Ridgewood February 1, 2012 THE VILLADOM TIMES II • Page 9 Elena Gorokhova to address College Club Elena Gorokhova, author of the memoir, “A Mountain of Crumbs,” will offer a journey back to the post-Stalin Soviet Union of the 1960s and then on to today’s Russia at the Feb. 7 meeting to the College Club of Ridgewood. This 1 p.m. program will be held at the Ridgewood Public Library on 125 North Maple Avenue. As a child behind the Iron Curtain, Gorokhova struggled for individuality in a world where individuality was repressed. There was no “I,” only “we,” and as Gorokhova points out, there is no word for “privacy” in the Russian language. With both of her parents committed communists, she was trained in communism since childhood – first as a Young Pioneer and then, at 14, as a member of the Young Communist League. For the young Gorokhova, however, the glorious Russian Revolution seemed a failure. Instead of “liberation from the yoke of absolutism and paradise for all working people,” what she saw around her was poverty, famine, and decades of terror. Lying and deceit were required to survive, something she calls “vranyo” in an article she wrote in October for the “New York Times Sunday Magazine.” When she was growing up behind the Iron Curtain, Elena Gorokhova Our Lady of Mount Carmel, 1 Passaic Street in Ridgewood, will hold a Pot Luck Meatless Dinner in the parish center on Wednesday, Feb. 22. Dinner will follow the 5:30 p.m. Ash Wednesday prayer service. The cost is $5 per person or $20 maximum per family. Dinner will include Church hosts Ash Wednesday dinner the main course, refreshments, crafts, and activities. RSVP to Rebecca at kingston23@verizon.net or (201) 612-7881. Proceeds will benefit The Nurturing Place, a facility in Jersey City that assists women and children in crisis. American newspapers and magazines were confiscated at the borders. The study of English was considered somewhat subversive and dangerous, but it was Gorokhova’s love of English that eventually allowed her to escape to a different and freer world. As a child, she was mesmerized by the sound of English, which she first heard on a recording at the home of a grade school friend. Her mother finally gave into her pleas to pay for English lessons. During secondary school, she was selected as a tour guide for groups of English-speaking high school students. After graduation from the English Department at Leningrad University, she taught Russian in a summer program for American students. There she met and then married a young American physicist, moving to the future “promised since nursery school, since 1917 and the storming of the Winter Palace,” but no one ever told her it would be in Texas. Gorokhova lives in Ridgewood with her second husband, her daughter Lauren, and her mother. She teaches English as a Second Language at Hudson County Community College and is working on another book. Yearly visits to her homeland have kept her abreast of Russia today. She will share her impressions during the upcoming program. “A Mountain of Crumbs” will be available for purchase and signing. The cost to attend is $10 for guests. Members will be admitted free. Proceeds from the event will benefit the club’s education fund. For more information, or to purchase a ticket, contact Jennifer Brito at (201) 445-0442. For more information about the club, visit collegeclubof ridgewood.org. The College Club of Ridgewood, founded in 1913, is a non-profit organization that provides educational opportunities for young women through a variety of needs-based grants and interest-free loans. Men are eligible at the graduate level.