village and Alphabet City in the 1960s and 1970s.

In addition to the puppets the show also includes dance and music provided by the

Performances will be tomorrow (22 August) at 6:00 p.m. and then again at 6:45 p.m. at the South Plaza at Lincoln Center. Both shows are free and no tickets are necessary.
Hungry March Band. Lincoln Center Out of Doors! commissioned the work, titled Once There Was a Village: A Panorama of East Village history. The full production will go up in the East Village at La MaMa next February.

Warhol's Factory going condo

2006-08-16T08:57:00.001-04:00

Yesterday’s news of Veselka’s anti-Rusyn gaffe reminded us that news broke recently that the final location of Andy Warhol’s Factory is about to go condo. Plans call for the four-story building to be converted into 22 stories with 50 luxury loft units.

The building, a former ConEd substation at 19 East 32nd Street, 158 Madison Avenue and 22 East 33rd Street, actually still bears a bit of Warhol-era graffiti reading “I never wanted to be a painter, I wanted to be a tap-dancer.” The graffiti is visible below a second-floor balcony in the 33rd street entrance lobby.

Back in March 1998, the New York Times profiled the building in “Warhol's Old Factory: A Restaurant and Offices; 15 Minutes of Pasta?” when the condo plans were first floated. This time, though, it seems the plans will go forward.

Warhol bought the building in 1981 and turned it into the fourth location of The Factory. Upon his death in 1987, the building became the headquarters of The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, which is now located on Bleecker Street. The first Factory was on the fifth floor of 231 East 47th Street from 1964-1968, then 33 Union Square West until 1974 when it moved to 860 Broadway and was rechristened The Office.

Check out Warhol condo coverage at Gothamist (Clips from The Factory), Towleroad (Andy Warhol Factory Going Condo) and Triple Mint (Warhol Factory Condos)

(Photo: Triple Mint)

Rusyns boycott Little Veselka

2006-08-15T08:45:00.001-04:00

We were delighted yesterday morning to open our email box and find that Thrillist had posted a .jpg of the menu of the new Little Veselka (75 East 1st Street at Houston), featuring sandwiches named after famous Ukrainians.

Excitement turned to horror, however, when we hit the end of the list – a sandwich named after Andy Warhol.

As Slavs of New York should know, Warhol’s family used to be called Warhola and hailed from the village of Mikova, in present-day Slovakia. And they were Carpatho-Rusyns, not Ukrainians (and NO, it most certainly is NOT the same thing!).

And so the Carpatho-Rusyn boycott of Little Veselka has commenced.

The Andy Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh actually just hosted the 9th annual Carpatho-Rusyn Event last month, highlighting Warhol’s Rusyn heritage and the bringing together the large Rusyn community of Western Pennsylvania.

The museum’s website is currently running a podcast series entitled “Living History: Early 20th Century Carpatho-Rusyn Culture in Pittsburgh,” with the latest one (The Julia Zavacky Warhola Recordings) featuring recordings of Andy Warhol’s mother Julia from the 1950s and 1960s telling stories and singing Rusyn songs from Mikova.

Little Veselka

2006-08-10T08:32:00.000-04:00

Lately it's become common to witness the closure of a Slavic restaurant in the East Village (Leshko's, Kiev...) but it's a rarity to see a new one open. But yesterday that's just what happened as Veselka opened a satellite on First Avenue at Houston Street near the entrance to the F train.

With Extending New York's Borscht Belt, Jaunted reports that Little Veselka (75 First Street) is "much glassier than precursor Le Kiosk ever was, with plenty of aluminum accents, as is the style these days." The menu seems similar to that of Veselka itself, but Jaunted went nuts for the to-go borscht. Eater's EaterWire: East Village Edition decided the menu was more expensive than need be. Regardless, a new Slavic eatery in the East Village is worthy of a bit of buzz.

Previously on Slavs of New York: RIP: Leshko's and Kiev, East Village Update: Kiev goes Greek, Molode Zhyttia closes, Veselka outpost to open in July and American Grill Diner vs. Kiev

Mehanata can't open...yet

2006-08-02T08:01:00.001-04:00

The 25 July meeting of Community Board 3 saw the application for Mehanata’s new liquor license denied despite over 1750 signatures on a petition, the endorsement of over 500 local residents and numerous other shows of support. So Mehanata will not be able to reopen as planned at its new Ludlow Street location any time soon.

