On 6 January, the New York Times published an excellent article about Ukrainian East Village stalwart Vesekla, "A Ukrainian Beacon in the East Village."
As we're catching up on our blogging, here's a selection of recent news: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!
The Mosque?(Cooper Union photo: Gianni Cipriano for The New York Times; Photo of Rev. Wiaczeslaw Krawczuk from the New York Post)
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
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.
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.
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).
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.
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.
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.
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. 
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). 
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.”
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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).
Slovenia’s Foreign Minister Dimitrij Rupel visited the Church of St. Cyril (62 St. Mark's Place) as the parish celebrated its 90th jubilee.
The kids over Gridskipper have embarked on the “Trans-Siberian express to obliteration,” 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). 
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. 
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.
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.
The World Cup semifinals have started, but all five Slavic teams have been eliminated.
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."
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.
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).
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: 
