Why Zill Never Stand for the Star Spangled Banner Again
Across a cemetery cluttered with Russian crosses, a thread-bare American flag is framed between 23-carat, gold-leaf cupolas that poke skyward from St. Mary's Russian Orthodox Church.
This is Russia in New Jersey, a sprawling and steadily dissipating group of communities most lx miles s of New York City, where thousands can recall how Russian Communists killed their relatives, where wrinkled Russian-Americans sing the "Star Spangled Banner" with moisture eyes, and where at that place are nevertheless memories of the vodka-guzzling bash in 1953 that celebrated Stalin's death.
Here, the give-and-take Communist is a synonym for damned, and information technology was where Ivan Rogalsky, a 34-year-old one-time Russian seaman, was arrested last month and accused of being a Russian spy.
Rogalsky, who lived, played cards and drank effectually here for nearly iii years, was arrested for unsuccessfully trying to coax defense secrets from an RCA engineer who works at an astro-electronics plant near Princeton. He was nabbed by FBI agents moments after the RCA engineer, who was working with the agents, had handed the Russian "highly classified documents" related to satellite communications.
Like thousands before him, Rogalsky came to this village of Russians because it was piece of cake.
After jumping ship in Spain in 1970 and coming to the United states a year later on to get a permanent resident alien, Rogalsky slipped easily into a community honed by 4 generations of Russians out of what had once been deserted Bailiwick of jersey pinelands.
The first wave of Russian immigrants, those who had fled their homeland just before and after the Bolshevik revolution in 1917, bought a i,400-acre resort here in 1934. The emigres, in an organization called the Russian Consolidated Assist Lodge of America, paid $50,000 for the land, money gathered from thousands of Russians.
The resort was named Rova Farms and Russians from across the country moved here and bought land from Rova Farms. Many of those who settled were from White Russia, a geographical area around the urban center of Minsk in central Russia. They were the children of peasants and they had a difficult time adapting to American culture and linguistic communication. At Rova Farms, they built two Russian Orthodox churches and brought up their children speaking Russian. They were mostly craftsmen and laboring people; they paid their taxes, took intendance of each other and did not crusade any problems for the local Jackson Township government.
The second generation, the sons and daughters of the emigres, who grew up on Rova Farms or who lived in New York and spent their summers here, became adults with many of the cultural and language problems that had plagued their parents.
Nicholas Zill, the son of a Minsk-born laborer, grew up in Manhattan and rode in buses full of jabbering Russian teenagers down to Rova Farms during summers in the late 1930s. Zill, now threescore, says almost of the people of his generation wanted to alloy into American society, exist successful, make money, but they didn't have the opportunity because there was not enough money for well-nigh to get to higher.
During the youth of this generation, the tardily '30s and '40s, Rova Farms blossomed as a thriving Russian resort and community. On St. Vladimir's Twenty-four hours, one of the major holidays of Russian Christendom on July 28, crowds of ten,000 or more would swarm Rova Farms in the 1940s to sentinel a priest dip a golden cantankerous in h2o, then to trip the light fantastic and beverage.
Tanya Sawyer, now 57 and living near Hackensack, N.J., says she and her friends would come down from the city without even knowing where they would slumber. In that location was free dancing all summer and coach transhore. When the dancing was over, she said there were always families offer places to stay.
The children of the second generation, who are now in their mid-20s, take made it in American guild. They have gone to college and, co-ordinate to Zill, who has become a chronicler of Rova Farms, many have gone on to top professional positions across the country. Few visit Rova Farms and almost none have settled nearby. They've outgrown it, it's that simply," says Zill.
One other group of Russians are the "displaced persons" from World State of war Ii, who were hauled out of Russia past the Germans and forced to work during the state of war in farms and factories in Bavaria and around Berlin.
Afterwards the state of war, they came to this country and, like the alleged spy Rogalsky, moved to this region of New Jersey considering it was easy to fit in.
Soya Alchevski, the wife of a contractor who had starting time invited Rogalsky to come to Cassville, was a displaced person, or D.P., as they are called. She is a short, chunky woman of l with a square face and red dark-brown hair that is combed back straight and simple. Her nose is broad and the pare of her face has a permanent reddish flush, equally though she'd just come in from the cold. Her eyes are gray-blueish and intelligent. She speaks Russian, Polish, French, German and English, all well.
When she was 10 and growing up near Saint petersburg, the Communists sent her father away and he was never heard from again. When she was fifteen, the Germans stole her away to do farm chores near Nuremberg. She was married in Deutschland and came to New York and establish a job equally a cleaning lady in 1953.
Fourteen years agone, she and her hubby bought a summer house here; last year they moved from a deteriorating New York neighborhood and settled here permanently.Like all the D.P.'s living near here, her hatred of the Communists is visceral. Her eyes seem cold and her face up belligerent when she talks nigh the electric current Russian regime. She thinks the U.s. far too ready to believe Soviet leaders. The Soviets will sign annihilation, promise annihilation to go what they desire, she argues. The Helsinki accord, with its guarantee of basic human rights for the people of Eastern Europe, is for Mrs. Alchevski a bad joke.
Also hatred, there is fright of Communism amongst the fourth generation of Russians, the D.P.'s. Herman Schultz, 53, is the managerof Rova Farms. He, too, was hauled off to Germany during World State of war II. The Communists killed his father in a near Minsk. He says he is afraid of the KGB, the Soviet secret police, both for his sis and for himself.
