Our large Opel sedan heads south of Kiev across the lifeless steppe, still frozen despite the early April sun. A two-lane road stretches across bare fields and features an increasing number of potholes, directly proportional to the distance we travel away from the capital. My friend, staring ahead from behind the wheel, proudly tells me that a super modern highway will soon replace this dilapidated road connecting Kiev and Odessa. “But”, he adds thoughtfully a minute later, “the project is troubled by many corruption scandals and there is a good chance that the highway may never be completed”.
We take a short trip out of the capital in order to take-in the countryside and visit the town of Uman, a little dot on the map halfway between Kiev and Odessa. The town’s history is marred by centuries of violent events: the Mongol invasion in the 11th century, Polish conquest in the 16th century, bloody Cossack and peasant uprisings, Russian annexation in 1793, and nearly complete destruction during the World War II. Indeed, as we drive into the town we are greeted by the legendary T-34 tank perched on top of a granite monolith representing the Red Army glory days during the liberation of Uman in 1943.
However, the town is famous for a very peaceful landmark – a wonderful park, which was conceived by a wealthy Polish nobleman Stanislaw Potocki and dedicated in 1800 to a beautiful Greek courtesan and gold-digger named Sofia. Indeed, the park is extremely impressive and, while it didn’t bring happiness to Potocki’s life with Sofia, it remains a centerpiece of the Ukrainian extensive network of famous parks and former mansions.
Our group wanders aimlessly around the frozen man-made lakes, waterfalls and fountains shut down for the winter and bare forests of birch and pine trees. Someone produces a bottle of Ukrainian brandy, takes a swig and passes the bottle around. When it comes back empty, we decide that there is very little left to do in the park this early in the spring.
“Let’s go and visit the Tomb”, says my friend keen on making the trip more entertaining, “I heard that a famous Jew was buried somewhere in town a couple of centuries ago”. This exhilarating idea spiked with the $4-per-bottle brandy has an instant appeal to the entire group and soon we drive through the decaying streets of Uman searching for a grave of once-famous Jew.
Before long, an enclave of modern high-rise apartment buildings and kosher food stores replace the old Ukrainian huts. “This must be the place”, we decide and step onto the pavement to the rhythmical sound of the dancing Jewish music.
Although the street is almost empty, we encounter a maze of roped lines, which are normally used to hoard thousands of people in our native Disneyland. However, instead of the Space Mountain rides, we are greeted by a well organized and fairly aggressive group of beggars covered in black garb. “Please save an old starving Jewish woman (or man)”, sounds from inside the black cloud of people surrounding us.
Wow – I didn’t realize that there were this many desperate Jews in Uman! But, what can I do to help all of them? The last time someone had tried to feed five thousand beggars with five loaves of bread and two fishes, he had gotten into a lot of trouble with the local government! The salvation comes in a form of 5 or 6 paramilitary guards who swiftly appear in the picture and push the begging masses aside.
“Hello, my name is Igor and I will be your guide for today”, says a short plump man sporting a tiny yarmulke somehow glued to the top of his bolding head. He quickly extracts the men folk in our group, distributes the yarmulke to us and nudges the less-deserving females toward another entrance in the back of the mausoleum.
“Let’s begin”, he says rubbing his hands excitedly. “Now, are you a Jew”?
It is worth to note that there are three men in our group, yet Igor’s gaze is focused on me. Does he sense that I live in the far-away land of Mickey Mouse and kosher hot dogs? Does he know about my memorable exodus from the USSR in the mid-1970’s? Does he have a copy of my Soviet-era internal passport, which said “Nationality: Jewish”, right after my name and date of birth?
“Yes,” I say with a well-deserved dignity, “My name is also Igor and I am a Jew”!
There are plenty of clarifying statements I could make regarding my membership in this small and ancient tribe and its such famous members as Moses, Jesus, Karl Marx, Leon Trotsky and Sacha Baron Cohen (a.k.a. Borat) among others. However, Igor is not interested in my discourses about “Who is a Jew?” Igor is clearly proceeding along a well-traveled road of a tour guide, who’s trying to impress us with his in-depth knowledge of the gloomy attraction in front of us.
Rebbe Nachman (1772 – 1810) was born and married into a long line of Ukrainian rabbi’s famous for launching various flavors of the Hasidic Judaism. Rebbe Nachman himself founded the Bratslaw version of Hasidism and is still revered by the Jews all over the world. Despite his apparent holiness and devotion to religion, Rebbe had had challenging personal life – he was married at the ripe age of thirteen and had constantly moved his household from one town to another. He had lost four out of his eight children to diseases before they were two years old, his wife had died of tuberculosis, and Rebbe himself had succumbed to the same illness three years later, at the age of 38.
Nevertheless, many Jews believe that the long deceased Rebbe has the power to answer their prayers, especially if one would personally pray at his grave during the holidays of Rosh Hashana (a.k.a. the Jewish New Year) and make a donation to a worthy cause. And, they do come! Tens of thousands of men, women and children make their way to the small industrial town in central Ukraine in order to prostrate themselves in front of the Rebbe’s tomb. The Israeli EL AL airline adds dozens of special flights to and from Ukraine every autumn in order to transport the devoted masses. An entire cottage industry has sprung up in Uman servicing, feeding, and cleaning the invading Hasidim, as well as presenting them with countless opportunities to donate their money to the plethora of worthy and not-so-worthy causes.
Igor takes us past the uniformed guards into a large room, which instantly reminds me of a classroom. There are dozens of young Hasidim, almost boys, moving around the room, sitting behind the school desks, twirling, dancing, and swaying back and forth. Their eyes are closed as they mutter something to themselves; every now and then someone shrieks a phrase and runs around the room. The men are dressed in long black robes, impressive locks of hair are curling down from their temples underneath black hats, and most of them are too young to have a meaningful beard. No one notices us or even pays attention to each other – they are clearly in a trance.
A large marble casket is protruding from the wall. Actually, only half of the casket is visible to us – the other half appears on the women’s part of the room. Igor talks about how lucky he is to be spending most of his time next to the Rebbe’s grave, gives us the text of the mandatory ten Psalms, but quickly realizes that we are not going to sing along.
Soon we find ourselves standing outside the wondering Rebbe’s last refuge. Incidentally, Rebbe Nachman had never lived in Uman, but ordered to be buried here, at the place of the infamous Massacre of Uman of 1768, when rebellious Cossacks had killed around 20,000 Jewish and Polish inhabitants of Uman.
In conclusion, the most important question remains unanswered – do the pilgrims get their wishes granted? Perhaps, who knows?
I do know, however, that my buddy, Igor, takes me aside and whispers: “Can you lend me some money to finance an important surgery in Israel”? I look him over, hand him a $20 bill and wonder whether Igor’s proximity to Rebbe’s tomb has paid off. I hope that Rebbe has already heard our guide’s prayer and is putting together the remaining few thousand USD necessary for Igor’s trip…
Uman, Ukraine 2005