Vodka and Pickles

The end of that brief attempt to overthrow Mikhail Gorbachev has had an impact in L.A. Everything has an impact in L.A. Americans of Russian descent flocked to telephones, churches and banquet tables in response to alternating chaos and hope in the Mother Country.

They telephoned to see if everything was OK among relatives still there, prayed to thank God that Boris Yeltsin was around when needed and are now eating like hell, between shots of chilled vodka, to celebrate the ultimate victory.

A beneficiary of the eating-drinking category is a Wilshire Boulevard restaurant-nightclub called El Rey, which is housed in a remodeled theater of the same name, for those baffled by the ethnic mix of Russian and Mexican.

Business has been so good because of the activity in the U.S.S.R. that the owners of the place, Sophie and Yuri Zass, have been accused of staging the attempted coup d’etat in order to create a cause for celebration when it failed.

“Isn’t this wonderful?” Sophie was saying the other night as she made a sweeping gesture to a packed house. “We Russians love to celebrate. Weddings, birthdays, funerals, new shoes . . . it doesn’t matter. Anything for a party. But now, at least, we have something to celebrate.”

I stopped by the El Rey to see how Russian expatriates were taking the flurry of activity that shook their homeland. I had a choice of going either to a Russian Orthodox Church or a restaurant, and all things considered I’d rather eat than pray.

And I’m here to tell you the expatriates are taking it all quite well and will continue to take it quite well as long as the vodka and the pickles hold out.

My wife, Cinelli, and I were part of a celebratory feast the other night. We ate things I can’t define and sometimes I had seconds. I have said many times I am not a restaurant critic. Cinelli agrees. She points out that anyone who puts catsup on glazed duck should not even be allowed in a restaurant, much less permitted to comment on one.

However, I am pleased to report everything was superb, although I must temper my enthusiasm by saying anything seems superb when vodka is running like a river in a spring thaw and I’m lapping it up at the water’s edge. Or the vodka’s edge.

I mentioned pickles. It’s a Russian custom. You hold a whole kosher dill with a fork, take a bite and then swig vodka. I joined in with a joie de vivre wonderful to behold. “Slow down, Jose,” Cinelli whispered at one point. “You’re not Russian.” She was, of course, right. So I gave up on the pickle.

The El Rey is a large room highlighted by gleaming crystal chandeliers. A band plays both Russian and Israeli music almost every night because most of the customers are Russian Jews.

On this day, they were out there on the dance floor doing the hora, an Israeli folk dance, and the kazachok, the Russian dance that involves squatting and kicking. “Don’t try it,” Cinelli said. “It would take surgery to unsquat you.”

The building vibrated with the energy of joy when the band played “Hava Nagila,” a song of rejoicing that drummed out onto the boulevard with the impact of a sonic boom.

Many who danced and clapped had lived through atrocities committed by both Nazi and Russian dictators, Yuri Zass said. Their joy embodied relief as well as happiness. He added: “They have survived such unbelievable things. Now they laugh.”

Yuri and Sophie, both in their 30s, have been in the U.S. about 15 years. The Russia they left was different than the Russia of today. True, there was no freedom then, but there was also no lack of food. Now freedom is abundant, but food scarce. It’s a trade-off. Both believe things will get better.

“Under Brezhnev, we had a neighbor who was put in prison because he joked about the government,” Sophie says, still not quite believing it. “He was sentenced to 25 years for making a joke! Then one afternoon, his whole family disappeared. Who knows where?” Pause. “They were terrible days.”

It was in many ways an odd juxtaposition of food and emotion. The talk wandered with ease from coup to cartochka, hot Russian potatoes with garlic and dill. A dozen trays of appetizers were whipped away to be replaced by a half-dozen entrees.

They laughed at the clumsiness of the coup. “Willard Scott would have done better,” someone said in reference to the buffoonish network weatherman. And they wondered at the nature of their new hero.

“We used to think of Yeltsin as an old drunk, a peasant,” Sophie said. “He couldn’t even talk right.” She listened to the music for a moment, then, thoughtfully: “We don’t think that anymore.”

I learned a new word that night amid the Russian joy. It was said with pride and wonder. The word is svoboda. It means hope. It means the future. It means freedom.