New Jersey has many popular leisure attractions and natural wonders that are widely promoted and visited by the masses. This article will provide information on the little known or offbeat places that are of interest to people with special interests, and for school teachers that are looking for a field trip to supplement their children’s education curriculum.

The Best of New Jersey’s Unusual Attractions

Cowtown Rodeo

780 Route 40, Pilesgrove, NJ

856-769-3200

May-September, 7:30 PM, Saturday nights

Enjoy quality Western Rodeo entertainment by touring professional cowboys. Includes; Bareback Bronc Riding, Calf Roping, Steer Wrestling, Girls Barrel Racing, Brahma Bull Riding.

Franklin Mineral Museum

2 Evans Street, Franklin, Sussex County, NJ

973-827-3481

The Franklin mine is a zinc mine known for its unique display of mineral fluorescence, (glowing rocks) and variety of rare species. They have thousands of mineral specimens on display with a huge fluorescent presentation of brilliant and glowing colorful minerals.

The museum also has demonstrations and examples of the mining methods used during that period of operation. Although the primary focus is mineral science, geology, and local mining history, they also cover the science of archeology and anthropology with field collection and mineral identification. The museum welcomes teachers and school tours and can create a curriculum to fit your schools educational interest.

Grape Expectations

25E Kearney St. Bridgewater, NJ

732-764-WINE (9463)

Create your own quality table wines, using some of the finest varieties of California grapes. Experience the atmosphere of a winery and the enjoyment of the hobby of wine making. You will be involved in the complete process of wine making from the crushing and pressing of your grapes to the racking and bottling of your oak-barreled, specially prepared wine.

Northlandz

495 Highway 202 South, Flemington, NJ

(908) 782-4022

Home of the Great American Railway, Doll Museum & Art Gallery;

They have over a hundred miniature trains and eight miles of track running past mountains and bridges. See the ninety four room dollhouse with many features found in real life mansions. Ride the Raritan River steam Railway replica as it travels through nature filled scenery. Visit the Doll Museum with over two hundred dolls from different countries.

The Pequest Trout Hatchery and

Natural Resource Education Center

605 Pequest Rd. Oxford, NJ

908-637-4125

See a video about the trout hatching process from conception to stocking. Experience a self-instructional tour that shows the trout rearing and an exhibit hall with live fish. Hiking trails and Picnic areas are also available. Great for children and school tours.

Rankokus Indian Reservation

Rancocas, NJ

(609) 261-4747

Situated on 350 acres in the town of Westampton, NJ, is the Indian nation’s administrative and educational, cultural, social programs center that has been established to help the people of the State of New Jersey, and school children in particular, to understand the Rankokus Indians and their ways and history through a tour of the reservation, its museum, art gallery, and the many exhibits and nature trails. Learn about Indian history from the native Indians and the true story of the Pocahontas myth. Popular with teachers and school children who are looking for a field trip to supplement their educational curriculum.

Unusual Attractions For Discovery, Education And Fun is from collectibledollstore.net

“We had Jacob’s soccer coach over for dinner to make sure he understood that Jacob doesn’t respond well to direct commands. We want the coach to use “suggestions” when talking to Jacob about soccer techniques.”

“I can’t believe the teacher asked Phoebe to write her paper again with better penmanship. Doesn’t that woman know it’s the content of the writing rather than how it looks? I don’t want Phoebe to think she is a poor writer just because of sloppy handwriting.”

Ahhhh the thought patterns of helicopter parents! These over-bearing, obsessive, hovering parents micro-manage every aspect of their children’s lives. It isn’t enough to make sure their toddler listens to Baby Einstein and excels at Gymboree classes. The Wall Street Journal recently reported cases of helicopter parents accompanying their college-graduate children to job interviews. Some companies offering internships for college seniors now conduct parent orientation programs to stem the numerous phone calls from helicopter parents. While helicopter parents may have the best intentions, in reality, they are raising children with few problem solving skills. Children with hovering parents never get the chance to face disappointment and build up resiliency.