To get an idea of the debate over the bar’s new location, check out the comments on our 21 July post, Save Mehanata! Somehow most of the comments are negative and are against reopening the bar on Ludlow Street, but we (as East Village residents ourselves) agree with the anonymous commenter who asked why the naysayers live on the LES at all if they are bothered by the nightlife.

Promenading Brighton Beach

2006-07-27T08:25:00.000-04:00

This past Sunday, the New York Times explored the former-Soviet tradition of the evening promenade as it has been transported to Brighton Beach, in Paul Berger's "The Promenade, Soviet Style."

The writer hit the boardwalk on a Sunday afternoon and found a scene full of Russian types:

"The benches are typically filled by old women armed with multicolored umbrellas, which they use to protect themselves from the sun. In Russian towns, these babushkas, as they are known, often gather on seats outside apartment buildings, but on the boardwalk they are at center stage. The crowd they survey almost always includes young men shaped like battering rams, with impossibly square heads and haircuts to match. A congregation of wiry, suntanned biznesmeni, dressed in black, is seldom far away, clinching deals on cellphones."

Promenading is a tradition in most cities of the former Soviet Union, if for no other reason that it provides something to do that does not cost money. Berger attributes the continuance of the tradition in Brighton Beach to the same reason, though points out that a number of Russian restaurants (Tatiana, Volna, etc.) are found all along the boardwalk.

Photo: Chang W. Lee for The New York Times

Save Mehanata!

2006-07-21T14:12:00.001-04:00

Strange things have been afoot at Mehanata ever since it reopened at its new location at 113 Ludlow Street last month. Finally a clarification, but the news is not good.

Apparently, the Community Board reversed its earlier decision and denied the bar the transfer of its liquor and cabaret licenses, and Mehanata was shut down virtually as soon as it had reopened. Now, they have applied for new licenses, but after the 17 July meeting of Community Board 3, it looks like the licenses will not be approved.

Mehanata's owners explained that the decision was due to "a number of arbitrary and unsubstantiated reasons... (e.g. "the proposed use of this location as a dance space…is inconsistent with the primarily residential character of Ludlow street" at a site that has hosted a number of clubs/bars during the past many years – Seho, Lickwed, etc.)," and are now accusing the Community Board of "hidden intolerance towards New York's global thinking community as well as the immigrant circles ... colliding with the idea of bringing Gypsy Punk, Balkan, and Eastern European, Turkish music and culture to NYC."

Clearly Mehanata needs our help. The easiest thing to do is to send an email supporting Mehanata to Community Board 3 at info@cb3manhattan.org. Please include your name and address, and tell the board how much you love the bar and its mission, and that you really DO want it in the neighborhood.

You can also come check out the new digs at 113 Ludlow Street between Rivington and Delancy tonight (Friday) and Saturday from 6:00 to 11:00 p.m. and sign the petition to the Community Board.

And if you're a bit more ambitious, you can also attend the next Community Board meeting, on 25 July at the Chinatown YMCA Beacon Center (inside PS 131 at 100 Hester Street between Eldridge and Forsyth). If you live in the neighborhood, your voice would be particularly helpful.

American Grill Diner vs. Kiev

2006-07-18T08:32:00.001-04:00

The East Village's Little Ukraine is about to lose yet another of its oldtime hangouts: Kiev (117 Second Avenue at 7th Street). We had previously reported that the diner, currrently under rennovation, would reopen as a Greek diner but would keep the old Kiev name. Apparently that is no longer the case:

Brooklyn's Belarus II

2006-07-17T08:12:00.000-04:00

A couple weeks ago, we got an email asking after Belarusian-owned restaurants or restaurants serving Belarusian food, and we were stumped. Last Thursday, however, the kids over at Gothamist came to the rescue with their discovery of Belarus II (495-497 Neptune Avenue, Coney Island/Brighton Beach, Brooklyn), a real live Belarusian deli!

The store is three blocks from the boardwalk, open 24 hours, and offers freshly-made ethnic delicacies such as potatoe pancakes and pickles.

Hütz to the Rescue

2006-07-10T08:43:00.000-04:00

Last month the Village Voice profiled Gogol Bordell's Eugene Hütz in Tricia Romano's Hütz to the Rescue. The review kicks off by offering Hütz as the solution to "the lame state of New York nightlife," and the praise just goes up from there.

Hütz has been travelling the world lately looking for new sounds and new performers, from Russia to Morocco. "I get in a car with my Ukrainian guide and basically drive to certain locations just to meet these people because they live in such isolation. A lot of the wild kids, they don't even know they are gypsies. They don't know what the fuck happened to them and why they are there. But what they do artistically is uncomparable to anything." Some will show up this fall at the second annual New York Gypsy Festival.