"For those who were in Russia during the Stalin regime - everybody scared. Fear is nonetheless in them and in me. Now, I don't want to mix with politics. I am not political man."
The children of the D.P.'south, most of whom are in their early teens are spoken to in Russian at home, but they frequently prefer to reply in English. Zoya Alchevski is sending her 12-year-old son to a Russian church school in nearby Lakewood, a school that draws from the approximately 7,000 Russian-Americans who alive inside a twenty-mile radius.
"I recollect he should be proud of the person he is.Jews conserve their identity for two,000 years. Why should we forget we are Russian?" Mrs. Alcheski asked. Notwithstanding, her son hates the schoolhouse, which ruins his Saturday play time. He speaks English around the house despite Zoya's threats to ship him back to New York City if he continues to say "aye."
The children of the D.P.'southward, their parents admit, will skid away from their Russian heritage into American society as did the children of the first immigrants.
Although the 800 or and then Russian-born D.P.'s and their families who've settled around Cassville have breathed new life into Rova Farms in the past 20 years, they have non showtime what many hither see as the inevitable dissolution and expiry of the community.
Herman Schultz, who has been running the banquet and restaurant operation at Rova Farms for years, says his best and nigh steady merchandise is in funeral gatherings. The Russians celebrate death with hearty meals. With the almost weekly expiry of members of the first wave of immigrants, who are in their 70s and 80s, there is a lot to celebrate.
Two organizations that were originally part of Rova Farms and that bargain with old people and death have separated into contained corporations. Pushkin Memorial Dwelling house, which provides housing for Russian widows and widowers, is nearly always filled to chapters. St. Vladimir's Memorial Cemetery, which one local called a "delightful" resting place, entombs the bodies of Russian emigres from all over the United States. Nicholas Zill, the chronicler of Russians in Jersey, says the cemetery is the largest of its kind exterior Russia and Eastern Europe.
There are two Russian Orthodox churches near hither. St. Mary's, with its three gilt cupolas, sits on a knoll in the Russian cemetery and nearly funerals are conducted there. St. Vladimir'due south Russian Memorial Church, with just i gilt cupola, has no congregation. The church exists to memorialize the expressionless and pray for the soonhoped-for dead.
Father Constantine Fedoroff, a pastor at St. Vladimir's, spends betwixt 1 ane/2 and ii hours each day in a memorial service reading aloud the names of 2,500 dead and 1,500 mostly elderly Russian-Americans. In the church, which is partially walled with icons, the 38-yr-old priest lights candles, stands before an altar in his floppy gray wool robe, white gold-inlaid stole and purple fez-like cap and reads off names.
Information technology was into this dying Russian community that Ivan Rogalsky, defendant spy, came to alive. By his relative youth lonely, he was an anomaly equally a Russian-born emigre. And, in an un-spy-like manner, he lived a life that attracted attending.
John Alchevski, the man who invited Rogalsky down from the Bronx - they met when Rogalsky repaired Alchevski's car once - frequently spoke with the young Russian during his first year or and then in Cassville. Alchevski says that Rogalsky refused to accept funding to start his ain garage concern. He says, also, that Rogalsky quit his part-time job at the One-Stop Garage after about v months. Rogalsky was known to oftentimes play cards for stakes in the hundreds of dollars.
Alchevski asked Rogalsky where he got the money to play cards and not work. Alchevski says the young Russian who traveled across the U.s. upwards to Alaska in 1975, replied that he had won a lilliputian at cards and made plenty money to live by doing auto repairs.
In April, 1975, according to Jackson Township law, Rogalsky ripped a telephone from the wall at Rova Farms and threatened manager Schultz with a knife. Witnesses said Rogalsky warned Schultz: "You volition be dead in the morning." Later on, in the summer of 1975, according to witnesses, Rogalsky was paying his neb at Rova Farms for a bowl of borscht when he threatened to kill the waitress giving him alter.
Nicholas Zill, who was honored terminal month every bit Rova Subcontract'south man of the year, spoke oft with Rogalsky in the resort's dining room and bar. Zill says Rogalsky offered to kill a human who he idea was Zill's enemy. Zill, who worked for Hearst newspapers in advertizing for 25 years, doubts that Rogalsky could have succeeded as a spy.
"He went out of his way to draw attention to himself," he says.
When Rogalsky was arrested, Zill's reaction, along with that of Alchevski, was ane of atheism.
Both Zill and Alchevski say that if Rogalsky was involved in espionage action he was duped into it by someone else. They have given their assessment of Rogalsky to the FBI, which interviewed them recently.
Information technology has been nearly a month since Rogalsky's arrest. The story was front end-folio news in local papers for days and was broadcast on both New York and Philadelphia television news programs.
Notwithstanding, the Russian people here are not stirred up nearly the alleged spy for the regime they despise. Father Constantine, who has been out to more than than l houses in the past month to give each his annual blessing, says that just i person has even mentioned the Rogalsky arrest.
Father Constantine says the accused spy only doesn't seem that threatening to the Russian customs.
Perhaps a dying community, like a dying man, is hard to scare.
Why Zill Never Stand for the Star Spangled Banner Again
Source: https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/lifestyle/1977/02/06/bittersweet-heritage-two-russias-in-new-jersey/3e59641d-4962-4b1c-8d5f-d2c898286a0d/