Let’s hear it for …SUBMARINE PARENTS! Think about your typical submarine. (Not an everyday topic of parental discussion.) Submarines usually remain underwater, out of sight. In case of a need for emergency surfacing, submarines can rise so quickly they are propelled partially out of the water. Submarine parents also remain out of sight, yet able to pop up in the case of an emergency. Let’s look at the difference between helicopter and submarine parents: Helicopter Parents: Prepare sack lunches for their child, complete with dinosaur shaped sandwiches and lengthy notes extolling the wonder of their child’s intelligence, good looks and ability to use the remote. Submarine Parents: Lay out a variety of school lunch supplies and encourage their child to pack his own lunch. If Matt packs only chips and carrot sticks, he’ll get hungry and pack a bigger lunch the next day.

Helicopter parents: Sell family heirlooms on E-Bay in order to pay for a $3, 995 Silver Cross Pram. (Canopy only an additional $225.00!) In order to get full use out of this pram, even three and four year olds are pushed through the park while munching on gourmet, flax-seed crackers. Submarine Parents: Buy a sturdy and comfortable stroller at a garage sale for $25.00. As soon as the child starts to walk, the stroller is re-sold at a garage sale and kids get exercise by walking and running.

Helicopter Parents: Participate in all their child’s homework projects. When a fifth grade teacher assigned the task of building a model of the solar system, (without using Styrofoam balls!) helicopter parents complained in mass. How could their future astronomer reconstruct the galaxy of planets without proportionately sized Styrofoam balls? Submarine Parents: Encourage their children to look around the house for items to use. One mother donated a collection of dryer lint so her son could add glue and create mini-lint balls representing planets.

I admit, I’m a submarine parent. My job as a parent is to have fun with my daughters while letting them explore and learn natural consequences. My youngest daughter Sondra didn’t know stores had dressing rooms until she was eight. I bought all her (cute!) clothes at garage sales and consignment shops. After washing each item, she’d find it hanging in her closet or folded in a drawer. There was no discussion about, “Will you wear this if I buy it for you?” My older daughter found herself acting in commercials and making more than minimum wage as a teen. To give her a sense of the real world, I insisted she spend three weeks every summer, picking strawberries and earning $3.50 on a good day. When Sondra was six, she wanted an uber-expensive American Girl Doll. I cut the full color, 18″ picture out of the American Girl catalog and had it laminated. “Here’s your American Girl Doll.” I said “When you turn nine, I’ll buy you the three dimensional doll on your birthday.” Sondra played with her flat doll for months, making clothes and furniture for her. She learned creativity. I saved $88.00.

Forget the Helicopter Parents. be a Submarine Parent! is from collectibledollstore.net

Hundreds of thousands of searches take place each month on Kovels.com. With 700,000+ antiques and collectibles in its online price guide, Kovels.com is the Web’s largest price guide for antiques and collectibles.

1. Occupied Japan – No movement
2. Jewelry – No movement
3. Capo-Di Monte – Up from #4
4. Silver plate – Down from #3
5. Stoves – No movement
6. Furniture – Up from #7
7. World War II – Down from #6
8. Coca Cola -Up from #12
9. Lighters – Down from #8
10. Royal Bayreuth – Down from #9
11. Lladro – Down from #10
12. Clock – Up from #15
13. Knife – Up from #16
14. Planters Peanuts – Not listed last month
15. Dionne Quintuplets – Not listed last month
16. Doll – Down from #14
17. Copeland Spode – Up from #18
18. Josef Originals – Down from #13
19. Hutschenreuther – Down from #11
20. McCoy – Down from #17

Compared to january 2008, this was a very stable list with just two new categories.

People use price guides for a number of reasons, usually to determine the value of an item that they own. If an item isn’t listed in the top 20, it doesn’t mean it is unpopular or that there isn’t a demand for it. It only means that in January there was less interest in finding prices for that item.

Terry Kovel will discuss the content of this release or any other antiques and collectibles topics with accredited media. Pictures available. Contact pr@Kovels.com.