The profile also included a photo gallery, Curing your various ills via super Hützness, with some great shots of Gogol Bordello in action.

(Photo: Tricia Romano for the Village Voice)

Slavs out of World Cup

2006-07-05T08:30:00.001-04:00

The World Cup semifinals have started, but all five Slavic teams have been eliminated.

The kids over at Jaunted covered Friday's Italy/Ukraine match that saw the Ukrainian team get pummelled 3-0. Jaunted caught the match at the Ukrainian Sports Club on Second Avenue, which had a full house.

"The Club itself offers a viewing experience similar to that at an Elks Club or a Boy Scout meeting; there's plenty of linoleum, fake wood paneling and brown carpeting to go around. Chairs were parked around big-screen TV, and fans were crowded behind the seats. Team Jerseys were even available for purchase, and we would have been tempted if we could have gotten a discount after Italy's first goal in the sixth minute. Before that quick strike, the room was all nervous anticipation and excitement, filling with chants of "U-kray-ee-na!" whenever the Ukranians touched the ball."

Jaunted also treked out to Bohemian Hall a couple weekends ago to catch the Ghana/Czech Republic match. "Bohemian Hall was ready for early bird fans--they were open by 10 and were selling muffins and coffee for bleary-eyed supporters arriving for the noon match. Of course, they were selling pitchers of beer as well, and most of the true Czech fans were going for the authentic, breakfast beer route. By the start of the match, the line for beer was out the door and around the corner, and the line for food at halftime was long enough that we saw several fans with pitchers of beer and glasses to sustain themselves during the wait. Bohemian Hall serves authentic grilled klobasy and sauerkraut, and it's worth the wait for the tasty sausage."

The Times Ledger posted a report on the Argentina/Serbia game at the Serbian Club in Glendale, which described slightly less World Cup fever than the scenes at the Ukrainian Sports Club and Bohemian Hall. About 40 people showed up to watch Serbia's first two games, but by the time last week's game rolled around, disappointed fans largely stayed away.

The semifinals kicked off tomorrow with with Italy defeating Germany 2-0, and continue today with Portugal v France.

Previously on Slavs of New York: Slavs at the World Cup

(Photos from http://fifaworldcup.yahoo.com/06/en/)

Veselka outpost to open in July

2006-07-03T08:50:00.000-04:00

Last Friday, the kids over at Gothamist discovered that East Village Ukrainian diner Veselka is about to open an outpost at First Park, on the corner of First Avenue and First Street (“One of only two places in Manhattan where a numbered street meets an avenue with the same number,” according to New York Songlines).

The new mini-Veselka will replace Le Kiosk, and is expected to serve more or less the same stuff as at their home base on Second Avenue. The grand opening is expected by mid-July.

Upstate: Sixth Annual Lemko Vatra

2006-06-23T08:25:00.001-04:00

The Organization for the Defense of Lemko Western Ukraine is organizing its sixth annual Lemko Vatra upstate on the campgrounds of the Ukrainian Youth Association near Ellenville.

The full schedule of events kicks off on Saturday at 2:00 p.m. with a soccer game, followed by opening ceremonies and performances by the Metelytsia Quartet, the Oros Sisters, the Budem Razom ensemble, Ina Sydorak and others, at 3:00 p.m. The pig roast starts at 4:30 p.m., followed by the lighting of the bonfire (vatra) at 6:00 p.m. with more music and dance performances by Pid Oblachkom, Ivo Bobul, Chetverta Khvyla and Vidlunya, Iskra and others. The evening continues at 9:00 p.m. with two zabavas (parties) featuring Halychany and Chetverta Khvyla.

Sunday events begin at 10:00 a.m. with a divine liturgy, followed at 2:00 p.m. by a lecture by Mgr. Katherine Mycio entitled “Ruins of the Ukrainian Ethnographic Territory Beyond the Curzon Line.” Closing ceremonies begin at 5:00 p.m.

The Organization for the Defense of Lemko Western Ukraine represents the segment of the Lemko community which considers itself to be a sub-branch of the Ukrainian nation; others (primarily represented by the Carpatho-Rusyn Society) consider themselves to be part of a separate Carpatho-Rusyn people. Nevertheless, this event should attract a broad Lemko audience, Ukrainophiles as well as Rusynophiles.

