'Everybody comes from somewhere'

DelSanto of Cranston's European Food Market shares journey from Soviet Union

By ERIN O'BRIEN
Posted 3/5/20

By ERIN O'BRIEN It all began with my book club. The novel I had chosen was a first-person, coming-of-age, dark comedy, historical fiction, buddy story, with World War II-era Russia as a backdrop. It's how I met Natasha DelSanto, who's led a life as

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'Everybody comes from somewhere'

DelSanto of Cranston's European Food Market shares journey from Soviet Union

Posted

It all began with my book club. The novel I had chosen was a first-person, coming-of-age, dark comedy, historical fiction, buddy story, with World War II-era Russia as a backdrop.

It’s how I met Natasha DelSanto, who’s led a life as interesting as the characters in the novel.

The European Food Market in Cranston, specializing in Russian and Ukrainian items, has been at its current location for 20 years. The original store was nearby, on Broad Street, and was opened 10 years earlier by Natasha’s mother, Yelena. At that time, her customers were mostly Soviet Jews, but as I watched her greet her Russian-speaking customers who live around the corner, she surprised me when she told me there had been other book club customers before me.

The other day a character, as she referred to him, entered the store wearing a fur-lined ushanka hat and a black trench coat, shopping for rye bread and freshly sliced ham. He seemed as if he’d stepped right out of my book. “Nothing surprises me,” laughed Natasha.

During my recent visit, she proudly showed me her new industrial freezer, stocked with pierogies, blintzes and classic pancakes, to be “served with sour cream and preserves,” she instructed. On the subject of preserves, rows upon rows of every flavor were before me, including white cherry, rose petal and white Mulberry.

Entire sections of the store are devoted to chocolates, coffees and teas. Natasha even helped me choose a Russian birthday card for my nephew who is earning his master’s in Russian studies.

Shelves of festively painted nesting dolls, large hand-painted wooden platters, and delicate samovars decorate the walls behind the counter, beside refrigerated cases offering fresh fish, and imported Eastern European deli cheeses and meats distributed from New York.

Various pickled fruits and vegetables – tomatoes, watermelon and peppers – are displayed in large jars, while the pickle section itself boasts several brands of cornichons (Gherkins) which I shared that I’d recently purchased at the local grocery store. The moment the words were out of my mouth, I regretted them. Natasha’s eyes grew wider. Where exactly had I purchased said pickles? “I am the pickle lady,” she exclaimed. I immediately chose a jar upon her suggestion.

She recommended Russian rye bread, with an eggplant spread, sugar cookies, tea biscuits and the ingredients for a traditional Spartak cake for my book club evening. I returned later in the week and bought pierogies, which she said should be served with sour cream and dill as an accompaniment.

That day she took down a large, round, hand-painted platter her grandmother had brought her from Russia, which she’d hand carried on the plane. “I support the arts,” she smiled, and offered that I might borrow any of her beautiful heirlooms for my book club meeting. Humbled, I chose one of her ornate samovars, a decorative empty tin of caviar, and a plate with a painting of the traditional three-horse carriage in the snow.

She relies on the “old-fashioned way” of accounting, explaining, “I’m a Soviet.” With her ledger and pencil on her desk, she transfers the data to her laptop with acquiescence. Black-and-white photographs of her family adorn the walls and a bookshelf, with pictures of religious icons. Taking the framed photos from their places, she introduced me to each one.

“I grew up in a trifecta kind of world,” she explained. *** Natasha’s maternal grandfather, Alexander, a World War II hero, loved American jazz. He is dressed in his military uniform in the photo. A Mother of God icon holy card is placed in the corner of the picture frame. Natasha smiled to remember the way he sang along to his Louis Armstrong and Glenn Miller records. These American records, like religion, were forbidden.

Both her paternal grandmother, Lydia, and great-grandmother, Maria, were accomplished cooks. As a young person, she knew that when the pig was slaughtered that Easter was approaching. She remembers her other great-grandmother, Golda, teaching her to make matzo when she was three years old, marking the dotted lines on the flatbread, even though it was also not allowed, and the gefilte fish when they celebrated Passover.

Natasha’s father, Victor, was raised Christian Orthodox. Natasha spent every summer at her paternal great-grandmother Maria and grandmother Lydia’s log cabin in Novozybkov, in the Bryansk region. In the mornings, she was awakened by her grandmother’s early prayers. She watched as Lydia made the sign of the cross beneath her veil. There was a mystique to this, she said, as she recalled as well the beautiful yellow cathedral across the street beyond the rows of birch trees. “Birch trees are still my favorite trees today.”