About Kovels.com
Terry Kovel, with her husband Ralph, has authored more than 95 books about collecting and antiques, including the best-selling annual price guide, “Kovels’ Antiques and Collectibles Price Guide.” Hailed by Parade magazine as “the duchess of the antiques world,” Terry Kovel publishes a monthly newsletter, Kovels on Antiques and Collectibles, and writes a syndicated weekly newspaper column distributed to more than 150 newspapers and websites. Terry and Ralph appeared weekly on the HGTV program “Flea Market Finds with the Kovels.” Terry’s popular website with free prices and information for collectors is http://www.Kovels.com. The Kovels’ most recent books are “Kovels’ American Collectibles, 1900 to 2000,” and “Kovels’ Antiques and Collectibles Price Guide 2009,” with 2,500 photos and 44,000 actual prices. Both are available wherever books are sold and online at http://www.Kovels.com/e?books. Terry’s latest special report is “Kovels’ Buyer’s Guide to 20th-Century Costume Jewelry,” which is available exclusively at http://www.Kovels.com/e?jewelry-report.

Contact Information:
pr@kovels.com
Website: http://www.Kovels.com

Kovels’ Top 20 Collectors’ Searches for February 2009 is from collectibledollstore.net

In fact, very few are even aware that for a period of time, a fairly hefty chunk of history, Russia actually controlled Alaska.

The Russian occupation of Alaska began in the mid 1700s when Russian explorers like Vitus Bering started to delve further into the area, and when fur traders began to settle at places such as Iliuliuk on Unalaska.

Today, Unalaska, located on the Aleutian Island chain, offers visitors a glimpse of that past with the Russian Orthodox Cathedral of the Holy Ascension. Built in 1825, complete with red roofs, green onion domes and a small churchyard, the church was declared a National Historic Landmark in 1970 and was recently restored in 1998. It now houses one of the largest collections of religious artifacts and icons in the United States.

As the fur trade grew and more Russians ventured into the area, the first permanent Russian settlement in Alaska was established in 1784 by Gregory Shelikoff and his fur company on Kodiak Island, a settlement that was moved 8 years later to the site of the present-day Kodiak.

Kodiak still retains much of its Russian flavor, complete even with Russian street names.

The Baranov Museum, a warehouse built in the 1790s by Alexander Baranov to store furs, is the oldest remaining Russian structure in the state and houses a fine array of artifacts of Kodiak’s time as a Russian settlement.

Other Russian themed attractions include the beautiful Holy Resurrection Russian Orthodox Church established in 1794 complete now with icons and references to Saint Herman, the first priest canonized in the USA. There is also the Veniaminov Research Institute Museum which showcases bibles and icons used by the Orthodox missionaries in the 1800s

An annual Kodiak event at Monks Lagoon celebrates the canonization Father Herman and the Saint Herman’s Orthodox Theological Seminary in Kodiak is named in his honor.

In 1799, with the Russian fur trade in Russia booming, Alexander Baranov, the new head of the late Gregory Shelikoff’s company, established a new settlement of New Archangel that became the capital of Russian America. It was later to evolve into the present town of Sitka.

Sitka is located on the coast of what is now appropriately named Baranof Island.

Pride of the town is St. Michael’s Cathedral, a bright blue, onion-domed Russian Orthodox Church that dominates Sitka’s skyline. Although the original cathedral built in 1844 was destroyed by fire in 1966, the reconstructed church, where a living congregation continues to worship, features many of the icons and reliquaries that were salvaged from that fire.

The Russian Bishop’s House, part of Sitka National Historical Park, is the oldest Russian building in Sitka. Built in 1842 for the Bishop Ivan Veniaminov, now Saint Innocent, of the Orthodox church, the buildings have been restored to reflect its time as a school, chapel and residence.

The 107 acre Sitka National Historic Park also interprets the site of the battle between the Tlingits and the Russians in 1804. Battles between indigenous peoples and Russians were disastrous for Alaska Natives, as were the foreign diseases that white explorers brought to the land.

One of the more romantic attractions is the Lutheran cemetery where visitors can find the grave of Russian Princess Maksoutoff, the wife of Alaska’s last Russian governor, Dimitrii Maksoutoff.

And to complete the picture, Sitka’s own New Archangel Dancers perform authentic Russian dances for visitors to the the town – usually when the cruise ships arrive.

