Kansas City with the Russian Accent header image 2

Little Odessa on Brighton Beach

July 16th, 2008 · 3 Comments

Whether I plan on it or not, every one of my trips to New York somehow brings me to Brighton Beach - an area in Brooklyn populated by the Soviet immigrants. Known in popular culture as “Little Odessa” it looks nothing like the original Odessa - a beautiful sunny city on the Black Sea in Ukraine. As a matter of fact it looks just the opposite: tight, crowded,dirty and located under the subway which periodically rattles everyone and everything underneath. Russian is the language around here, Russian stores, Russian food, Russian shows, Russian newsstands, Russian, Russian, Russian… I am not used to people understanding me on the street. I feel out of place. I am from Kansas, I don’t belong, so I have to grab my favorite foods - pirozhki, vareniki, chocolates and quickly return back to sanity.

I’ll be back…

You can read more about it here, here and here.

Created with Admarket’s flickrSLiDR.

Tags: Photo · Russian Accent

3 responses so far ↓

  • 1 Melinda // Jul 17, 2008 at 10:29 am

    I love pirozhki. I had them in Moscow and St. Petersburg - the one with potato was great, followed by the apricot. Can you make these?? I’d love a recipe if you can.

  • 2 m.v. // Jul 17, 2008 at 7:39 pm

    Sure I can make these, but then I’ll have to eat them by myself and I am fat enough already. This recipe looks about right.

  • 3 jocosob // Jul 22, 2008 at 4:49 pm

    I just saw a show on the history channel about little odessa and the Russian Mafia. Interesting place

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