In the early years of Brighton Beach Pride — and as recently as 2021 — Russian Flags and Rainbow Flags were held up together near the lead banner as queer marchers and allies made their way from Coney Island to Brighton Beach along the Riegelmann Boardwalk.
Southern Brooklyn, after all, is home to many eastern European immigrants, many of them Russian speakers, and the LGBTQ community in that part of the borough needed a place to call home. An organization named RUSA LGBT, which was later renamed to RUSA LGBTQ+, was responsible for producing Brighton Beach Pride, which was first held in 2017.
RUSA LGBTQ+ was created as a group of queer Russian speakers and immigrants from parts of the former Soviet Union, and it always brought themes of resistance to Brighton Beach Pride, especially when it came to denouncing Russia’s increasingly anti-LGBTQ policies and the enduring homophobia of Russian President Vladimir Putin. (An oft-repeated chant in recent years has been “Putin is a war criminal!”) Queer refugees who fled Russia were among those who participated and even led the march.
However, in the aftermath of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Brighton Beach Pride took on a more intentionally pro-Ukrainian focus, with marchers collectively standing in solidarity with Ukraine.
The annual Brighton Beach Pride March in 2021 — back when Russian Flags were more visible.Matt Tracy
With that shift also came a moment of reflection, of sorts, for RUSA LGBTQ+. The organization’s name led some people to perceive it as a Russian-centric organization. To that end, the organization decided to change its name to Qaravan, which has eastern European and Asian influences and is intended to be a more inclusive name that could also be easier to understand for American audiences. Qaravan’s website describes the organization as a “community-based, non-profit organization of Eurasian LGBTQ+ people, women, and other people with intersectional identities and their allies.”
“Like a queer caravan — it’s a little campy, friendly, and playful, but it also does align with the current tendencies in the American progressive queer movement,” Maxim Ibadov, a queer Moscow native who serves as a coordinator for Qaravan and has led the Brighton Beach Pride March for the last several years, told Gay City News in an interview on April 23.
“Since Russia became the epicenter of homophobic terrorism, and with the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, we just realized that having Russian in the name is quite honestly toxic,” Ibadov said. “It is triggering to a lot of people who come from countries that are being actively harmed by Russia’s — and Vladimir Putin’s — regime.”
Maxim Ibadov speaks at Brighton Beach Pride in 2023.Matt Tracy
Now, heading into the ninth annual edition of Brighton Beach Pride on May 10, members are preparing for the first-ever pride under the rebranded organization. This year, Ibadov said, marchers will focus on standing up for the rights of transgender individuals and immigrants in the face of threats not just in eastern Europe or other parts of the world, but also here in the United States, where President Donald Trump has relentlessly targeted transgender individuals and immigrants.
In a striking sign of the times, Qaravan’s leadership had internal conversations and concluded that they would tell members who “don’t have a green card and/or passport — or if their case is still pending — this may be the march to sit out,” Ibadov said, citing concerns about safety at a time when the Trump administration has aggressively moved to ramp up deportations.
“This year, we are hoping to attract folks who may not be as in jeopardy as much compared to people who usually come,” Ibadov said. “We have folks who come from Russia, Ukraine, and other places where we saw how democracy slides backward. We can’t capitulate and we can’t cancel pride. We have to be aware and acknowledge the realities and steer our community in a way that doesn’t feel like we are capitulating, because we are not.”
Brighton Beach Pride in 2019.Matt Tracy
The neighborhoods of Brighton Beach, Sheepshead Bay, and Manhattan Beach are widely considered to be conservative bastions and voted overwhelmingly for President Donald Trump in the 2024 election. Gay City News’ reporting at several previous editions of Brighton Beach Pride detailed the shock and awe of many spectators who encountered the marchers along the boardwalk in an otherwise sleepy part of the city.
“Brighton Beach Pride is a political march; it’s not a commercial pride or a celebration of joy,” Ibadov explained. “It’s not a party. If you want to come and see what the original Pride March might have felt like, come to Brighton Beach Pride.”
Regardless of the rebranded leadership, Brighton Beach Pride remains largely the same. Marchers will gather 11 a.m. on May 10 at the usual spot: on the boardwalk in Coney Island where the boardwalk intersects with Polar Bear Club Walk.
At noon, marchers will head east along the boardwalk for about one mile before stopping where the boardwalk meets the Shorefront Y in Brighton Beach. From there, attendees will gather for a rally featuring speeches by community members and guests.
An after-party will take place following the rally, though details have yet to be released.
A senior citizen died over the weekend after being struck by an unlicensed driver while crossing a busy Brooklyn thoroughfare earlier this month, police announced Wednesday.
