America honors the winners!

Winners of the prestigious award “Man of the Year Russian-speaking America - 2014”

In the 2014 year, with the participation of the World Forum of the Russian-speaking Jewry and with the support of the American Council for World Jewry, the project “Man of the Year of Russian-speaking America” was established, which brought together the Russian-speaking communities of the country. The award was presented in eight nominations: “Young Leader of the Year”, “Teacher of the Year”, “Philanthropist of the Year”, “Inventor of the Year”, “Artist of the Year”, “Artist of the Year”, Prize “For Outstanding Achievements in the Field of Mass Media” and “For contribution to the profession. Within two months, thousands of applications for participation in the project have been received by personoftheyear.us.

The hard work of selecting the finalists was ahead of the members of an authoritative jury, which included: Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Elie Wiesel; Israeli Consul General in the city of New York, Ambassador Ido Aharoni; Emmy and Peabody awards, TV host Larry King; President of the World Forum of Russian-speaking Jews, Alexander Levin; the creator and leader of the organization The Guardian Angels, TV and radio host Curtis Sliva; the world famous sculptor and member of the board of trustees of the International Center for Sculpture Boaz Vaadiya; Jack Rosen, President of the American Council on World Jewry; and Shay Beitel, co-founder and vice president of Mana Contemporary, the largest art center. The jury also included public expert organizations: The American Section of the World Zionist Organization, the American Forum of Russian Speaking Jewry and COJECO.
From October 15 to November 18, the general voting continued for the winners in five nominations out of eight. In the remaining three nominations, the expert council decided to allocate the prize holders independently. The honorable nominees of the “Man of the Year of Russian-speaking America” award were 25 Russian Americans, whose names are widely known.
21 November winner of the contest “Miss America - 2015” Kira Kazantseva opened the first official press conference of the project, at which Alexander Levin presented the main prize of the prize - an elegant statuette of the work of a talented Israeli artist and sculptor Yakov Davydov.

Broadway star Liz Callaway (musicals Baby, Cats and many others), multiple nominee for "Emmy" and the owner of "Tony", became the leading award ceremony, which took place in the exquisite halls of The National Arts Club 23 on November 2014 of the year. She and her co-hosts - Bad Mishkin, a famous journalist on the NY1 channel and a showman, as well as a rising Broadway star, young Ethan Husidman (Chaplin, The Soul Doctor, Les Miserables) - were a real decoration of the evening. This truly secular event gathered in one material and — more importantly — in a single spiritual and emotional space of politicians, diplomats, artists, philanthropists, broadcasters, athletes — all the color of Russian America. The special guests of the event were the most famous actors in Hollywood - Alec Baldwin, William Baldwin and Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa.

This flurry of applause caused the appearance of New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio during a cocktail reception, who came to express his respect for the Russian-speaking Americans and support the holding of the first-ever "Man of the Year Russian-speaking America." He personally thanked Alexander Levin, the organizer and mastermind of the project.

“New York is a unique city where many communities coexist and mutually enrich each other. The creators of this prestigious award help to strengthen their community, preserve a rich Russian culture and native language, and underline the important contribution that Russian-speaking Americans made to the development of our society, ”said Mayor de Blasio, which touched everyone, even the most impregnable skeptics.
The mayor of Israel received the baton from the mayor of Israel in the city of New York, Ambassador Ido Aharoni, who congratulated the community on this significant event.

Gala Dinner was opened by the Russian-American vocal ensemble M-Generation (music director - Boris Rukter). Young vocalists performed the original version of the Broadway number Mr. President, dedicating this song to the President of the World Forum of the Russian-speaking Jews and the founder of the project Alexander Levin.
“I don’t know which of the nominees will win today - the voting results are in sealed envelopes. But I know for sure that the winners are all nominees! Each of them - the pride of the country! Every one of them is worthy! ”He said.
Alexander Levin highlighted the presence of Yashar Aliyev, Permanent Representative of Azerbaijan to the UN; Andrei Dapkyunas, Permanent Representative of the Republic of Belarus to the UN; Kakhi Imnadze, Permanent Representative of Georgia to the UN; Ron Prosor, Permanent Representative of Israel to the UN; Ido Aharoni, Israeli Consul General in New York; Kairat Umarov, Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the Republic of Kazakhstan to the United States, and Yuri Sergeyev, Permanent Representative of Ukraine to the UN.

