Cover Story

Russian Roots

1).11,11,111t

LOYALISTS

Alsiatunl xaly Aq scnoqd

Young, upwardly mobile Russians
share a dance floor of their own.

Dmitry Nevelev says DJ
Jen.45 parties are "one of the
A onty places where Russians can
'nlisten to Russian music, dance,
relax, drink and enjoy each
,other's company."

ESTHER ALLWEISS TSCHIRHART
Special to the Jewish News

T

he crowd is young. Few are over 40 and
they're dressed castmlly, but stylishly, to
interest the opposite sex.
It's Club Heat in Pontiac — Saturday
night — and DJ Jenny La Femme is playing the
music Russian American Jews love to hear.
As the sound blares out, many of the 250 people in
the club are crowding the floor. After a hard week at
work, they dance with abandon to DJ Jenny's mix of
"house" music, techno and hits from Europe and
around the world.
The mostly foreign-born patrons who come to
Jenny's parties "are more sophisticated and a little older
than the regular bar crowd of 21-year-olds," said Tony
Shushtari, owner of Club Heat with his brother Frank
and another partner.
The Russians and others are age 25 and up. Those

10/10

2003

64

in their early 40s "mix in well, too," he added.
The men tonight are wearing sport shirts and pants
or jeans; many of the women are in short skirts and
body-hugging tops. Animated conversation is going on,
not much in English. It's a happy, flirty vibe as some of
the dancers switch partners during the same number.
Beyond music and dancing, Shushtari said drinking
is what Russians like to do for fun at his club.
"When someone goes to the bartender and says,
`Give me four drinks,' you better understand that
means vodka," Shushtari said with a chuckle.
On this September evening, members of a bache-
lorette party wearing ball gowns have seemingly stum-
bled into the place, one of several jumping joints on
Pontiac's downtown Saginaw Street. But the approxi-
mately 150 Russian Jews are here largely because of DJ
Jenny. — one of their own. This industrious, fun-lov-
ing 28-year-old brunette from West Bloomfield, also
known as Jenny Feterovich, is known for throwing the
best Russian parties in town.

Yevgenya, now "Jenny," came with her family to
Oak Park as a teenager nearly 14 years ago. They were
part of a large wave of Jews finally permitted to leave
the Soviet Union at that time.
"Thanks to the American Jewish community," she
said, the Feteroviches received "paid tickets" to join
relatives in Detroit, after spending time in Austria and
Italy. Her father, Vladimir, works for MeasureComp in
Oak Park and her mother, Nelly, a former clothes
designer, does alterations for Brody's Boy's and Young
Men's Wear in West Bloomfield. There are now
approximately 18,000 Jews in metro Detroit from the
former Soviet Union.
Jenny started at Berkley High School, spent a year
with her older sister Olga attending school in Napa
Valley, Calif, and graduated in 1993 from West
Bloomfield High School.
Her education continued at Wayne State University
in Detroit, where she earned a degree in management
information systems.

