Soviet Emigres in N.Y. : ‘Little Odessa’ Casts Wary Eye on Gorbachev

BRIGHTON BEACH, N.Y. —  A cold December wind blew off the Atlantic, and burly men in thick sweaters hurried down the boardwalk and into the smoky Gastronom Moscow for icy vodka and hot politics.

A block away, shoppers jammed markets filled with smoked fish and sausages, caviar and kielbasa and piroshkis. Speaking the argot of Odessa and Kiev, they browsed in Russian-language bookstores and pored over Cyrillic papers at the newsstand.

Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev has no plans to take the “D” subway line to Brighton Beach during his three-day visit to New York this week, but that makes him the exception. More than 30,000 other Russians have settled here in “Little Odessa” in the past decade, turning this long-faded Brooklyn neighborhood into the nation’s largest Russian community.

Applause and Distrust

Not surprisingly, Gorbachev’s visit has drawn strong interest among the Russian emigres. Many applaud the changes in Soviet society under Gorbachev, as well as warmer relations with the United States. Others distrust the Communist leader and are wary of his motives. But nearly everyone is watching closely.

“We’re all hoping and praying for peace, and for the changes with Gorbachev,” said Simon Feldman, owner of the White Acacia Supermarket and a community leader since he arrived from the Ukraine in 1974. “I think we have to wish him good luck. But I personally do not believe (the changes).”

“I admire Gorbachev, and I admire his wife,” said Lydia Kegeyan, 36, co-owner with her husband, Hovik, of the month-old Cafe Arbat. Indeed, she defended Raisa Gorbachev over criticism in a local newspaper story about her plans to shop while in Manhattan.

“Why not?” Kegeyan demanded. “She’s a woman. Why does Nancy Reagan have a right to look like a woman and Raisa Gorbachev does not? Because she is a Communist?”

But Dr. Boris Lipovsky, 45, who arrived nine years ago from Leningrad and now runs a medical clinic with his wife, said communism is precisely the problem.

‘Surrounded by Communists’

“Maybe he is a good guy,” he said. “But he cannot do anything. He is surrounded by Communists. . . . When I hear about free elections in the U.S.S.R., then I will believe there are changes over there.”

“People have mixed reactions,” explained Pauline Bilus, director of the Action for Russian Immigrants project, a service group at the Shorefront YMCA. “But overall, there’s a kind of cautious optimism.”

Consider the Coalition to Free Soviet Jews: The group has organized protests against Soviet emigration policies for years. They will demonstrate for Soviet Jews across from the United Nations on Wednesday morning, as usual, but with an unusual goal.

“The primary focus is acknowledging the positive steps Gorbachev has taken in recent months,” said Zeesy Schnur, executive director of the coalition. “We want to encourage him to continue.”

In 1986, for example, only 641 Soviet Jews came to America. Some 5,708 arrived last year, while 12,794 have arrived so far this year. At least 60,000 Soviet Jews have settled in New York since the 1970s, she said, half in Brighton Beach.

She said the coalition will raise eight demands at the demonstration, among them easier immigration to Israel, easier reunification of families and an end to anti-Semitic groups in the Soviet Union. “It will not be one of our biggies,” she acknowledged.

Groups of Armenians, Afghans and Ukrainians are planning demonstrations, however.

One problem, several emigres said, is a new U.S. immigration policy. The State Department has denied refugee status to at least 175 Soviet Jews and 99 Soviet Armenians in recent months because they could not demonstrate a “well-founded fear of persecution” in the Soviet Union. The United States previously has given virtually automatic approval to refugee applications from Soviet Jews and Soviet Armenians.

That the United States is hindering immigration is hard for many here to accept. Although known as the home of Eugene Jerome, the fictional protagonist in Neil Simon’s “Brighton Beach Memoirs,” today’s Brighton Beach was more accurately portrayed in Robin Williams’ film, “Moscow on the Hudson.” Parts of the film were shot in a local supermarket and nightclub.

“This is land of opportunity,” said Buba Khotoveli, who arrived in 1974 from Soviet Georgia and now is owner and chef at the popular Primorski nightclub. “I worked two jobs. No money. No English. Now I am boss. Too much.”

Gorbachev’s policy of glasnost , or openness, also has created opportunities for those who live here. Once regarded as traitors, many emigres now are free to return to their homeland to visit family and friends. New York nightclubs feature visiting Soviet singers and artists, and Khotoveli boasts of attracting Russian tourists and officials to his restaurant.

In the last year, Soviet officials have given interviews to emigre newspapers, appeared on a local Russian-language cable program and even invited former pariahs to receptions at the Soviet Mission to the United Nations.

Although about 50 emigres left Brighton Beach to move back to the Soviet Union in 1986, they were the exception. Some eventually returned to the United States. Others who go back to visit now call it “the best cure for nostalgia,” Bilus said. “They say nothing has changed.”

Michael Feinberg, a reporter for the Novoye Russkoye Slovo, the only Russian-language daily newspaper outside the Soviet Union, insists that the changes of glasnost are cosmetic. He warns that Americans are fooled by Gorbachev’s appealing style.

“Gorbachev is no different than the other Communists,” said Feinberg, who arrived 10 years ago from Odessa. “You can have a wolf, one gray, one black. But he is still a wolf.”

Pat Singer, co-founder of the 11-year-old Brighton Neighborhood Assn., said most older Russians she deals with do not like Gorbachev either.

“Most Russians have become Republicans,” she said with a laugh. “It drives me crazy. They love Reagan, and none of them like Gorbachev. They all distrust him. They all want a strong defense. They’re for law and order, capital punishment. They’re very conservative politically.”

For now, Gorbachev’s visit is a hot topic on Brighton Beach Avenue, where shoppers wend their way under rumbling elevated subway tracks, between barrels of pickles and slabs of meat and past Russian-language ads for lawyers and tour agents.

“It’s very exciting,” said Jane Orlikov, who arrived in 1974 and now runs the Black Sea Book Shop. “He’s been doing unbelievable things in the Soviet Union, this glasnost and letting people leave. I think it is real progress.”

“It’s a good idea,” said Inessa Golub, 35, who works at the Photo Delight stand. “It is important for peace.”

But few here plan to brave Manhattan’s traffic to try for a glimpse of Gorbachev. “I’ve got nothing in common with him,” explained Feldman, who still keeps a photo of himself as a child in a Russian military uniform above his supermarket cash register. “I’m an American. What am I going to say, ‘Look, Mr. Gorbachev, how good I got it here?’ ”