For more information, call 973-772-3344 or 203-762-5912, or email vatraUSA@aol.com; for room reservations, call 845-647-7230 or email ellenville@cym.org. Click here for directions to the campgrounds.

Clubbing in Greenpoint

2006-06-21T08:30:00.000-04:00

Last week’s Village Voice featured Daphne Carr’s Love and Warsaw: Two thriving Greenpoint dance clubs vie for Polish nightlife supremacy, about the Polish club scene in Brooklyn.

The article focused on the rivalry between Club Europa (98-104 Meserole Avenue at Manhattan Avenue, Greenpoint) and Club Exit (149 Greenpoint Avenue), long favorites of Brooklyn’s Poles and other Slavs. Now, they’re gaining more and more prominence as gentrification pushes hipsters out of Williamsburg and into Greenpoint.

Europa’s owner Zibby Chalecki told the Voice that he sees the club as a “cultural embassy of Poland: ‘It’s not just a discotheque, it’s an arts center.’” He seems to be disappointed that the local Polish community is beginning to move on, but also eager to reach out to the wider community to ensure his business continues to thrive.

Exit is also starting to reach out. Though Saturdays are still Slav-apalooza, Fridays are mostly run by outside promoters who bring in their own audiences (though Slavic bands do come by from time to time).

The Voice website also featured a slideshow, Hot Like That:Scenes from the Polish/New York party life. Check it out.

(Photos: Staci Schwartz/stacipop.com for the Village Voice)

Bosnian Grocery Shopping

2006-06-20T08:12:00.001-04:00

Back in March, the New York Times published Alan Flippen’s The Tastes of Bosnia Follow Those Who Fled, about the arrival of foodstuffs from Bosnia and the former Yugoslavia to grocery store shelves in New York.

According to the article, products such as suho meso (smoked beef), ajvar (a sort of relish), pekmez od sljiva (a fruit spread), Travnik feta cheese and traditional Bosnian Turkish coffee started showing up in New York, primarily in Queens, along with refugees from the war in Bosnia in the early 1990s. The ensuing three-fold increase in the city’s Bosnian population has kept sales of the food products going.

Though there are numerous places around to get former Yugo ingredients, the article points to Euromarket (30-42 31st Street near 30th Avenue, Astoria) and Grand Prix Trading Corporation in Ridgewood.

Previously on Slavs of New York: Another Cevapdzinica opens in Queens

Yonkers Ukrainian Heritage Festival

2006-06-16T08:13:00.001-04:00

The 21st Annual Yonkers Ukrainian Heritage Festival kicks off today and runs through Sunday. Ground zero is the grounds of St. Michael's Ukrainian Catholic Church (corner of 510 North Broadway and 21 Shonnard Place).

The festival attracts large crowds of Ukrainians and non-Ukrainians from throughout the region, fulfilling the organizers’ goal of raising awareness of the Ukrainian community among the general public. Aside from the full schedule of performances, there will also be rides, vendors and classic Ukrainian food.

The festival is sponsored by St. Michael's Ukrainian Catholic Church and the Yonkers branch of the Ukrainian American Youth Association.

Slavs at the World Cup

2006-06-08T08:06:00.001-04:00

We've gotten a few emails lately about where to watch the five Slavic teams compete at the World Cup, and so we figured we should blog it. Games begin on Friday, and not all bars will show all of the games so call ahead to figure out where's best to go. In no particular order, here's the list:

Czech Republic: Bohemian Hall (29-19 24th Avenue, Astoria, 718-274-4925). You can't go wrong with this big giant beer garden behind the historic Czech cultural center in Astoria. Aside from Czech beers, they're also having BBQs.

Croatia: Scorpio (3515 Broadway at 35th Street. Astoria, 718-956-8233). We're not 100% sure they're playing the games, but if anyone is rooting for Croatia, it's Scorpio. Be sure to try the bijela kava (like a latee), certainly the best in the city.

Serbia and Montenegro: Serbian Club (72-65 65th Place, Glendale, 718-821-9875). The mothership for Serbian fans. We've never been, but we hear it's well worth a visit. They've got cold beer, Balkan food and a big-screen TV. Can't go wrong.

Fans of Croatia and Serbia and Montenegro can also check out Zum Stammtisch (69-46 Myrtle Avenue between 69th and 70th Streets, Glendale, 718-386-3014), which of course caters to Germans, but is also frequented by the x-YU communities in the area.