As a child, she would jump over the church wall and play on the grounds of the church, sometimes being brave enough to tiptoe through the door. Children were not allowed inside but the praying babushkas beckoned her. She had never seen a crucifix before. The painted domed ceiling rose above her like the sky.

“The church was a whole different world, so mystical and mysterious. It turned me inside out! To a little kid, the smell was so different than anything I knew.” Something drew her in, and she returned year after year.

The scene was in direct contrast to her Soviet schooling, where “evolution was taught as state law” and “your government is your god,” she described.

“Although I love my colorful Jewish ancestry and culture, I evolved from my Jewish environment at age 7. I had to make a choice,” she said, eventually embracing the Russian Orthodox faith.

Even Natasha’s baptism came about in a clandestine manner. When she was 2 months old, her parents brought her to her paternal grandmother, Lydia, who was a nurse. Natasha’s grandmother had a friend who was a priest, where she lived across the street from the church. Lydia wanted to show her friend the new baby, and disappeared out the door. Natasha was baptized in secret by the priest, as a return for a favor when she had provided him with antibiotics when he was ill. Two hours later, Lydia returned with the baby. When Natasha’s mother was dressing her later in the day, she discovered a tiny cross on a chain around the baby’s neck.

Natasha laughingly refers to grandma Lydia as the “commandant” with a strong work ethic, who insisted that she read classics from her personal library when she left for work. She expected Natasha to have read several chapters and give her a summary upon her return. She had been a tough single mother and Natasha claims her father is still afraid of her, even though she’s been dead some 20 years.

Natasha remembers one day in particular when she was 13 years old. “I’m going to show you something,” Lydia explained to her granddaughter before leading her to a dresser and opening the drawer. “It has to be a treasure,” thought Natasha. What else would have been wrapped in a blanket so carefully?

Lydia gently and slowly unfolded each layer of the blanket, revealing a Mother of God icon. She kissed it. “It was so mystical,” Natasha said, hidden like her grandfather’s American jazz records and her great-grandmother’s matzo recipe.

“I understand everybody comes from somewhere. This helps me do what I do at work. I appreciate all religions. I am every woman.” *** Born Natasha Bondarenko, she and her family arrived in Rhode Island in 1989. “I had no English,” she said. “For two years, I would not speak. I was so insecure.”

They lived on the east side of Providence, in a Jewish community, in an apartment over a bakery. At five o’clock in the morning, Natasha remembered waking up to the scent of fresh bread baking. “This is what America smells like!”

Her father’s Russian hometown of Novozibkav was across the border, just 70 kilometers away from her mother’s Belarus hometown of Gomel. The family came to the United States as refugees on July 20, 1989, and on July 21 her father had a job.

Natasha and her mother began cleaning houses for a combined $2.50 an hour. As she scrubbed, she thought of her grandmother Lydia, who said to her as a young girl, “Mop?! We do it the Soviet way!” as she demonstrated to her granddaughter, lying on her belly with a soapy rag. Natasha learned to sweep her arms in great arcs as she scrubbed her grandmother’s floors clean. There was no running water in the house, so it had to be brought in from the well.

Natasha’s mother Yelena was a hairdresser in Russia, and Natasha aspired to be one as well. When she announced she intended to attend cosmetology school, her mother was adamantly against it. In Russia, a great portion of her mother’s revenue went to the government in order to receive “free” medical benefits. “This is a free country!” Natasha told her mother, and went on to earn her cosmetology license in the United States.

Natasha believes her family left Soviet Russia just in time. Because of her family’s ethnic Jewish background, they feared anti-Semitism. She remembered in 1987 watching then U.S. President Reagan say, “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!” Natasha adds, “You know, ‘Let my people go!’” The Chernobyl nuclear accident the previous year was the underlying factor in Natasha’s parents deciding to leave their homeland.

Natasha has not returned to Russia. This month she is going on her first vacation in 30 years, to Florida. I gave her my book club novel to read on the plane.

Since 1989, the European Food Market has served the Cranston community. Natasha’s customers are from Russia, Ukraine, Romania, Poland, Bulgaria, Armenia … and various Rhode Island book clubs.

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  • thepilgrim

    The woman says proudly, “I’m a Soviet”. She should feel at home in Warwick.

    Saturday, March 7, 2020 Report this