But the reign of the Russians in Alaska was coming to an end. Already by the early 1800s the Americans were starting to take over part of the fur trade that had been established by the Russians, and it was just a matter of time before, in 1867, US Secretary of State, William H Seward offered Russia $7,200,000, or two cents per acre, for Alaska.

Many Americans called the purchase “Seward’s Folly” and considered it a waste of money. But it wasn’t long before gold was discovered, triggering several prospector stampedes north.

Alaska became a territory in 1912 and finally a state in 1959 and the Russian occupation of Alaska became a distant memory – but for those willing to look beyond the usual attractions of a trip to Alaska, the evidence of that time, and pride in it too, lives on.

Matryoshka Dolls, Russian Princesses and Onion-domed Cathedrals – an Unexpected Alaska is from collectibledollstore.net

Of course the best kind of baseball collectible is the one you were able to secure for yourself – having a baseball player sign an autograph is a memory you won’t soon forget.

But for many fans of the sport, baseball collectibles can only be obtained through online purchases or the occasional gift a loved one presented to them. Memorabilia is often passed down from generation to generation, increasing the value of the baseball collectibles throughout the years.

It’s just the monetary value of the memorabilia that makes it so special. Baseball is America’s favorite past time, and baseball collectibles often provide fond memories of warm summer nights and good times spent with friends and family.

When it comes to keepsakes, the barriers of team against team break down because fans often appreciate the value of a baseball collectible regardless of what team the item originated from.

While cards used to be the primary starter kit for any fan wishing to amass a collection of baseball memorabilia, today’s collectors focus on a variety of mementos. Vintage equipment, pins, and pennants are a staple of many fans’ baseball collectibles.

Anything carrying an autograph from a player, such as a cap, call, or glove is a prized possession when it comes to baseball collectibles. Bobbing (or bobble head) dolls of players are extremely popular, circulating from as early as the 1950s when baseball was as much a part of every American family’s life as the food on their dinner table.

Some fans like to approach their baseball collectibles from the standpoint of team memorabilia, focusing on an entire assortment of Yankee or Red Sox souvenirs. Others prefer to simply collect items from major players of any team, as long as the player made an impact on the game itself.

While modern day figures may not fetch as much as the ones who made this game so popular in the beginning, that hasn’t deterred loyal fans from scooping up keepsakes from the headliners of today. Not only are baseball collectibles a good investment of memorabilia, but many fans enjoy the fun they have tracking down special and unique pieces to preserve over the years and pass down to their own heirs.

Cards Aren’t the Only Baseball Collectibles in High Demand is from collectibledollstore.net

When people begin to think about baseball products, they think of card collecting which is very popular. Other means of collecting baseball products could include autographs on cards, bats, and perhaps balls. For the ultimate hardcore collector, bobbing head dolls from teams, or team’s apparel and vintage equipment, pins, pennants, you name it! Chances are that you will find something, odd, old, and brand new to add to your baseball product collection.

Today baseball product collecting has steered fans toward the growing interest into vintage or antique game equipment. Looking for endorsed pieces is the fun of this kind of collecting because these pieces could now or soon be your diamond in the ruff. Some very old pieces bring a pretty penny among die hard baseball product collectors. The prices of these items may range from a little to a lot but if the product is authentically autographed or from a special game, the price is sure to skyrocket quickly. Baseball products can serve us in many different and fulfilling ways that are unexpected and fun. In closing, the final review is yours, what will you do with the baseball products that you have or will collect? Will you sell them, trade them, or collect? All of the options available for the use of your baseball products are definitely worthwhile. Just recently, it was released that a 1909 Honus Wagner baseball tobacco card once owned by hockey star Wayne Gretsky sold to a California collector for the whopping and record setting $2.35 million. If that’s not incentive to look for the older baseball products, then I don’t know what is! Enjoy.

Baseball Products American Ideals is from collectibledollstore.net

Bobbleheads are often referred to as Head Nodders, Head Knockers, Bobbing Head Dolls, or Wobblers.  Many variations of Bobbleheads have spawned including the Bobble Breeze, Computer Sitter Bobbler, Bobble Banks, and others.  Bobble Breeze are miniature Bobbleheads that double as air freshners.  Great for the car, you can adhere the bottom of the bobblehead to your dashboard.  Computer Sitter Bobblers are miniature bobbleheads that literally sit on top of your computer monitor.