Ukraine: Ukrainian Sports Club (122 Second Avenue between 7th and 8th Streets, East Village, 212-475-1340). If you're a Ukraine fan, there's no other place to be. Aside from the full bar with Ukrainian beer, there's a five-foot projection screen TV. The game schedule is on the front door, pass by and check it out.

Poland: Smolen Bar and Grill (708 Fifth Avenue, Park Slope, 718-788-9729). There must be a stack of places rooting for Poland, but we came up with nothing. Sage, a Slavs of New York reader, came to the rescue by pointing out Smolen, a neighborhood bar frequented by Russians and Poles serving up Polish beer.

UPDATE: Croatia's games will also be shown at the Croatian Center (502 West 41st Street, 212-563-3395) in Manhattan, open to the public and free admission. Croatia v Brazil (13 June at 2:55 p.m.), Croatia v Japan (18 June at 9:00 a.m.) and Croatia v Australia (22 June at 2:55 p.m.).
And Cafe Blue Light (30th Street & 35th Avenue, Astoria) also has a live feed on a plasma TV, as well as Balkan food and $3.50 beer.

Fieldtrip: Slavs of San Francisco!

2006-06-07T08:51:00.000-04:00

The latest in our Slavs of New York vacation reports is from San Francisco, where we just spent four glorious (though chilly) days. It’s a young city, but surprisingly vibrant and definitely full of Slavic types. Here’s the rundown:

Croats are quite well organized, thanks to the Croatian American Cultural Center (60 Onondaga Avenue), which also features events touching on other South Slavic cultures, as well as Romani culture.

Czechs have a homepage and a technological organization, as well as the Cafe Prague (584 Pacific Avenue), Bohemia Pub (1624 California Street at Polk) and Frankie's Bohemian Café (1862 Divisadero Street). There is also a bust of Thomas G. Masaryk in the Rose Garden in Golden Gate Park, and a Sokol Hall.

Poles also have a homepage, as well as the Polonia w San Francisco i Krzemowej Dolini. There is a Polish Club (3040 22nd Street), a Polish Arts and Culture Foundation and the Lowiczanie Polish Folk Dance Ensemble. If you’re hungry, try Old Krakow (385 West Portal Avenue. One of the major Polish churches is the Church of the Nativity (245 Linden Street).

Ukrainians have the Consulate General of Ukraine (530 Bush Street, suite 402) and St. Michael Ukrainian Orthodox Church (345 7th St.). Bulgarians have a homepage. Serbian Easter in San Francisco is described here, and the situation of refugees from Bosnia is described here (.pdf).

Surprisingly, the Slovene community at least used to be quite vibrant. A brief history is here. There is a Slovenian Hall (2101 Mariposa St), and even though it’s Italian, Caffe Trieste (601 Vallejo Street and 1667 Market Street at Gough) can certainly summon a bit of nostalgia among Slovenes.

The Russian community has the deepest roots. Its history is briefly described here, and the situation of recent immigrants is explored here (.pdf). Thanks to the discovery of Cyrillic-inscribed tombstones, one district is called Russian Hill, though most Russians live in the Richmond district.

The focal point of the community is the Russian Center (2450 Sutter Street), home to a number of institutions, including the Congress of Russian-Americans, the Museum of Russian Culture, the Russian Life Daily Newspaper, the Slavyanka Russian Male Chorus and the Russian Library. Other landmarks include the Consulate General of the Russian Federation in San Francisco (2790 Green Street), St John of San Francisco Academy and Sts. Cyril & Methodius High School.

Restaurants include Katia's Russian Tea Room (600 Fifth Avenue), Russian Renaissance Restaurant (5241 Geary Boulevard at 17th Avenue) and the Samovar Tea Room (498 Sanchez Street).

Shops include Globus Slavic Bookstore (332 Balboa Street) and Archangel Bookstore (1352-A Ninth Avenue between Judah and Irving Avenues), and the music store Rasputin (69 Powell Street).

The community has also produced one of the few North American Russian Orthodox saints, Saint John of Shanghai and San Francisco. And so it is no surprise that there are numerous Russian churches in town.

