Almost Home

Here's a book worth a read!  I say that not only because it is a fascinating story and well written memoir, but because Filipp Velgach, a fine and intelligent  young man, is the future husband of my granddaughter, Leslie. 

I usually think of a memoir as the reflections an older person puts in writing in an attempt to review (and maybe justify) a long and interesting life and spiritual journey.  It is not something a person so young would have enough experience to write!  Here is the blurb about the book posted on the publisher's promotional website.  

In March, 2013, with Ukraine on the brink of civil war, the crew of the award winning documentary Almost Holy travels into the country’s crossfire for a final round of filming. Along for the ride is Filipp, the crew’s Russian translator, who hasn’t been back to the former USSR since his family fled from it twenty years earlier. For Filipp, it is a wayward homecoming, his father’s worst nightmare. As he and the crew track the documentary’s hero Gennadiy, an iconoclastic pastor and vigilante, Filipp spins into an alternate universe, tasting the life that, if he never immigrated, could have been his own. But as the crew is met with the danger and unrest of the city, Filipp must re-color the memory of a world he once called home.

As a history scholar and a Russian immigrant whose family settled in "little Russia" in urban Chicago, Filipp ably weaves his personal story into his encounter with Gennadiy, a Ukrainian pastor whose life is dedicated to the fight against the darkness of corruption, injustice and suffering in post Soviet Ukraine.  

Fil's personal story is a metaphor to help explain the long difficult process of  integration experienced by immigrant Jewish Russians who made the difficult decision to leave their homes and cultural identity, and the nostalgia they feel for their homeland that lingers on in their Russian community in America. 

Fil incorporates into his life story and this trip back to as close to Russia as he can get, a realistic perspective on the geopolitical thrust of Russia into Ukraine and Crimea (so fresh in the news).  The film crew's brush with death in the middle of a hot war in Eastern Ukraine is a central part of the book.  

Fil makes creative use of his relationship with his dad, who carries within himself a visceral anger about the corruptness of Russia and what that does to average people.  Fil has become Americanized and educated in this new culture while his extended family remains a bit stuck in a semi-assimilation into America.  

Fil's strong sense of justice drives him to "get the story of Gennadiy right".  Both he and Steve, the director of the film, "Almost Holy" strive to make the film an honest depiction of this "iconoclastic" pastor who has gained fame throughout Ukraine for his fight for justice for the poor and downtrodden, especially children.  They aim to  be authentic and not propagandistic, as they struggle with the question of whether or not Gennadey is real  and authentic.  In the end Fil finds authenticity and strength (manliness) in a way not often seen, a man of faith who does not wear his Christianity on his sleeve, but lives it out in the face of real danger.  

As a well-educated Russian American secular Jew, Fil forms a bond of friendship with and respect for this Ukrainian pastor who the rest of us have never heard about before this film and book.  Both the film and the book are compelling to watch and read.

Here is a website for ordering the book, if you are interested in the rest of the story…

http://www.animalmediagroup.com/shop/almost-home/

Leslie and Filipp in downtown Chicago