The founder of the organization The Guardian Angels, a great friend of the Russian-speaking community, a well-known TV and radio host Curtis Sliva announced the winner in the first category - “Inventor of the Year”. They became Alexander Stepanov, the creator of the C ++ Standard Template Library, who came to the ceremony from California.
In the next nomination - “Artist of the Year” - outstanding artists were represented, whose names are widely known to the art world: Vitaly Komar, Alexander Melamid, Eduard Bekkerman and Mikhail Turovsky. Diane Bernhard, head of the department of visual arts at the National Society of the Arts, rose to present the award to the stage. The winner in this nomination was Mikhail Turovsky, a national artist and a member of the Academy of Arts of Ukraine. Despite his age, Turovsky continues to work productively and participate in exhibitions.
Then William Baldwin went up to the stage to announce the winner of the award in a special nomination - “For the lifetime contribution to the profession”. With great pleasure and great respect, he presented the world famous sculptor, an outstanding artistic figure and philosopher Ernst Neizvestny. It is especially valuable that, despite his advanced years, Ernst Unknown attended the event personally.

"Many theses have been written about the differences between
phenomena, objects and people. Now is the time to look for similarities. Our strength is in unity and understanding, ”said Ernst Unknown after the presentation of the statuette.
In the nomination "Young Leader of the Year" were represented 4 candidate: the head of the Association of New York police Mikhail Belogorodsky, the famous boxer and activist Yuri Forman, public figure Leonid Petlakh and activist Alex Rubin. A member of the New York State Assembly, Alec Brooke-Krasny, announced the winner’s name - Alex Rubin, thanks to the efforts of which a street appeared in New York by Sergey Dovlatov, a writer whose name is honored by the whole world.

Then Liz and Ethan invited Alec Baldwin to the stage to announce the “Artist of the Year” nomination. The famous actor did not release the young talent from the stage, and they, along with Ethan, presented the name of the winner. The main prize in the nomination was received by the singer and composer Regina Spector, whose songs received the highest music award "Grammy". She thanked her colleagues represented in this nomination, musicians Philip Quint and Borislav Strulev, and said that she mentally shares this priceless prize for her.

Famous Japanese-American actor Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa (film Planet of apes) presented the winner in the Philanthropist of the Year nomination - Dr. Alex Rovt, who is the main sponsor and president of ZDR Yeshiva Rambam and vice-president of Yeshiva Flatbush. Alex actively supports school and student programs and helps young people from all over the world get quality education in the United States.
Advisor to the city of New York, lawyer and politician Ben Callos said that it is a great honor for him to announce the winner in the “Teacher of the Year” nomination, since it is the teachers and teachers who help Russian-speaking youth to preserve their cultural values. Olympic champion Lenny Krayselburg, Larisa and Gennady Saveliev, as well as educator and publisher of educational literature Rabbi Lev Katsin participated in the nomination. The winners in the nomination were the spouses Saveliev, the founders of the most prestigious competition of young ballet dancers.

Before the announcement of the last nomination - “For outstanding achievements in the field of media” - the hall stopped waiting: after all, each of the nominees made a unique contribution to the development of the Russian-language press, television and radio. The awards were presented by journalist Sergey Gordeev, Alexandra Gerson (Radio Vera), Seva Kaplan (DaNu Radio), Gennady Katsov (RTN / WMNB), Katya Kazakina (Bloomberg News), Ekaterina Katrikadze (RTVi) and Victor Topaller (RTVi), who and got a statuette.

Memory Song performed by Liz Callaway was a great final chord of the ceremony. Having come on the scene for the last time this evening, Alexander Levin thanked all those who had gathered and stressed that the entire Russian-speaking community had become the main winner of the event. The executive producer of the project, Marina Kovalyova, invited everyone to the meeting next year and wished this important event for all Russian-speaking America and for American society to become a good tradition for many decades!

Julia ABELEV,
press service Russian American Person of the Year