Showing results by narrator "Yuliya Patsay" in All Categories

In 1979, Galina Cherny and her husband Yan submitted a single form. That application was a declaration. There was no going back. One piece of luggage. Stripped of citizenship. Abused at the border by Soviet soldiers. Suspended between two worlds. Last Train to Freedom is the true story of a Jewish girl born into a patriotic military family in Soviet-era Ukraine, where being Jewish determined where you could study, where you could work, and what you dared to say aloud.

Irreverent, nostalgic and vulnerable, Until the Last Pickle, is a memoir replete with remembrances, anecdotes, and exactly 18 recipes. It’s an exploration of identity and belonging — at once, deeply personal and broadly relatable — told through the lens of one family’s “totally average” immigration journey.

As her revolutionary neighbor mysteriously disappears during Josef Stalin's Great Terror purges, 18-year-old Regina suspects that she's the Kremlin's next target. Under cover of the night, she flees from her parents' communal apartment in 1930s Moscow to the 20th century's first Jewish Autonomous Region, Birobidzhan, on the border between Russia and China. Once there, Regina has to grapple with her preconceived notions of socialism and Judaism while asking herself the eternal question: What do we owe each other? How can we best help one another?