Boris Kotlyar

Mark Markov – Please tell me a little bit about yourself, what you did before you moved to New York and where you lived.

Boris Kotlyar – I moved to New York in 1978. I moved from the city of Kiev: today it is the capital of Ukraine. It used to be the Soviet Union. I worked as a salesman in last few years before I moved. I worked in a store despite being an engineer by training. But, the way things worked out, I was not able to work in my profession. I worked in a store and sold meat and processed meat. This is from a far off time in my personal history. 

I moved in 1978 through family reunification; I went through processing in Austria and Italy. In Italy we were in a city called Ladispoli. We did not have relatives in America, which is why my whole family – my wife, my daughter, and I – waited in Ladispoli for four months to get permission to enter America, under the condition that some one, some Jewish community rather, would be willing to care of us. And there was such a community, and we moved to Harrisburg. It is the capital of Pennsylvania. Right away, I started working in my professional field again, as a salesman, at a small supermarket, where I stayed for two years. After some time, I tried to find work in my actual professional field, and, I have to say, I got lucky that time. That town had a few Russian/Russian-speaking families. One family—family head Simon Shpiglov did mechanical installations and service. By mechanical, I mean heating, air conditioning, ventilation and every other mechanical part of construction. I worked for him, at first as an apprentice. In this manner, I was able to have a job at the supermarket to do more technical work. In time, I took a job at a pretty big supermarket chain at the time. They were called Giant Foods. I had my own technical department and did some engineering work, though it was closer to practical engineering than working with theory or inventing. I maintained the heating, cooling, refrigeration, and ventilation systems, as well as equipment in different supermarket departments. I had under my command—rather, not command but under my technical maintenance, six supermarkets and a few restaurants (because they also had a restaurant business). That is how I lived, and I lived there for about six years.

Then, the family and I moved to New York. In New York, I started my own company. It was called Manhattan Commercial Cooling. We were based off the Bowery (there is a street like that in Manhattan) at Stanton and Bowery. We had an office there – I shared an office with my partner. Later, we closed the company. [laughs] We opened a company here in Brooklyn. We called it Town Cooling. I worked for the company until 1994. We worked for the city, we worked for the state and we also did private installations, heating, air conditioning, ventilations, plumbing and electrical work.

MM – In what year did you move to New York?

BK – Let me see – it must be 85-6. I worked in that business for almost ten years. Then, it just so happened, that my old friends came over to visit whom I knew from when I was working in Kiev, at the store. It was already the 1990s – the perestroika had started. The country changed; a new regime had come: from the communist/socialist to primitive capitalism [laughs]. They were actually the lucky ones: they turned out to have the rudiments of businessmen, if you will. They had a good business there. They wanted to grow and work together with American partners. In other words, they came and said: do you have any suggestions or ideas? The first idea that I had was to make a joint manufacturing plant that would be based in Kiev in Ukraine. So we started to make panels for assembled refrigerators. At the time this technology was news there: they had nothing like it. Refrigerators were stationary – it was impossible to dissemble them and move them to a new place. And because supermarkets were just coming into being then, it was needed, it was a novelty, and I moved there and lived there for two years. We built the plant, and started making cooler rooms (at this point already for the Kievan market, for the Kievan consumer). This lasted for some time. Then I would be in New York (I flew a lot). More or less, I lived there for two years, after a long period of absence in immigration.

Here in New York, specifically in our Russian community – that is, in Brighton – there was no Russian bathhouse. There, we would go the banya – I remember this from my childhood. We would go with my grandpa and with my dad. We had bathhouses, but we went there more just to clean ourselves than for the steam bath. Of course, we also enjoyed the steaming; I remember this well. Here, we did not have this [here]. Here, the first banya was on Neck Road – it still exists. It was actually the first one, a very small one: well, a very small semblance of a Russian banya. They, the guys who opened it, worked as supers at Jade Realty. In one of the houses, on the basis of a pool that with an apartment building – in a pool that was not in use. They rented out the pool and made this little bathhouse there. There were really the first ones who made a Russian banya, here in the area around Brighton Beach. I would sometimes help them because I still had a cooling business back then. They asked for advice and sometimes we made repairs for them for the refrigerators in the little restaurant or café that they had. And so we saw this little bathhouse… Later, when we started working with our Ukrainian partners, on Ukrainian-American manufacturing, we had another idea – to make here something that was, well, bigger; to make something similar to that which we had in Ukraine.

