Squandered inheritance

We sit in the Stolovaja - the Russian Dumpling House - on Avenue U, and translate the menu for the Rackets kids. It feels as if we're abroad, but no, this is Brooklyn: we came on the Q, where a man was boxing shadows, and we'll return on the F. The wide-eyed waiters in yellow tee-shirts are relieved to avoid English, which is their gangplank. They break the news that they've lost their famous oven: they can't make the khachapuri for which we came. There's devastation all around: we scramble to order substitutes. From the wall, Lenin announces that Thursday is Fish Day; another sign warns, without conviction, that this is a "Heavy Partying Zone." The radio throbs with the latest boy band hit:"Катя, возьми телефон, это он, это он звонит" - "Katja, answer the phone, that's him, that's him calling" [1]. I don't answer the phone. I let it ring and ring until the others get up and dance. The next morning the 100 Centre lobby and elevators are unbearably full of men who, having passed through the metal detectors, are putting their belts back on. They remind me of the tsar's daughters: the jewels under their dresses held the bullets at bay for a few rounds of fire. The Romanov dynasty held fast that much longer. Now its reign consists of a perfumed black tea named Nikolai II and hundreds of orphaned girls who believe they are Anastasja. When they pass through metal detectors, the alarms go haywire, but time and again the searches yield nothing.

[1] БиС