There is the Moscow Patriarchate’s St. Nicholas Cathedral (2005 15th Street at Church Street) and the OCA Christ the Saviour (2040 Anza Street) and Holy Trinity (1520 Green Street at Van Ness Avenue), but the largest number seem to belong to the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia: the Church of the Resurrection (109 Sixth Avenue), the Church of St. Sergius of Radonezh (1346 12th Avenue), the Chapel of St. Tikhon of Zadonsk (598 15th Avenue between Geary and Anza), the Church of the Mother of God of Kazan (5717 California Street), the Holy Virgin Cathedral (6210 Geary Boulevard at 26th Avenue) the Old Cathedral of the Holy Virgin (864 Fulton Street between Webster and Fillmore) and the Russian Convent of Our Lady of Vladimir (3365 19th Street). There’s also a Russian Byzantine Catholic church, Our Lady of Fatima (101 20th Avenue near Lake).

Outside of San Francisco, there’s a homepage for Russian Berkley and the Russian colonial Fort Ross, now a state park.

Mehanata’s BACK!

2006-06-07T08:31:00.001-04:00

After a brief pause, Mehanata is on its way back! The fab Bulgarian bar will reopen on Friday, 9 June, at its new digs at 113 Ludlow Street on the Lower East Side. And headlining the evening? Gogol Bordello!

By the way, the name-change scare is over: they’ve settled on retaining the old name, Mehanata, with the tag line “House of Gyspy.” Very nice.

Fieldtrip: Slavs of Las Vegas!

2006-06-06T08:51:00.000-04:00

Vegas is one of those places where it’s a bit difficult to imagine people actually living, but Sin City is a real city, and has its very own Slavs. Who knew?

Local Bulgarians have their own homepage, and a restaurant called Magura (1305 Vegas Valley Dr.). Croats also have a homepage, and featured in the book The Peoples of Las Vegas: One City Many Faces. Apparently Croats have been in Vegas since the 1920s, and many can trace their lineage back to the Pinjuv brothers, who owned a gas station and motel at Fremont and 10th Street in the 1930s.

Poles have also contributed to Vegas’s history by lending the city one of their own: Wladziu Valentino Liberace. The local Polish community also supports the Polonez Polish Restaurant Bar & Deli (1243 E Sahara Ave, Las Vegas) and the Polish American Social Club of Las Vegas.

Pseudo-Russian Vegas attractions include the bar Red Square (Mandalay Bay Resort & Casino, 3950 Las Vegas Blvd. S. at Tropicana Ave.) and the Guggenheim Hermitage Museum at the Venetian, as well as the Men of Russia spectacular.

A bit more authentic are the Eliseevsky Restaurant (4825 W. Flamingo Road) the Russian Tea Room (3743 Las Vegas Blvd S). Other landmarks include St. Paul the Apostle Orthodox Church (OCA; 5400 Annie Oakley Drive) and the Life-Giving Spring Retreat Center (in near-by Boulder City). There’s also a Russian Vegas homepage.

The city also boasts a Serbian church, St. Simeon Serbian Orthodox Church (3950 South Janes Boulevard), and a Rusyn one, St. Gabriel the Archangel Byzantine (Ruthenian) Catholic Church (2250 East Maule Ave).

And if you can’t make it out West, Slavic Las Vegas is featured in the novel Blood of Montenegro, by Bajram Angelo Koljenovic and James Nathan Post.

Counter Culture: Feta Blizzard

2006-05-22T08:35:00.001-04:00

We should've noted this earlier, but better late than never, right? Last weeks Village Voice featured Counter Culture: Feta Blizzard, about Bulgara (31-10 11th Street) in Long Island City, Queens.

This is one of just two Bulgarian restaurants left in the city (togeter with Tricolorii in Sunnyside), with the closure of Chinatown's Mehanata back in March.

Though Bulgara "is located in a rat's ass of a neighborhood in Long Island City," the food is deemed more than satisfactory, if the ambience is not. Be forewarned: this is no Mehanata. But if you're hankering for solid Bulgarian fare, you won't go wrong here.

(Photo: Kate Lacey for the Village Voice)

Carpatho-Rusyn Day Parade...?

2006-05-15T08:32:00.001-04:00

Last week, a group calling themselves the Andi Warholas were "blurring the Line Between Consumptive Art and Consumption of Art" by staging their own Andy Warhol Sunday Stroll.

Warhol is best known as the father of Pop Art and a consumate New Yorker, but he is also the most famous Carpatho-Rusyn of all time.

The connection was featured in the 1997 book Andy Warhol's Religious and Ethnic Roots: The Carpatho-Rusyn Influence on His Art, but more important than the Rusyn infuence on Warhol has been Warhol's influence on the Rusyns. The link will be celebrated later this summer, when the Andy Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh hosts its ninth annual Carpatho-Rusyn Event on 29 July.