The biggest mistake one can make upon exiting the B at the last stop, inhaling undertow-flavored air and narrowly passing a man in a fake Gucci shirt and a rabbit hat hawking caviar from a foldable outdoor table, is to assume that you’re seeing a passable facsimile of Russia. Brighton Beach is far more interesting. What you’re actually getting is a kind of double-blind guess— a Jewish immigrant’s idea of what an American’s idea of Russia may be. And that’s what makes it arguably the most fascinating ethnic enclave in New York: It looks just as exotic to the ethnicity it enclaves. Like its freak cousin Coney Island, the neighborhood known as Little Odessa is as much a state of mind as a location: stuck between two worlds, with its own culture, slang, radio, TV, magazines, and illicit pharmaceutical industry (think less meth and more FDA-unapproved heart drops). It’s too singular and ornery to be a true tourist trap. Unlike Little Italy, with its defanged Mafia lore, Brighton Beach frowns at suggestions the “Russian mob” has ever even existed; its secrets are still secrets, and its past is never far away.
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