UpdatedSunday, February 29, 2004 12:16 AM EST

UpdatedSunday, February 29, 2004 12:16 AM EST

	Lost in translation Last month, Olga Dourina and Dmitry Korshunov got arrested for drinking coffee too long in Cocoa. Here's a look at what got lost in translation. See complete story
Olga Dourina and Dimitry Korshunov are now in Brooklyn, where they will stay until returning home to Moscow next month. Image © 2004, Dimitry Korshunov, for FLORIDA TODAY

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Feb 27, 5:25 PM

Lost in translation

Two Russians were arrested last month for drinking coffee too long in Cocoa. Here's a look at what became of them.

BY BILLY COX
FLORIDA TODAY

It almost sounds like the buildup to a punchline Yakov Smirnoff might deliver to fans at his nightclub in Branson, Mo.:

Dimitry Korshunov. Image © 2004, for FLORIDA TODAY

"Two Russians, they are sitting at a truck stop in some Florida place called Cocoa, minding own business over cup of coffee. For hours they are killing time over same cup of coffee, hoping for next truck driver to offer free lift down highway.

"But what then happens? Police person tells them since they are buying no more, they must leave or face arrest. Russians argue with gendarmes, wind up in handcuffs, sent to gulag for three days, and nearly deported.

"Most Dostoyevskian cup of coffee ever -- at gateway to the stars! Or gateway to the bars!" Pause for howling laughter to fade. "America! What a country!"

But since Jan. 4 wasn't all that long ago, it may be too soon to expect the characters caught up in an incident at Pilot Travel Center off Interstate 95 to erupt in seam-splitters. Exactly what happened to documentarians Olga Dourina and Dmitry Korshunov early that Sunday morning depends on whom you talk to.

For Michelle Jackson, misdemeanor division chief with the Brevard County State Attorney's office, this "Lost In Translation" misadventure can be summed up in a few words: "These were visitors who were unfortunately in the wrong place at the wrong time."

But there's a symbolic element as well, which makes you wonder -- given the cultural confusion among individuals -- how in the world two complex nations manage to agree on anything.

Dourina, 23, and Korshunov, 38, are now in Brooklyn, where they will stay until returning to their homes in Moscow next month.

Dourina's English is better than his, but on this long-distance line, they prefer to discuss their first trip to America through interpreter Tonia Semivolos, who begins this way, "Dmitry has a very good reputation because he has been filming for a long time."

Ordeal's beginningThe narrative is halting but fairly straightforward. Korshunov is a film director and writer who arrived in the States with Dourina, a student, in November. Their goal was to document how the Russian Orthodox Church conducts its rituals in America, culminating with the Julian calendar Christmas pageantry Jan. 6 in New York. They'd been getting a feel for the country by hopping rides with truck drivers.

On the evening of Jan. 3, their odyssey wound through the outskirts of Cocoa. This is where things get a little confusing.

"(Dmitry) says they were sitting in a café drinking a cup of coffee," relates Semivolos. "Dmitry is writing a letter, Olga is reading a book. A police approaches and tells them to leave. Dmitry asks why, and he says, 'Because you're not ordering anything.' Dmitry says, 'We're fasting for the month of Christmas, we cannot order anything like meat to eat.' But he says 'You will have to order something or you must leave. If you don't, you will be arrested."

It's worth noting that during the dispute in Cocoa, Korshunov was relying on Dourina to translate. Semivolos says they left the truck stop, where they were subsequently approached by "a city police."

When they produced their identification and told them what happened, "The police was very ashamed and very surprised, and gave (Dmitry) his card. He said, 'If anyone asks you to leave again, show this card, because you have a right to be there.'"

So the fasting Russian travelers say they returned to the truck stop, took a table, and were eventually approached "by another policeman who must've been very bored;" he told them to leave immediately if they weren't going to order food.

When the two protested, they were arrested and handcuffed. It was well after midnight. Dmitry, who says he has a heart problem, claims to have fainted twice in the squad car, then passed out again in the Brevard County jail, where both were booked.