Many Major League Baseball teams and other sports teams give bobbleheads away at their games as a means of promotion.  Sponsors create these bobbleheads and most are manufactured exclusively for these events.

At present, the list of bobblehead manufacturers continues to grow year by year.  Some manufacturers incorporate sound when the bobblehead bobbles.  The entertainment world offers many themes that have been licensed for bobblehead manufacturers.  From Star Wars to The Dark Knight to The Godfather to Gremlins to Predator to Office Space.  Science Fiction, Comedy, Drama, Horror films, and musicals, bobbleheads come in all facets of entertainment.

Bobbleheads are also favorites for collectors.  Since many collectors look for rare or exclusively manufactured items, bobbleheads make for a great collecting hobby.  Most bobblehead manufacturers offer their products for a limited time.  Several production runs are made and eventually the item is retired.  Some manufacturers make exclusive variations of their items and only make these available to special retailers.

With over 150 years of history since its first introduction, the Bobblehead is here to stay for many generations to come.

Bobbleheads & Bobblehead Doll Figures – Past and Present is from collectibledollstore.net

As we said there is a real choice in styles of these beautiful little creations and they come in various collections and there is the classic collection which is an all-American style collection. The outfits come in a variety of different ginghams and they are named according to the gingham itself, for example there is pale pink which is the fairy tales and then there’s the bright pink which is the garden roses.

Then there is the gift selection. This particular gift collection can get the baskets that have the most popular styles and the accessories. For example one particular one would be pink lemonade. These gift selections not only come with the doll and the bed but lots of accessories.

There are really some great extras that go with the Penelope dolls.For example they have a collection of paper dolls that you can dress up as well which really makes a great addition to one of the column Penelope collections.

Then to make it even more intriguing for those individuals that you would like to purchase that special gift for you can actually make your own Penelope Peapod hand crocheted dolls pattern. It really is a special touch for the gift that you want personalized. The instructions for this are quite simple and there are a few varieties one can do with the crochet. One of the most exciting ones is the Peapod purse.

One of the really nice things about the Penelope Peapod dolls is their afforability. They’re not something that you need to spend a great deal of money on and then be concerned that the child is not going to look after it correctly. These are dolls that are durable and simple in nature but unique because of their ability to be carried so easily.

They are something of a collection that you can keep adding to perhaps buying a different doll for each special occasion that comes along. Eventually the receiver of your gift will have herself a nice collection that will take her probably through the years and who knows she may even pass them down to her own children

Little girls really do take pride in their collection of the Penelope Peapod dolls. What they even enjoy more so is that they can dress these dolls any way they see fit with the collection of clothes that can be purchased to go with the dolls.

Penelope Peapod – Exquisite Dolls and Accessories is from collectibledollstore.net

American toys have evolved with time just like everything else in this amazing world. They have to be of interest to kids today in this high tech world. You can now send Barbie on amazing adventures through your computer, or play fashion designers with her many outfits. Her family has expanded and now includes friends, siblings and pets.

Matchbox cars has also created an online presence, they have changed the design of there vehicles to offer some really far out cars and trucks. Cool racing vehicles and vintage automobiles are always going to be popular. GI Joe is now nearly extinct which probably makes him one of the most valuable American toys you can own. Legos now have cool themes like pirate, knights in shining armor or sci-fi creatures.

Although these classic American toys are still available many more have been added to the list. Step inside any American home with children and you will find Legos, video games and plenty of high tech toys to amuse your child for hours. Some children even have there own computer. Many American toys are modeled after characters on popular televisions shows like Barney and Dora the Explorer. These characters often come and go and the more popular ones become collectors’ items, like GI Joe and Barbie.

If you want to have a special toy that you will keep as a collector’s item, the best idea is to keep it in its original wrapper. That will usually make it more valuable. Yet the real fun of American toys is that children love to play with them and use them to the fullest extent. To handle this, you can get one toy for collecting and an identical one for play. Another option is to get great, sturdy American toys that will hold up to any kind of use your children dish out.