I started looking for a place. We found a place in Sea Gate. At the time, the building, which was empty, was not in use and just stood there – there is a word for it [in English]: abandoned. Traditionally, there was a store here: a supermarket that served people inside Sea Gate. At the time, there was no entrance from the street, as there is now. Then there was just one big fence and it was impossible to get here, except through the police post. Probably, that is why the supermarket was not too successful, because for a supermarket the number of people who live in Sea Gate, and who would go to it, was not enough for it to be successful. Many tried: opened, closed, opened, closed. Finally, the building was vacant for ten years. So we went to the Sea Gate Association. This building belonged to the Sea Gate Association – it was not a private holding, as the association owned it. We talked to them, we made a deal with them, we bought the building, and we opened our first bathhouse. It was significantly smaller than it is today, because we still used part of the building for a small deli, which did not work out for us, by the way, for the same reason that the supermarket that came before did not work out. There were not enough Russian-speakers in Sea Gate and so forth. In time, we closed that little store. Well, this little store has 3,000 sq. ft. – not too small for a store. Then we took the whole building for the banya and this is how it looks to this day.

MM – When did you open the entrance from the street?

BK – When we bought the building from the association, part of the contract stated that we must build a fence, which we did. You must have seen it in the parking lot. That is, it must separate Sea Gate, so that it is impossible to get to Sea Gate for our clients who are not from the community. That is how the entrance to our parking lot appeared.

MM – Can you tell me, if it is not too difficult, how it was to return to Kiev after some many years and how much it had changed (in the two years that you lived there)?

BK – Kiev changed markedly. These were the 1990s – the beginning of the perestroika. In terms of the actual appearance of the city, it too became very, very different: it became a lot dirtier, and a lot louder. In terms of the actual appearance of the city, it became, of course, a lot worse. I remember many of the city’s landmarks from my childhood as places that inspired such fascination and awe with their grandeur. They began to be used for commercial purposes. Stores, kiosks, small shops and so on started popping up there. They sold lots of small goods, dry goods, souvenirs – anything you want. Life also became scarier and more dangerous, because there was no official, legal government as such. Therefore, all the [criminal] structures, which were hunted by the government, rose up. In general, it was a time when they were the real power. In other words, big, buff young men would walk around and unite into gangs, which had bosses. They solved problems. This was something that new business had to deal with all the time. It was very unusual, but that is how it was. Simply because me and my partners were born there and worked at the store… Work at a store at the time when I left, was, how shall I put it, a deficit specialty. [Laughs] It was very difficult to get products and therefore there was a deficit. That is how we had contacts with such people, with gangs. We were not part of this, but we had contacts and could turn to them if need be. When we opened the manufacturing business in Kiev, because we were native Kievites, we lived in their neighborhoods, and we had contact with these people, we were somewhat lucky [laughs], and it was easier for us than it would have been for other people to succeed. Such was life in Kiev. Of course, in that time—I remember when I would go there. I have my own business here, but after all its not that big of a business. Well, we did this and that, we did air-conditioning, we did some repair work and so on, but we did not make crazy, mindboggling money – just above the average, nothing special. But, I remember when I would go to Kiev, and then one hundred dollars, in those years, was big, big money. That is why I felt like a, I don’t know, like millionaires feel here [laughs] or something similar. On one hand, it was wonderful to return to the city that I left and on the other hand, it was bitter to see all of this, because it was very difficult there. For people without contacts, for simple people, for intellectuals especially, it was very difficult to live in this situation, in this climate. People like teachers, doctors, even the creative intelligentsia… We had acquaintances like that, because they were our clients, they came to our stores. We knew them. We saw and knew how they lived. I would meet some of them on the street and listen to their stories and, of course, all of this was quite dismal. That is the story of those years.

MM – Let’s return to New York.

BK – Let’s do it.

MM – You said that you and your friends saw the small banya on Neck Road and decided that you need to make your own. Can you tell me in more detail how you decided on it and the history of the banya.

BK – When we decided to make it? In our meeting we talked about it, voted on it and decided, that yes, we want to do this. This was 94-5. We, of course, need substantial sums to do this – substantial for us, that is, especially at the time. We wanted to make it for real, so that it would fit the traditions. Therefore, for example, the Neck Road banya—well, what banya? There was one steam room, I think, maybe two. It was all built on the basis of an existing pool that was meant for the residents of a building as amenities. The bathhouse would be heated, I remember, by these units, which worked on gas. I remember that they would be out of order all the time: their fires would go out all the time [laughs], and we would go there to help them to turn on and to repair these things.