"(Dmitry) says that when he was in the prison, one of the police there asked in a sarcastic voice, 'Well, do you think America is the best country in the world?' He said, 'Now you see the real America here.' "

What the Russians didn't know when they bought that costly cup of truck-stop Joe was that the area had long been identified by law enforcement as a thoroughfare for prostitutes, transients and drug activity. Brevard County sheriff's Deputy Terry Pelton, who was patrolling the area that night, remembers approaching them out of curiosity earlier in the evening.

Pelton says they told him they were waiting for a truck driver at the diner to give them a lift, but they couldn't wait inside because they'd been ordered out by a cop. Pelton says he told them if they'd been evicted, they'd be trespassing if they returned. He says he told them they were free to stand by the side of the road, then flag down the driver when he left. Pelton gave them his card and told them to call if they had any problems.

Pilot Travel Center manager Don Ford says he wasn't working that night and declined to comment. But Florida Highway Patrol Sgt. Channing Taylor was there, off duty and working a security shift at the diner.

The 10-year FHP veteran says he observed Korshunov and Dourina nursing a cup of coffee for two hours beginning at 11:30 p.m. The longer they lingered, the more he suspected them of being garden-variety drifters, especially after noting how Dourina "kept going outside and talking to one of our local known drug dealers." Thus, about 1:30 a.m., after figuring "two hours is long enough to drink a cup of coffee," and vested with management security power, Taylor demanded they leave. "I told them seven times, because if I have to take enforcement action, I need to document it," he said.

When they refused to leave, Taylor ushered them outside. "They were telling me they had permission to be there from (Sheriff) Phil Williams, and I'm going, 'I don't think so.' " Taylor says he called for backup after "the guy pulls a resistant and the girl gets in my face." Furthermore, "Their English got a lot better once the handcuffs went on them."

Taylor says they told him they were journalists, but he didn't buy it after discovering they had only $25 in cash between them. Their camera was "a medium-grade 35mm but with no high-performance lenses, and they had no extra film."

So far as he could tell, "They were transients or gypsies or something." He says he knew they were messing with him when he asked what they thought would happen to them if they disobeyed a direct order from Russian police, and they replied, "Nothing."

"I said, 'Come on. They'd shoot you, they'd beat you up, they'd start cutting your fingers off.' I mean, the police have a little more power in Russia than they do over here."

Taylor dismisses Korshunov's fainting-in-the-car allegations ("That just didn't happen"), and he defends the integrity of the arrest. "There are 'No Loitering' signs clearly displayed, and they were loitering."

Attorney helps:

Korshunov spent three days in jail. Dourina was detained for four days. She wound up at the U.S. Border Patrol office in Orlando and was threatened with deportation, because some errant paperwork initially indicated she had entered the States illegally.

"Outraged" by the story, assistant public defender Diane Senkowski went to bat for the luckless visitors, who were charged with trespassing and resisting arrest without violence. She argued the charges were baseless, and got them dropped. Or so she thought.

"They're delightful people. They have a charisma that bounces off of them," Senkowski says. "She reminds me of my daughter -- I could imagine her going to Russia and having something like this happen to her. And Dmitri's a true artist who does very interesting work. Neither one had ever been in jail before, and they were mortified by what happened."

But shortly after they left for New York, Senkowski learned the State Attorney's Office had decided to prosecute, and a nonjury trial was scheduled for Jan. 27. Smelling the potential for an international incident, Senkowski reiterated her position with Jackson and chief prosecutor Michael Hunt.

Jackson says, "The facts and circumstances didn't warrant prosecution, and the charges probably shouldn't have been filed to begin with. No one had complained and they weren't creating a disturbance."

The state relented, but not before Korshunov and Dourina had flown to Orlando, then caught a Greyhound bus to Melbourne to stand trial. Senkowski put them up at her place at the beach for several days because "I figured they at least deserved a little vacation."

Thus, as with most stories, this one has no moral either, just another cliché about the great divide between East and West. Korshunov praises the friends he made in Brevard, such as Senkowski, but he's wary of returning to the Space Coast.

"The American people are good, but his opinion of police there is negative," Semivolos says. "What he says is, he lived under the Soviet Union and all of that, so no police and no prisons are going to break him now. And he says you can take your time to drink coffee in Russia."

Contact Cox at 242-3774 or [e-mail]

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