By: Rena Rosenberg

Far away in a city known as Odessa in the Ukraine, USSR, Yakov Muchnik and Alla Tsiporkis grew up amid the tremendous background stresses of World War II, bombings, loss of their possessions
and homes, loss of friends, and the inability to get food and clothing until the end of the war. More than 50 million people from many countries were killed in this war, and in the Ukraine alone, thousands of large and small cities and villages were destroyed. Following the war, they were able to return to their homeland around 1947, attended the University in Odessa together, and eventually married. Some 44 years later, when you come to Plough Towers and ride in the elevators, you will see a calendar of events, one in English and the other in Russian, (including the graphics and pictures). Yakov and Alla have assisted not only the Russian-speaking residents, but the staff as well, in understanding the notices, flyers and any other information that needs to be conveyed to the residents.

Determination and perseverance can definitely be attributed to Yakov Muchnik and Alla Tsiporkis. While attending the University in Odessa, Yakov, a man of great intelligence, was able to enter the university without any type of examination. While there, he learned to design and construct machinery for the food industry and received a degree in Mechanical Engineering along with numerous gold medals for academic achievements, excellent work, and exemplary behavior. He was also interested in studying engineering for the mining industry in Kiev, but was unable to pursue this. While at the University in Odessa, Yakov also studied English as a second language. After completing his studies, Yakov was employed as a Mechanical Engineer and Designer at a very large plant. Alla excelled in her studies as well and the two continued to pursue their dreams of being entrepreneurs. Alla also enjoyed table tennis and competed in gymnastics as a member of the University team.

In 1962, Alla and Yakov married and a year later their son was born. He has followed in his father’s footsteps by becoming an Electrical Engineer. Their son is now married and has given Yakov and Alla two grandchildren. Alla continued to work in a plant in Kharkov. As entrepreneurs, Yakov and Alla developed new equipment for small industries such as a “fresh pasta” machine, which produced 200 types of pasta , the first of its type of machinery in Russia. They have also been awarded patents for the development of machinery which assists in the unloading of grains to be used in all types of food.

In September of 2001, they moved to the United States to join their son and family living in the Memphis area. Five years ago, they moved into Plough Towers where Yakov’s father had also lived for about two years. September of 2006 will be very special as Yakov and Alla will apply for citizenship in the United States. After their struggle for survival in the USSR, Yakov and Alla are now able to enjoy and participate in their love of music by enjoying the Arts and Opera, poetry, ballroom dancing, the theatre, traveling, and many other advantages of living in this country. Almost 40 years ago, Yakov participated in an Art TV quiz contest and upon winning, became the proud owner of several beautiful books of art reproductions and the model of the world famous Gallery of Russian Art, Tretyarcov Gallery in Moscow. Their collection of reproductions of Russian art and painting by Ukrainian artists are some of their most prized possessions.

They have been a perfect match for each for 44 years. They continue to enjoy many of their hobbies and interests, and are proud to have the opportunity to participate in the arts in Memphis on a regular basis. Despite having to deal with many struggles and challenges over the past 44 years, they have always kept a positive spirit and will keep on smiling. They look forward to another 44 years together with their friends and family – a perfect match.

By: Jonathan Lindberg

In 1620, one-hundred-and-two English dissidents, along with hired sailors and servants, boarded a rickety boat so-named the Mayflower, setting sail for a New World, there to establish a colony based on the idea of religious freedom, or rather, a freedom from a religion controlled and directed by the state.

And so begins the first great American story of immigration, not in New York City or along the Mexican-American boarder, but rather at a desolate, sandy coast known as Cape Cod, at a place the Pilgrims would eventually rename after the English port from which they departed, Plymouth.

Over the past one-hundred-and-fifty-years, the reputations of these first settlers, the Pilgrims, have taken a slow and steady hit. William Bradford, Miles Standish, Benjamin Church, and Josiah Winslow. Hardly the kind of names associated with the foundation of America. Hardly the kind of names we know much about. But such was not always the case.

In the years leading up to the American Civil War of the 1860s, the Pilgrim legacy was one of celebrity. Of Plymouth Plantation, written by William Bradford, was a national bestseller. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow penned the best-selling poem, The Courtship of Miles Standish. Plymouth itself became a national refuge, a symbol of perseverance and hope in the years of civil strife.

However, somewhere between Abraham Lincoln declaring November 25 National Thanksgiving Day and the recent Native American Activists declaring November 25 a National Day of Mourning, historians are slowly reassessing just how Americans established themselves on this land and what that method of doing so actually means.

In Mayflower: A Story of Courage, Community, and War (Viking Press, 358 pages), New England Historian Nathaniel Phillbrick seems to have a hard time deciding who in fact the reader should be rooting for. The book itself is a balancing act, depicting on one side the absolute courage of the pilgrims as they wandered blind through the New England wilderness during those first few terrifying days, and then describing the all-out deceit and vindictiveness they used there-after, profiting from the hands-that-helped them, namely the Pokanoket Indians, after that first bleak winter.

Mayflower is what it is, a book of history. Not an all-out indictment of the pilgrims, nor an attempt to wash clean the hands of the Native Americans. Rather, Phillbrick draws a neutral line between the two. All the characters are assembled, well-equipped with their flaws. Phillbrick simply tells their story, offering sympathy to both sagas, the Plymouth Pilgrims and the Cape Cod Indians. As the subtitle to the book indicates, it is the complicated history of their courage, their community, and their war.

Of the three, community is the one spot in which the story lags. In 1623, after two long years of food shortage, the Pilgrims, under the guidance of Plymouth Governor William Bradford, discover the now-staple of contemporary American culture, capitalism. During the first two years, the Pilgrims worked communal farms. The shared food was sparse. Then in 1623, Bradford declared each Pilgrim family responsible for their own food supply and land, and suddenly, the struggling colony flourished. Suddenly, everyone had enough.

Over the next fifty years, the colonists lived in relative peace, slowly weaning themselves from any dependence on the Cape Cod Indians they might have felt, slowly crawling, then walking, then eventually running. Mayflower becomes as much as anything, a story of fathers and sons. Two generations of reversing roles. How the first generation of pilgrims established peace with the Native Indians, and how the second generation did everything they could to break it down.

The story climaxes with the last great war of the Cape Cod Indians, King Phillip’s War, named after the Indian Sachem Metacomet who took on the Christian name Phillip, then took on the colonies. The end result is inevitable, certain defeat, yet this by no means detracts from the story itself, the struggle for survival, which Philbrick tells with marked excellence.

Most of what we know about American history begins and ends with the Pilgrims landing at Plymouth Rock in 1620, then a quick catapult to 1776 and the fury of the Revolution. However, the Pilgrims left their mark, just as the Founding Fathers did over a hundred years later. Of the one-hundred-and-two passengers aboard the Mayflower, thirty-five million American descendents exist today. Puts new meaning on the Biblical command, be-fruitful-and-multiply.

And so, this country is their country, much more so now than when they were alive. Sure, Plymouth and Cape Cod have become commercialized, overrun by tourists and traps romanticizing our foundations; however, it is the legacy of the Pilgrims which still remains. Their history is our history, for better or worse.