TRAVEL : In Little Odessa on the Atlantic

Brighton Beach is now the Russian capital of the USA. Simon Hollington reports; Around samovars capitalist converts sip borscht or vodka

THE MATRONLY hostess is called Olga ("You want for me to buy you a dink darlink"), the stuffed bear is cross-eyed and called Misha. The waiter is a doctor of nuclear physics. The place has the feel of a set from The Man from Uncle, right down to the 1950s sunglasses on the ex- KGB agent bouncer on the door, but it's actually a club - the Severly Night Club - in Brighton Beach, on the fringes of New York. In the street they're selling Tolstoy by day, and crack by night. At weekends New Yorkers come here to recapture the atmosphere of the Cold War, which has come in from the cold.

On the main boulevard there are perhaps a dozen tearooms with steaming samovars, packed with capitalist converts studying the local Russian newspaper while watching MTV, playing chess and sipping borscht or vodka, or both. Video shops, libraries, nightclubs, street signs - all are uncompromisingly in Russian.

The incongruously named Brighton Beach is a run-down seaside resort next to Coney Island, on the edge of New York city. Though only 45 minutes from central Manhattan, it is an era and an ideology apart from Fifth Avenue and Wall Street.

Brighton Beach does not resemble its namesake in Sussex except as an idea in the mind of a group of British immigrants; the onion-shaped domes of Brighton's Royal Pavilion would perhaps be more appropriate in a town that is currently the Russian capital of the USA. Russian emigres in the US number around 200,000, and about 2,000 a week are still arriving. When the first wave of Russian Jews arrived in the US in 1979, they found the aura of run-down Brighton Beach somehow reminiscent of the Black Sea town of Odessa. This, coupled with the cheapness of local housing, encouraged large numbers of them to settle there.

In the afternoons and in the cool of evening, the seafront benches of Brighton Beach (now popularly known as "Little Odessa") are filled with old men studying chess boards. Matronly women in fur coats gaze wistfully, not at the Black Sea but at the Atlantic Ocean. Then there are the retired, grey faced ex-KGB officials in their sinister shades, strolling furtively but aimlessly up and down the boardwalk. They are lost, and perhaps a little confused by the unfamiliar "Welcome, stranger" stance of their adoptive home.

As an example of post-Cold War irony, Brighton Beach is irresistible. American day trippers take pleasure in looking their old enemy in the eye. There are even organised tours from central Manhattan: "See Russia without leaving New York," says one leaflet. Little Odessa goes way beyond Little Italy or Chinatown in imposing its identity and its individuality. Sometimes it can be unsettling. For Americans used to thinking of their homeland in superlatives, it must be puzz-ling to see how deeply unimpressed these Russians are with the US - and to witness their uncompromising rudeness.

One middle-aged New Yorker, who is trying to buy a Russian doll, receives a cultural jolt. Instead of the "Have a nice day" school of salesmanship, he gets an indifferent shrug. "You speak Russian?" asks the unshaven salesman, casually adding, "Me no English" before arrogantly turning away. Far from being put off by this, the would-be customer is delighted. "Been there, done that, got the T-shirt," his smile seems to be saying. Something he always suspected has been confirmed - those damned Russkies.

"We learned to hate the Russians during the Cold War," says Maureen Wilder- man, a 75-year-old widow, "but now we welcome them with open arms." She has found it hard to adapt to the mass immigration of Russians, despite the fact that the majority are, like her, Jewish. "I find I'm living in Russia, now. I don't go out at night." Maureen moved to Brighton Beach when it still resembled the gentle Jewish suburb described by Neil Simon in his semi-autobiographical film, Brighton Beach Memoirs. Now, with its smell of boiling cabbage and clanking overhead railway, it is more reminiscent of a scene from Doctor Zhivago. The supermarkets may be stuffed to the gills with the usual US factory products, but they are all neatly labelled in Russian. The caviar, naturally, is the best in town and the shelves groan with it - "Living proof," says one passing tourist, "that socialists never existed, capitalists always did."

Nightclubs are another booming business; young New Yorkers flock to them. Not only are they unbelievably kitsch, quite splendid in their over-the- top crassness, but they have an additional allure. The perceived danger from classic, cigar-chewing gangsters has developed into something of a mystique. The Russians, it seems, have done what no interior designer can: they've faithfully recreated the brooding atmosphere of the Thirties.

At the top of the gangster heap was the legendary "godfather", Marat Balagula, who moved into town in the 1980s with Evsei Agron - his cattle- prod-toting partner. The two of them operated a variety of rackets from their nightclub, The Odessa. At least 15 unsolved homicides were attributed to Balagula's turf wars, with Uzi bullets being sprayed about like confetti. Marat himself is now in prison for fraud, but his old nightclub retains a dingy Capone-like ambience.

With the exception of The Odessa, the half-dozen nightclubs on Brighton Beach Avenue feel more like a Cold War theme park. The entertainment consists of top Russian popular singers, choirs, ballet dancers and balalaika players, while the menus include chopped liver, caviar, vodka, black bread, blinis and the inevit-able borscht - all at fairly low prices.

Many Russians seem dazed at finding themselves in what was once the enemy camp, but they are more confused still by America's freedom of choice. Tanya, from the original Odessa, tells me as we sit on the seafront boardwalk: "When I first saw the supermarkets, I had to ask several times if I could really buy these things. In Odessa, such things were reserved for the Russian Sirs - what the Americans call the 'fat cats'. The same applied to houses; they all looked like palaces to me. Being Jewish, we were always apart from the Russians, but we were still taken in by the propaganda concerning the US. What I find here is very different. Despite the so- called changes in Russia, nothing has really changed. I will never go back."

Alexi, another emigre, is 70 years old and comes from the Ukraine. His life as a construction worker was hard; he endured famine, wars and the endless denigration of anti-semitism until he left the USSR in 1992. His conversation and facial expressions suggest an inner torment gradually subsiding. "Now that I can be Jewish," he says, "I can enjoy the Jewish lifestyle."

Selling Russian classical literature on a stall, Yuri - a cheerful, lean and bearded 40-year-old professor of literature - tells of his disappointment with some aspects of America. "I'm really surprised at the poor level of education of American kids," he says, "and their lack of foreign-language skills. And there isn't much interest in literature among the ordinary working people here." When Yuri's visa for the US came through, he loaded up all his Russian books. Adapting easily to the entrepreneurial culture, he now photocopies cheaper versions of his collection, selling them off his street stall. "I just wanted to get out," he recalls, "because, as a Jew, I was always on the receiving end. If you want to kick arse in Russia, you kick Jewish arse first. Then you turn on the other minorities."

If you arrive in Brighton Beach before sunset, take a stroll along the boardwalk and take in the throng of fur coats, the chess players, the grey-faced men, the buzz of a foreign tongue. This is America, this is New York, this is Russia - but only in America could this juxtaposition occur. Two men in wheelchairs gaze forlornly out to sea. One says: "The KGB threw me out of a window, and then they threw him out too. Just like the bureaucracy: everything in duplicate." The sign next to them reads, "Beware of Strong Currents" - not to mention black humour.

Back in the Severly Night Club, Ivor Bobul - a popular Russian singer - croons at his audience over tender kebabs, fresh sturgeon, blonde caviar, pink champagne, and iced yellow vodka. The eyes of Misha the bear remain permanently crossed, as if the change has been too much for him.

! To visit Brighton Beach, contact Lou Singer tours at 130 St Edwards Street, Brooklyn, NY 11201 (001 718 875 9084).