There certainly has been a wide variety in children’s toys, both in the past and in the present. Children enjoy playing make believe from an early age, and continue to do so long after they are sometimes willing to admit. In fact, some parents even have been known to get on the floor and play with Tonka trucks or baby dolls with their children. It often appears that they are having as much fun as their children. That is one way American toys are a part of a happy family.

American Toys: Past and Present is from collectibledollstore.net

My immigrant story begins when I was five years old. I don’t recall a sense of fleeing from our home country or the idea that our life was difficult. As a child growing up in Kiev, I recall very little. I remember snapshots here and there, mostly stories retold that have tattooed themselves onto the childhood story log.

I remember getting my ears pierced when I was three years old. With gold studs in my ears, I descended sub ground to a quintessential ice cream parlor. I remember the dark wood paneling and the taste of the vanilla. The memory of that vanilla has solidified itself as the definition of vanilla perfection to me.

My grandmother, who came to America three years before us, used to send me clothes. My mother would then go on to dress me up in the fashionable American garb and pose me in front of the navy plaid wool blanket on our couch. To this day I have a portfolio of me as a mini Russian fashionista in bell-bottom jeans, short skirts, and sweaters of the itchiest caliber.

Yet sometimes there were style malfunctions. A roll of film serves as proof of our afternoon strolling through an urban Russian park. Me, a three-year-old with long hair on the swings, wearing as a complete outfit, American Popeye Underoos. My father developed all of my childhood photographs in our bathtub and my mother would send them to my grandmother as proof of wear.

My grandmother arranged the visa that got our family out of Russia. I remember very little of the immigration process. My mother packed the only life she had known into a couple of suitcases and moved to a foreign country that made no promises beyond hope. She was 25 years old. I am now 34 years old with my own 6 year old and cannot imagine confronting a task half as challenging.

We came to America by way of Vienna first and then Rome. We were thrust together with other immigrants into a holding pattern of unglamorous proportions. I can’t recall one iota of our entire time in Europe. The family stories that circulate regarding the European purgatory are few and random. I got motion sick habitually so my mother carried a plastic bag with her everywhere she went. My mother was amazed that so many Italian men knew her name; she didn’t realize that her name, Bella, was synonymous with beautiful in Italian.

I remember my grandmother coming to visit us in Italy; she couldn’t wait the two more months for us to get to America. When we picked her up at the airport, I remember seeing a strange woman who I knew had to be someone important shoving a doll against the glass wall. I didn’t understand if I was supposed to be more excited about the doll or the woman. I don’t remember being thrilled by either.

Early life in America seems distant, a shadow of a childhood where I didn’t really fit in but wasn’t completely ostracized. We lived in a two-bedroom apartment across the street from my grandmother’s identical apartment in Queens. I would look out my first floor window and up to my grandmother’s eighth floor window; with binoculars I could see her waving.

The whole neighborhood holds few memorable moments for me. I remember learning to ride my brown Huffy bike there. I remember playing on the monkey bars and a grown man came to hang upside down. He was wearing loose running shorts and no underwear.

Elementary school in retrospect seems fruitless. My parents were always disappointed with American education. In Russia they told me they were learning my sixth grade math in second grade. My parents would quiz me on my multiplication tables, insisting that I should know them so well that I could recite them if they woke me up in the middle of the night.

I remember the first day of kindergarten. My grandmother took me and was my translator for the first and only time in my life. The class sat around in a circle and I must have done something that caused the boy next to me made a hand motion that I interpreted to be peeling a carrot. Later I learned it was “shame, shame.” I still don’t remember what I did, but I remember the shame shame.

That was the first of many American colloquialisms and childhood antics that I never learned. We didn’t eat macaroni and cheese or Chef Boyardee. For breakfast I used to have tea with toast and cream cheese. When I was really little I slurped the tea from a saucer so it wasn’t too hot. Instead of six packs in the refrigerator, my family had vodka in the freezer.

I don’t even have a real birth certificate. As authentication of my birth, I am the proud owner of a bronze coin with Lenin on it. My official Russian name and date of birth calligraphied on it with what looks like white gel pen.

