SHATTERED: Boyfriend Gerard Honig weeps upon the shoulder of a friend outside a Brooklyn funeral home before rites for Yelena Bulchenko yesterday. (Paul Martinka)
Yelena Bulchenko got her tragic wish — though it was sooner than anyone could have imagined.
“One time, Yelena said to me, ‘If I die, I want all of the people I love to be with me,’ ” a tearful friend recalled yesterday at a memorial service for the 20-year-old woman and her mother, Anna, who were among four people allegedly slaughtered by madman Maksim Gelman.
“And all the people she loved are here.”
Roughly 1,000 mourners jammed a Brooklyn chapel to pay their respects to the Bulchenkos. Anna’s devastated husband, Anatoliy, fell to the floor sobbing after standing over the side-by-side open caskets and rearranging photos of Jesus that had been placed on their chests.
“He doesn’t know what to do; he just lost two people in his family. It’s unbelievable,” said friend Claudia Vakhrusheva, 47. “I can’t believe that this monster could kill these people.”
NYPD Chief Joseph Fox of Brooklyn South and other speakers offered condolences to the grieving survivors.
“I was in command of the hunt for this manifestation of evil. I will always regret we weren’t able to stop him sooner,” Fox said. “I’ll remember Anna and Yelena for the rest of my life.”
Heartbroken boyfriend Gerard Honig, who’d planned to celebrate a romantic Valentine’s Day with his beloved on Monday, bravely addressed the mourners.
“I know Yelena is watching over us, and I just want to make her smile,” he said.
Friend after friend rose to speak, some in English and others in Russian.
“We did everything together, shopping, laughing together, dancing to music. She was such a fun person,” one young woman said through tears.
“They’re in a better place, and they’re together. May they both rest in peace,” another young woman said.
At burial services yesterday afternoon at Ocean View cemetery in Staten Island, a priest chanted in Russian and swung an urn of incense over the coffins under a cold blue sky.
When the ceremony was finished, the coffins were lowered, and mourners picked up frozen clods of dirt and threw them into the graves.
Victor Mermelshtein, 64, called Anna his best friend.
“She was so full of life,” he said. “She couldn’t take two seconds to be quiet. She was always laughing. If I ever needed anything, I just called her. Her house was always open. She was such a pleasant person.”