After immigrating to the US in 1991 and settling in the Bronx (and this is a fascinating story that I will write about some day), we did not make it to Brighton Beach for another couple of years at least.

Brighton Beach, a small place on a southern tip of Brooklyn, became a popular Russian enclave after the wave of immigration in the 70s settled in this place, nicknamed Little Odessa. When we got there, even many signs were in Russian. There were Russian pharmacies, Russian insurance agents, Russian Real Estate agents, Russian stores and everything else Russian. You could hear Russian all around you, and there were a lot of older people who did not need English to live their lives.

And even not Russian speaking people managed to adjust to the changed environment. Mexicans working in Korean owned groceries on all corners learned how to say "Stupid, buy today, or you will pay more tomorrow" in pure Russian with the smile from ear to ear, so conflicting with the rudeness of the phrase...

There was even a joke, that an American stops the car on Brighton Beach to ask for directions, and nobody speaks English, and one Russian guy asked the other Russian guy "So, did his English help him?". When an American walks in a Russian store, where the salespeople spoke no English, you could here when the sales lady calls for a supervisor, who understands English, to come and serve"a foreigner".

One of those famous Russian Stores on Brighton Beach is Золотой Ключик ("Golden Key"). The way the flow of people was organized made you bump into others. I think they did it intentionally in order to create a Russian store atmosphere, where there is a crowd of people shoulder to shoulder...

Where you socialize with those next to you, and you have common dislike against those who are on the other side of the counter, as they have access to goods that you do not have access to (money is not an object here, it is the power to give to one and not give to another). This is a place where you encounter adversity and yell at each other and call other people names... It was so Russian...

The lines in the store were surreal and so weird in America where there are no lines, and no shoulder to shoulder socializing... but it was so Russian, so nostalgic for a lot of people, especially the older ones..

In the Soviet Union, where lines were an integral part of living, your status related to this lines was of tremendous social importance. Party officials did not stay in lines. There was a system of providing goods to them. No lines there. The goods were priced the same, but the value of the ruble there was much higher, as you did not have to bribe to get anything. 

The salespeople was another group of people, who had access to goods and distribution. And then there were some important people, who had connections, and who were instrumental in exchanging one goods for another, so that if you had access to meat, you could get clothes in exchange.

And then there were the rest of us. People, whose rubles were pretty worthless. Nobody wanted them.

Actually, there was another group of people, who had a bit of privilege as it pertains to lines - veterans. In the Soviet Union in the 80s, when there were not really that many veterans of the WWII left, they instituted the regulation, that veterans could go to the head of the line, show their veteran's ID and buy without staying in exhausting lines.

The country loved their veterans... in general, but often not up and close. Every time a older guy would be trying to squeeze to the counter through this shoulder to shoulder monolith, the line would be getting adversarialy anxious. Then there would be a nasty exchange, where the veteran, buying a pair of women bra, would get yelled at, and would yell back telling the crowd that he was spilling his blood for these bastards, and now HAS THE RIGHT to buy the bra (cologne, toilet paper, chicken legs, high boots, you name it) without standing in line.

Veterans deserved it. It was the country's Thank you to them, and as little as it was, they cherished the mere fact of their exclusivity.

In 1989-1992 a lot of them came here with the last wave of immigration from the Soviet Union. They did  not want to go, but they were tied to their sons and daughters, who decided to look for better life abroad. Life in the US turned out to be better than they expected. After they settled, they figured that they did  not need to worry about food and shelter, and free medical help was like in the Soviet Union, but much better, and even those, destined to die there, underwent unheard of before procedures and got their second and third chance in life.

They  soon formed the Association of Veterans of WWII (In Russia it is not WWII, it is always the Great Patriotic War, which started June 22nd 1941 and ended May 9, 1945). Somehow eventually they ended up with 2 associations of veterans. The 2 Associations of older people cold not handle their disagreements in a civil manner, and in Russian language media there was a dirty campaign. Each of those associations claimed to be the only true one representing the veterans, and tried to shut the other one...

Puzzled and confused, American media was trying to understand what that all was about, but it make very little sense.I never had Russian radio or Russian TV since we immigrated to the US, and the great fights of my compatriots did not affect our lives. I only once heard the interview with the official of one of those associations.

I remember the journalist asking the old gentleman, what they wanted, and his responses stunned not only the journalist, but myself. They wanted the American Government to acknowledge them as Veterans of WWII. They did not ask for pensions, no. So what did they want?

They wanted the government to issue Veteran IDs, so that those veterans could use them to buy stuff without staying in line.

- Which lines? The journalist could not understand it. The veteran looked at him angrily and repeated the demand.

It did not matter that there were no lines. They wanted to be acknowldged, and the only way they knew were those ID giving the right to buy. No lines? So what? The right, that's what important. Being different from other people was important. They wanted to be IMPORTANT.

The entitlements were so embedded in the brains, that their value survived 11,000 km flight, survived a different life, different reality. They still demanded the Government issued ID even when there was no practical or ethical reason for that.

These people beat the most feared enemy in the history of the world. They beat the Nazi. But they could not beat a small plastic card saying that the bearer of it is an IMPORTANT person. They could not lose the privilege that card was offering... even when there was no privilege any more.

The mighty power of entitlements. It is when not when everyone has a blanket...It is when there is a blanket and yo can pull it your way. And others can't.

* Photo is coutesy of Flickr