After five years in America we got our citizenship. I remember thinking there would be some sort of a test but I didn’t have to take one even though I was in fifth grade.

Sixth grade was the year of the Challenger crash. Back in the days when public school let you go home for lunch, I went to my grandmother’s house and watched the Special Report on TV. A few months later, just shy of my elementary school graduation, my parents moved us to Staten Island. I went from Russian to American over night.

Sixth grade was junior high school, not elementary school in Staten Island. I had to learn to put on red lipstick and black eyeliner in the cafeteria. Girls had boyfriends, kids smoked in the schoolyard, and the mall was center of it all. Kids categorized one another as Guido, Preppy, or Jappy; I didn’t fit into any of them.

It was also at this point that I really hated being Russian. Russian was the anti-cool. The 80s Cold War had pitted Russia as the supreme enemy. In every James Bond movie, in every Tom Clancy book, we were the foe. My name brands me with my nationality so it was hard to hide. When I hung out on the block, the annoying boy would call me Commie.

Living in Staten Island shielded me from Russians. They mostly settled in Brooklyn, particularly Brighton Beach. I didn’t have any Russian friends and didn’t want any. I didn’t want to associate with anything or anyone Russian because Russians gave other Russians a bad name.

Russians came to this country expecting freedom and carried with them a sense of entitlement. They knew how to milk the system like professionals. They collected welfare, SSI, unemployment, Medicaid, food stamps. They learned to get fake divorces to collect two checks. Old ladies signed up for jobs as home health aides and then would “take care of” their non-sick friends, splitting the paychecks. No one paid taxes, but the government had plenty of payouts. The women of Brighton Beach would wear their Cartier watches and Gucci purses over their fur coats. They bought their food at the fancy Russian gourmet stores and used food stamps to buy caviar. There were plans to trick the system prepared for them before they even got here.

Why does this country owe these immigrants anything?

My family, in contrast, worked diligently from the time they arrived in America. My parents worked two jobs and took ESL classes. We never received a dime of public assistance. We had pride and work ethic. I resented these criminals that gave me a bad name – tarred the road I was struggling so hard to pave. They didn’t earn that right.

Life got easier after Perestroika. All of a sudden, Russia got cool. Gorbachev was a hero, Russian letters were fashionable. We went from enemies to friends.

In college I embraced my inner Russian. While I originally taught myself the Russian alphabet from the Russian newspaper at my grandmother’s dining room table, I thought college was time to finally learn to write in script. So I placed myself in Russian 5 and and sailed through because I knew the answers based on what sounded right.

I don’t remember at what point I gained the appreciation and gratitude toward my parents for bringing me to this country. I don’t remember a defining moment when I it sank in that they did it all for me; all so I can have a better life. A life of freedom and opportunity.

It’s a constant internal conflict, like a child of divorced parents, you’re not sure to which country to pledge allegiance. Watching the Olympics, we always rooted for both the Americans and the Russians. Why were we still rooting for a country we fled? Whenever anything tragic or abominable happened, it was “Americans!” or “Only in America!” I didn’t get it. I thought we were those Americans.

America promises life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. America celebrates birth with a paper certificate as opposed to a dictator-branded bronze coin. For that, I am thankful.

When you immigrate as a child, you don’t question it. It just happens to you and you go along with it. But somehow plucking a leaf off a tree and replanting it in a new country doesn’t come without consequences.

I feel like I have a perpetual wanderlust, nothing holding me down anywhere. New York is as good as it gets; a multicultural Mecca with no judgment. But New York bears no roots, no collective history, no cemeteries bearing headstones with names of generations of my family.

I haven’t been back to Kiev, but I’d very much like to go. I hope that walking the streets, smelling the trees, hearing the language around me will somehow give me that inner resolve – some sort of conflict resolution of future meeting the past.

I speak Russian – fluently and rarely. It was my first language but will forever remain my second. But I still listen to Russian pop icon Alla Pugacheva, love caviar and bring bread and salt into every new apartment I occupy.

But in English I read, I write, I dream.

My Russian American Dichotomy is from collectibledollstore.net