Books are going off the shelves as Boris Production ends its 35-year run on 108th Street in Forest Hills, the sole Russian-language bookstore in Queens – a sign of changing economic and social conditions.
“This was my only store. I came to this country as a programmer and I like films. It began as a video store that had a specialty. It was a unique collection,” said Boris Belenky, the namesake proprietor of the shop. “People watched American films with translation. I had over 3,000 videos, then added cassettes, CDs, and then books.”
The collection represented a diverse range of genres, including novels, memoirs, and nonfiction that Soviet and Russian audiences would never imagine in public – accounts of the gulag prison camps, political corruption, and Russia’s transition from a democracy to the authoritarianism of Vladimir Putin. Immigrants who harbored residual nostalgia for the old country learned the truth through these books.
On the other hand, their cultural longing was satisfied with toys and children’s books. “Young mothers came here to teach their children Russian. There is a second generation here speaking the language because of these books,” said Boris’ sister Irina, who was helping him pack.
“I came to America when I was four,” said Sveta, a Forest Hills resident who did not provide her last name. “It’s very sad, as they have good books. It’s a staple.” Her proficiency in Russian enabled her to write letters to relatives in Uzbekistan who would later join them in New York.
Haim Malakov walked by the shop, noting changes on the block. The shuttered Bukharian kosher eatery on its right went through many names in the past decade: Zhemchuzhina (Pearl), Registan, Grill 108, and most recently Crazy Meat. On its left, the corner grocery became a smoke shop, which also recently closed down.
“I am surprised that it has survived for so long. The rents here are expensive,” he said.
In a box on the sidewalk, some of Belenky’s books were available for free, most of them auction catalogs for artworks, stamps, coins, and medals. The images in these books offered snapshots of bygone times: symbols of authority produced by short-lived states that existed during the Russian Civil War, the empire that preceded them, and the communist regime that emerged afterward.
“I have many connections to artists and have organized Russian art shows and jazz evenings at the Museum of Russian Art in New Jersey,” Belenky said, explaining his collection of thick coffee-table catalogs. The catalogs were culturally Russian, but a closer look revealed paintings by Isaac Levitan and Marc Chagall, wartime letters by Solomon Mikhoels, and photos of Birobidzhan, the unsuccessful Jewish “state” in the Soviet Far East.
“I’ve had authors coming here,” he said. “Yevgeny Yevtushenko, Anatoly Rybakov’s widow Tatiana, and Sergei Dovlatov’s widow. She lives nearby.” Belenky was among the community members who promoted a petition in 2012 to honor Dovlatov with a street sign at the corner of 108th Street and 63rd Drive, where they lived.
In his novel A Foreign Woman, an account of Russian immigrant life in Queens, the opening chapter is titled “One Hundred and Eighth Street.” More than three decades later, the shopping strip may not be as recognizable to readers, as many children of Russian-speaking immigrants moved on to purchase homes in eastern Queens and the suburbs, with immigrants from other ethnicities taking their place on the commercial streetscape.
If the store lacked foot traffic in recent years, its final days kept Belenky busy with products relating to its original purpose. “People brought in boxes of cassettes to dub as it’s their last chance,” he said. “We were the first Russian blockbuster in America and we’ve had thick folders of clients. As far as Alaska.”
Two record players faced the window, perhaps longing for their needles to circle the grooves of vinyl discs while Belenky transferred old wedding videos from VHS cassettes to flash drives. As many English-language bookstores are struggling from online competition, foreign-language counterparts are critically endangered.
Under the train tracks in Brighton Beach, the Black Sea Book Store is as distant a memory as Mrs. Stahl’s Knishes, which was its neighbor, and the once-sizable Saint Petersburg Bookstore with its signature yellow awning downsized into a smaller space across the street from its original location and rebranded as STP Goods. “They sell household goods and gifts, with a smaller book collection on their second floor,” Belenky said.
With the bookstore closing, access to Russian and Ukrainian books is still possible, with Queens Library maintaining sizable collections in its Rego Park, Forest Hills, Briarwood, and Kew Gardens Hills branches. The latter neighborhood has three Jewish bookstores on Main Street, due to the Orthodox Jews who cannot read electronic materials on Shabbos and holidays, along with their emphasis on religious learning.
Looking back at Boris Production, I thought of my parents who spoke of long lines at bookstores, bribing my first-grade teacher with a choice collection of novels, and bringing boxes of books with them when we immigrated to Queens. They occupied a place of honor in their dining room, behind a glass cover.
I also considered my role on this street in preserving history and language, having translated Dr. Robert Pinkhasov’s encyclopedia, Yuhan Benjamin’s historical novel, Rafael Nektalov’s news articles, and Dr. Yuzef Murdakhaev’s memoirs. They recognize that their descendants will not be fluent in Russian, and even with AI, technology cannot accurately translate many of the abbreviations, nuances, and slang of this language.
Belenky’s bookstore was a repository of a culture that values literature, exemplified by Soviet dissident novelists who continued their work in New York, such as fellow St. Petersburg natives Joseph Brodsky, David Shrayer-Petrov, and Sergei Dovlatov, as well as those raised in America by immigrant parents, such as Anya Ulinich, Ellen Litman, Gary Shteyngart, Irina Reyn, and Boris Fishman.
“Everything ends at some point. There are many people who want their children to speak Russian. It depends on the parents,” said Alex Mullaev, who has been cutting hair at the nearby Fresh Looks barber shop for the past 23 years. “Younger people are moving on.”
By Sergey Kadinsky
