Brighton Beach in the 1970s and 1980s wasn’t just a neighborhood — it was an empire in the making. At its center stood Marat Balagula, a Soviet immigrant who rose from a grocery store and restaurant owner to one of the most influential figures in the Russian‑American underworld.

We opened our Russian Mafia mini‑series with the rise and fall of Evsei Agron. But in Brighton Beach, power never stays vacant for long. As Agron’s reign came to a bloody end, another figure was already stepping out of the shadows. Now, return to the underbelly of Brooklyn’s Little Odessa as we pick up the story with the man who would redefine the empire: Marat Balagula.