It was not how it was traditionally done in Russia. The bath is an ancient tradition, especially for the Russian people. Each bath, in each tradition, in each country, has its own differences from others. As a matter of fact, baths appeared in those times when people accidentally ended up near a geyser, let’s say, and having been there a long time, they would sweat heavily (again by accident) and then they would get a feeling of alleviation in the body. That was the beginning of everything. This happened many, many years ago: many hundreds of years ago, if not many thousands of years do. If we go to more recent history, in different parts of the planet, people used different methods in order have a good sweat. In Italy they had their own bathhouses, and in Peru, a completely different part of the world, they had their own bathhouses. In Germany, they had their own baths. In Japan, they had their own bathhouses. There were different baths everywhere, but the goal was one: to wash. It was also a method to make the body sweat itself out. In Russia there were also traditional baths. They were called, at first, po-chernomu [the black way]. Po-chernomu comes from the villages, where, in order for people to clean themselves, they needed a place to do so. Thus, they would build a small building next to the log cabin where they lived or right in the cabin, in a separate corner. A fire was made, and stones were put into the fire. The stones would be heated until they were red hot. Because there was a fire in the room, the premises would be filled with ash. Ash is black in color and this is where po-chernomu gets its name. By the way, ash has antiseptic qualities. It is used both for actual washing and in order to clean skin as well. People still do this today. But then it was traditional; everyone did it. This was the Russian banya. Then, over time, the technology was modified. Po-chernomu slowly ceased to exist: stoves came into use. The principal was the same: rocks would be heated on the same firewood but the fire stayed in fireplace. In other words, the room was no longer dirty; it could be make of neatly cut wood and so on.

We, of course, wanted to make something as close as possible to that which we remembered, but also to make use of the benefits of modern technology, and to unite the two in one. We had not experience. For us it was something very new: no one used to own a banya; no one knew how to make one. So we started to do research and to read literature: how? what? how do you make this? I remember we invited for our first steam room, when we were building—the steam room had a heater that was powered by gas. Not with firewood or coal, but with gas. Working this instrument, which was supposed to heat the stones, was not the hard part. They are used here in hot water boilers. For me this was easy, because that was what I had been doing. It was tied to my earlier occupation, though at the time I did both [jobs] at the same time. But how to build an actual stove for the stones, that was challenge for us. And so we called the people, they came and built our first stove for us. But the stoves that they built for us were not ready for the gas-based heating implements that we planned to use. They did not work well together, and at first we had problems. There we unsuccessful attempts. It was a process in which we made mistakes at first, where we learned to understand thermodynamics and we learned how modern heating systems could work with old-fashioned stoves [laughs], and how to combine it all. In this way we managed to combine it all and we learned. We understood, how to make it; we understood how to make a stove that would serve for many years without problems. For example, a stove must not crack, or split, or, god forbid, explode – it can harm people. That is how it was.

The difference between a Russian banya and other bathhouses… Today there are four well-known types of baths. There are saunas. What is a sauna? A sauna is a room with high air temperature and low humidity. These two properties are correlated. That is, air temperature and humidity, these two physical measurements, are connected and define the climate of the bath. Because of this, in a Finnish sauna with nearly zero humidity, it is possible to have really high temperatures.

MM – Otherwise a person could get scalded?

BK – Otherwise a person would get burned, there would be blisters. That is one extreme: high temperature. But here in New York, they only let us have a maximum temperature of 194 degrees for a sauna, which is not that high (it is in Fahrenheit)… For example, the boiling temperature of water is 100 degrees – that is 212 Fahrenheit. We are not allowed to raise the temperature to 100 degrees [Celsius], despite that fact that in Finland, to name a place, it can be 100 and up, and in Russia too, in sauna it can be 100 and more. Here it is not allowed, so we have to use what we have. We do not actually have a sauna as such, so we do not need such high temperatures. With the humidity that we keep up, 100 degrees Celsius or 212 Fahrenheit, we would have problems with our clients. Another extreme is the so-called Turkish bath. There it is the opposite. The humidity is very high: the air is effectively steam. That is, the humidity level is almost 100 percent and low temperatures (low in context) are kept. The legal maximum is – here in America it is called a steam room – 120 degrees Fahrenheit. This is a somewhat low temperature but, then again, the physical sensation of a person in a steam room is that it is very, very hot. You cannot raise the temperature because otherwise a person can just get cooked, as if he or she were thrown in boiling water. The Russian banya is something in the middle between a sauna and steam room. The humidity in our bathhouse is 50-60 percent and the temperature is up to 194 degrees. That is quite enough to feel the full effect that one gets [in Russia]. That is the difference between a Russian banya and a dry sauna and a wet steam room.

MM – Tell me a little bit about how you were affected by Hurricane Sandy.

BK – On the banya?

MM – On the banya, yes.