According to police, 101-year-old Taibel Brod of Sterling Street in Crown Heights was attempting to cross at the intersection of Brooklyn Avenue and Montgomery Street with the walk signal when a 2023 GMC Yukon SUV hit her at around 8:25 p.m. on April 8.
Per the investigation, the driver, 65-year-old Menachem Shagalow of Crown Street in Crown Heights, was traveling southbound on Brooklyn Avenue to make a left turn eastbound onto Montgomery when he struck Brod.
Officers from the 71st Precinct rushed to the scene after getting a 911 call about the collision. EMS responded and immediately brought the victim, who sustained injuries to the head, to Maimonides Medical Center.
Brod succumbed to her injuries on April 20, police said.
Meanwhile, Menachem was arrested at 8:37 p.m. on April 8 shortly after the incident. He was charged with aggravated unlicensed operator, failure to exercise due care and unlicensed operation of a motor vehicle.
The alleged suspect in the incident, 32-year-old Miriam Yarimi, has since been indicted for manslaughter and other charges in Brooklyn Supreme Court.
Yarimi was ordered held without bail and is expected back in court on June 11. She faces a maximum sentence of five to 15 years in prison if convicted of the top count of second-degree manslaughter.
Seeking to give Adrienne Adams a boost in the 2025 NYC mayor’s race, state Attorney General Letitia James and the leaders of three prominent unions on Wednesday rallied to trumpet the City Council speaker as the best mayoral candidate to take on President Trump and block former Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s path to City Hall.
James, District Council 37 (DC37) Executive Director Henry Garrido, CWA Local 1180 President Gloria Middleton, and UNITE HERE Local 100 President José Maldonado gathered at DC 37’s Lower Manhattan headquarters on April 23 to endorse Speaker Adams in the June 24 Democratic mayoral primary. They sold the speaker as a “no drama” leader who would defend the city from Trump’s deep cuts to the social safety net.
“At a time when we are dealing with bullies in Washington, we need a mayor who puts people first and individuals who can speak loudly about the challenges facing our city and the attacks on our residents, our neighbors,” said James, who has had many of her own battles with Trump over the past few years.
While Cuomo, the front-runner in the mayoral race, has cast Trump as an “existential threat” to the city, the former governor has offered few specifics on how he would fight the president’s attacks.
The speaker herself charged that Cuomo would not act as a bulwark against Trump if he won because he had not criticized the president sharply enough since launching his campaign in early March. She also railed against him for receiving contributions from Trump donors both through his campaign and a super PAC supporting his candidacy.
“When people tell you that they’re going to stand up to Donald Trump yet you don’t hear a whisper from them, what does that tell you about someone who is trying to reinvent themselves as a strong man who will save the city of New York but did nothing to save the state of New York?” the speaker said.
Cuomo’s campaign declined to comment. In the past, they have argued he is the candidate best positioned to go head-to-head with Trump because he did so as governor for four years.
City Council Speaker Adrienne Adams.Photo by Ethan Stark-Miller
James framed Speaker Adams as a powerful counterweight to Cuomo, whom she painted as a figure of the past, solely running to redeem his reputation rather than improve the city.
“She’s stepping up at a time of chaos and confusion, not out of political motivation or political revenge or even redemption, but a commitment to proudly state and proudly defend out loud, this city, its residents, and all of the programs and services that it offers,” James said. “I’m looking forward to someone who’s going to put confidence over chaos and results over ego, people over politics.”
Cuomo’s mayoral campaign marks his return to politics after resigning amid multiple allegations of sexual harassment in 2021, which he denies. His resignation came shortly after James released a report finding 11 of the accusations against him credible — findings that Cuomo’s team argues have been discredited in the courts.
Despite Cuomo’s commanding lead, Garrido said he believes Speaker Adams can overcome the former governor both with the backing of DC 37, which represents 150,000 municipal workers and 87,000 retirees, and by utilizing the city’s ranked-choice voting system.
The union also endorsed Assembly Member Zohran Mamdani (D-Queens) and state Sen. Zellnor Myrie (D-Brooklyn) as candidates voters should rank second and third, respectively.
The speaker has struggled to gain momentum after entering the race late and is behind Mamdani and city Comptroller Brad Lander in the polls.
Garrido said the union’s membership rejected Cuomo after he applied for its backing mainly because of changes he made to the state pension system as governor known as Tier 6, which raised the retirement age and cut benefits. Cuomo pitched the reform as a necessary cost-saving measure for the state at the time.
“Tier 6 was fresh on the minds of so many workers,” Garrido said. “Part of the reason we believe we’ve had such a tough time recruiting and retaining young workers in particular is because of the changes into our pensions of Tier 6 that we’ve been trying for the last two legislative sessions to fix…We don’t forget that.”
