A Backpack, a Bear, and Eight Crates of Vodka (2014) By Lev Golinkin

The title seems a bit cutesy, until you know its meaning. A Backpack, a Bear, and Eight Crates of Vodka by Lev Golinkin, is a remarkable book. Hilarious in parts, it is an autobiography covering some not so funny topics. 

 

In most major cities in America during the 70’s and 80’s, one routinely saw countless demonstrations under the banner of Save Soviet Jews. Golinkin’s life today is a result of those demonstrations. He was just ten years-old when his family was finally able to flee the Soviet-era Ukraine. The book tells of the Golinkin family’s life in the Ukraine and the bureaucratic process of leaving, blocked by the Soviets, and bureaucratically hampered again by the West. It covers their time as refugees without a state, and their eventual settlement in the United States.

While it seems unusual for someone so young to be writing an autobiography, Golinkin has experienced more in his still young life than most people will witness in their entire lives. Talk about cultural shock, he went from Kharkov in the Ukraine; to Vienna, Austria; to West Lafayette, Indiana; to East Windsor, New Jersey; and then on to Boston College, run by Jesuits; with side trips to Appalachia and Tijuana.

But the book is not simply about the politics and geography of what happens to refugees, it is also about what being a refugee does to people as individuals.

   

Throughout the USSR and its vassal states, Jews were second class citizens subjected to civil, social and physical abuse. In the Ukraine the day-to-day reality was so all-encompassing that Lev’s self-esteem was rock bottom as a child, and destroyed entirely once he entered school. He was a “Zhid.” While the etymology of that word is open to debate, its use in the Russian vernacular was not. It meant not just a “nasty Jew,” but as a group “an epidemic, a sinister cancer that Russians felt was ravaging their country.” That’s what his classmates were taught in school. Lev stayed away from school as often as possible, and stopped looking at himself in mirrors because the reflections confirmed his status.

 

The stateless refugee time period added more layers to his esteem problem. Though they were relieved to be relatively free from overt discrimination, his family was now dependent on the generosity of others.

Once in the US, the Golinkins faced the challenges common to all immigrants: language, lack of documentation (birth certificates, education degrees, etc.) and other employment barriers. His father was a prominent engineer in Russia and his mother a doctor. But they had to start over again in their new home, his father in a clerical job, and his mother as a coffee barista. Perhaps worse was the increasingly evident realization by Lev that having freedom of religion is a complicated right, especially when religion was a factor in one's years of oppression.

 

The impact of the psychological damage was/is lasting; dealing with its consequences is what led Golinkin to write about it. After years of holding it in, he needed to acknowledge everything that had happened to him and his family, and hundreds of thousands of others, and how it impacted every aspect of their lives. This process was an essential step to begin moving on.

    

At the onset of this review I mentioned that the book is hilarious, though by now you probably don’t believe me.  Yet, it is.  His stories, about learning English, about how and when to use the “f” word [always], about discovering there are 18 towns in the U.S. named Lafayette, and more -- is all great material, particularly when one considers the tradition of Jewish humor.  Whether this humor is a defense mechanism on Golinkin’s part, or a literary ploy, it works to make the story bearable.

Recommendation: a must read!