BK – We turned out to be very lucky people. Yes. Actually, a better way of putting it is not that we were very lucky, but the building which houses the banya turned out to be a very lucky building. [laughs] Right in front of use, there is an auto-repair shop. It is the first building towards the ocean.

MM – I passed it on [my way here].

BK – Yes. The building is about as big as ours—not about but exactly – it is carbon copy with the only difference being that the auto-repair shop was built a lot earlier than our building. That building is built as a solid mass of concrete. That is, it has concrete walls this thick [shows with his hands]. We even have the same roof; it is made in the shape of a pyramid. Because of this, the way it is made, it is very strong. [laughs] And you can imagine that they are over here [puts a stack of post-its on the table], the parking lot is here and here are we [puts another stack of post-its on the table]. Here is the ocean. And the water comes in the form of a wave. The building, you see is right there.

MM – Yes.

BK – And now the water hits this building and the wave breaks and the water reunites [motions with hands] behind us. In other words, we turned out to be in a magical spot where we had practically no consequences. Just a little bit. There was of course some water damage: the floors were covered in dirt and so on. But substantial damage… One of our heaters was out of order in one of our steam rooms, but these are such small losses, compared to whole houses that were washed away together with their foundations. On the shore there was a house, [whistles], and there was no more house. Therefore, our building was lucky and almost did not sustain damage.

MM – But you did not open on the next day, did you?

BK – No, we opened after two weeks. First, there was no electricity. Then, we need to simply clean up, and repair a few little things (there was nothing serious). Thus, we reopened rather quickly; after two weeks we were already up and running. We just needed electricity, and then a week for the cleaning, refurbishing and that’s it. Also, to bring some goods, and food for the restaurant because that, of course, did not last.

MM – What is the banya’s place in the Russian-speaking community?

BK – [laughs] It is very difficult for me to appraise what our place is in the Russian-speaking community. The one thing that I can tell you is that people come here. The number of people – because we are a seasonal business and the season is just starting right now  (most people come in the winter and fewer come in the summer, half the number that come in winter) – on average is from one to one and a half thousand a week. In a week we can serve, five or six thousand people. What is our place in the community? [laughs] I don’t know. I know that people know about us. I know that people talk about us. You are here after all.

MM – Yes.

BK – That means that we obviously have some place. Substantial or insubstantial? I cannot tell you. I think that for those people who love the banya, and for whom this is a way of life, we occupy a substantial place; for those who do not know what a banya is all, we occupy an insubstantial place. [laughs] Thus it is difficult for me to say.

MM – Can you tell me a little bit more about the Russian banya?

BK – Yes. There is also a specific element of the Russian banya, in Russian it is called parka and here they call it platza. I do not know why, it is not an English word. Most likely, it comes from Yiddish (I do not really know why) or maybe even from German. What is it? In those ancient times before washcloths [laughs], people needed to wash, so they invented a way to do it. The wisemen invented this way: they took small twigs, on which leaves had just begun to sprout (oak, pine, eucalyptus), wove other leaves into them (from other plants that had medicinal qualities) made some like a broom or brush with them, more like a broom.

MM – A venik?

BK – A banya venik – you can see what it looks like on a picture. They used this venik, mostly to wash themselves. But since the fresh leaves of these plants, such as oak—why did they choose oak? Why did they choose pine? Because, firstly, they could survive for a long time in high temperatures, smell nice and have some medicinal qualities. Before the venik can be used—it is better to use a fresh one: just rip the branches off, make the venik and use it. But if the leaves have already dried, but have not yet turned yellow (they just lost their moisture), then you can lay it out and carefully moisturize it. In other words, if one lets the leaves seem in moisture and does so correctly, then the leaves reach an almost mint condition, and during the use of this venik, during massage with this venik, all the beneficial microelements that are in the leaves are released with physical contact and find their way into the skin. As these are microelements that are small enough to get into the pores, and from the pores get into the bloodstream. In this manner, they have a medicinal effect on the body of a person. In this manner they help the recovery of lost strength and energy. Other than just the washing function, there these other uses for the venik. Thus, people of the time, recognized, understood, saw examples of [these benefits] and this remains an important element in the Russian banya – parka/platza. But the main idea of all this is not the massage—actually, the massage as well; this is all in one. It is a whole composite of things that help the recovery of energy in the body and transport useful microelements into a person. This is what a parka/platza is.

When it comes to how Coney Island looks then, and how it looks today, there is, of course, a huge difference. I remember, when I came over in 1978, a few years later, my wife and I went to New York to take a look, to see what it was. We live in Pennsylvania. At this time the third wave of the Russian-speaking immigrants. In the 1970s, in 1973-5, it was a very strong current of immigration, from the former republics of the Union, from the Soviet Union: the third wave.

MM – I’m sorry, in 1970—?

BK – In 1972. I came in 1978.

MM – Right.

BK – It was the second wave of immigration, the third wave came later. When we came to New York, and to Brighton in particular, it was, of course, a very bleak picture. There were dirty, gray buildings. There were many drunks lying on the street. The trash was terrible: bottles, papers. I was, in one word, horrible. The one thing that is still left from those times is the subway. It is the same as it was. Later, when I moved to New York, it was in another stage. In Coney Island, around 8 years before the banya opened, it was just dangerous to come out on the street. On every street corner, drugs were sold; prostitutes would walk around openly. There was practically no police. There were burnt out buildings. The homeless lived in those buildings. It was very scary; it was a very dangerous neighborhood. But then it started to slowly rehabilitate: small developments were built that we can now see (inexpensive housing). The police precinct was built on 22nd street. Before that, there was a burnt out building in its place, I remember it well. The sidewalk was covered with needles and bottles. How do I know this? Because we would go to Sea Gate a lot. We had an office on 24th street. For us this was convenient, because if you go on Neptune Avenue to West 24th, on the right side there was a commercial building, and in that building we rented space. That was our base. It was convenient, because the rent was cheap for that time in that neighborhood. And what does it matter to the company [where it is located]? We were here often; we saw a lot of this. That is what it looked like. With time, it began to get better, especially with the appearance of the police precinct and the building of the little developments. Right now on Mermaid they have these little townhouses – they all look the same. It is inexpensive housing, but it is housing nevertheless, and the houses are private property.

Russians really changed the image, especially in Brighton. Today it is not like that anymore, but then, when the Russians came to Brighton, they started to move the homeless out. I am not even going to talk about it in terms of race or ethnicity, but with the coming of Russians, Brighton started to change. Slowly, new businesses came into being: here and there, here and there. Suddenly, five years later, from a dirty hellhole, Brighton turned into a commercial street, like 86th street. Today, it is changing again and everything is different from the way it was before. A new process has started.

MM – What is happening now?

BK – Now? That generation, which came when I did, has grown a bit wealthier, made some money, and left for New Jersey and other neighborhoods. Those who were older than me have passed away. The youth, our children, got an education. For the youth to live in Brighton, especially from Russian families: well what can you do in Brighton? That is why the youth left, at the least the majority of them. Some, of course, stayed. Some bought apartments in other neighborhoods, because living in Brighton right under the train is not too great. Would you agree?

MM – Yes.

BK – There. This is why Brighton is not the same as it was 15 years ago, when it was at its peak. In Brighton, it was impossible to rent out space. The prices were crazy – larger than in Manhattan, if not even higher than that. Today, as our generation has left Brighton, only the people who live on welfare and have no way of leaving are left. Everything has changed now. Today, there are many people from the East. Not from Asia but specifically the East. That is, what are they called?

MM – Mosques?

BK – Mosques, stores. There are now people from the Eastern part of the globe. And today, if you go out onto the street in Brighton, you will be surprised—I, for one, am surprised, because I left this place. I live in a different neighborhood, but I am here a lot, and when I get out in Brighton, I remember those times when everything was [different]. I remember those times when Brighton became the center of Russian immigration. Today it is more the center of Muslim immigration. This is not a bad thing. It’s just that the façade of Brighton is changing. You get out and you see a mass of people. The women are in headscarves. Almost everywhere you see writing in Arabic. Brighton has changed its view, and it continues to change. In fact, it is doing so very fast.

MM – When you went from Kiev (you moved to Harrisburg, right?), there was of course, a culture shock, the language was different, and so on. How strange was it to live in a city that was not quite a city or something along those lines?

BK – That was one of the reasons why I left Harrisburg. One would think that this is that capital of Pennsylvania. I was actually sure that it was Philadelphia for some reason [laughs]. But it did not turn out to be. For me, as a native of a city—Kiev was after all, the capital of Ukraine, a big city, third in the Soviet Union by population and other measures: a very big city. For me, when I moved to Harrisburg, this was also something of a culture shock. Despite the fact that there was an abundance of commodities and everything else, and that there were so many new things, I found the whole way of life oppressive in some ways. It was one of the reasons why I moved to New York, as for me this, let’s say, rural – well not quite rural… I will put it this way, to live in a private house, in one story America, where you cannot go left or right without a car, and you need to go to some center, where the mall is with all the stores, is just very different. In Kiev it was completely different: you go out on the street, there is a store here, a store there. Wherever you go, they are there. And here it was not the same and I really did not like it. I still do not like too much. [laughs]