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People & Language
The official language is Russian, written in the Cyrillic script. Minority ethnic groups speak their own languages but all speak and study Russian as a second language. Visitors to Russia will find a clear distinction in the accents of different provinces - even though the people of each region are speaking the same language!
The majority of people in Russia are ethnic Russians of Slavic descent. The remaining 15% of the population includes ethnic Tatars, Ukrainians, Byelorussians, Chechens, Avars, Chuvash and Armenians. The Jews are considered a different nationality, even though they share a common East European origin. The minority ethnic groups are concentrated in the autonomous territories of Russia. Siberia is home to the Aleut, Chukchi, Inuit and Koryak people.
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Religion
Religion was banned by the Communist regime but the disintegration of the erstwhile United Soviet Socialist Republic has seen a revival of the traditional religions. The most common religion in Russia is Christianity and most Russian Christians belong to the Russian Orthodox Church, a few are Roman Catholics, Protestants and Baptists. The two important non-Christian communities are the Jews and Muslims. In Russia animism is still practised by the Finno-Ugric people of the Volga region.
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Food
The cuisine and eating habit of any region is always determined by its climate, the lifstyleof its people and the availability of fresh ingredients. Russian cuisine too developed to provide enough nutrition to sustain a tough, physically demanding life and to withstand the rigours of a long and cold winter. Potatoes were introduced by Peter the Great and tea brought in by the Mongols.
Basic staples of Russian diets are the easy to grow and store root vegetables like potatoes, beetroots and carrots, supplemented by cabbage, mushrooms, apples, berries and a variety of cereals like wheat, rye and barley. Protein was sourced from the rivers and the sea - sturgeon, salmon, caviar became common items - beef came from the vast steppes and from the farms came dairy products and delicacies like sour cream and honey.
Put some of those ingredients together, mix and match a bit and you have classics like borsch, piroshkis, khvorost, blinis or buckwheat pancakes eaten with caviar and sour cream. Perfect!
The kitchen is the most important part of a house in Russia, the hub of the home where families gather for meals, friends chat over a cup of tea and guests bask in the warmth of traditional Russian hospitality. Each meal is an elaborate one -Zavtrak or breakfast is a hearty affair of cold cuts, sausages, eggs, porridge and bread as it prepares the eater for a day of hard labour. The main meal of the day, taken in the afternoon is called 'obyed’. It starts with appetisers or 'zakuski’, delights such as caviar, pickled vegtables, smoked fish and different combinations of vegetables, followed by soup 'pyervoe’ and the main course of meat or fish. Entrees include potatoes, rice or noodles and vegetables, fresh or marinated. It ends with dessert! 'Tretye’ might be cake, stewed fruit or chocolates. Supper or 'uzhin’ is similar to the afternoon meal, only the soup is excluded.
The most popular non-alcoholic drink is tea. Tea is brewed and stewed for hours and then topped with boiling water from a samovar. Samovars are ornate, gold plated metal urns used to heat water or to pour out the brewed tea into 'podstakannik’ glasses with metal holders. Russians drink their tea without milk.
Vodka is the national drink of the Russians. It is served chilled and drunk in one gulp neat or straight without diluting it. Every shot of vodka is followed by a mouthful of food be it a pickle, sausage or herring. For the uninitiated, the advice is 'go-slow or find yourself under the table’. Russians love to drink a toast, to family, friends, lovers, guests, enemies, Mother Russia, good times and bad. And one toast follows the other in rapid succession - which means either the guest has a hard head or he practises abstinence! The alternative is to take small sips, not toss it back.
A bottle of vodka makes an excellent gift while visiting someone’s home. A bag of tea would also be equally appreciated. Russians also drink a lot of beer especially as a thirst quencher. From the vineyards in Moldavia comes good quality white and red wines; from Georgia the semi sweet dry wines including Stalin’s favourite Khyanchkara and lastly the fortified wines from Crimea that are very popular with the locals.
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Culture & Crafts
Russia has a rich cultural heritage, brought to fruition under the patronage of tsars and aristocrats, and born of the relentless oppression of the serfs and common people by their feudal masters. The whole of the 19th century is replete with extraordinary achievements in the fields of literature, architecture, ballet, musical composition and performance, be it the dancers Anna Pavlova and Vaslav Nijinsky and choreographers Marius Petipa and Mikhail Fikine from St. Petersburg Imperial Ballet School or symphonies, concertos and orchestral works of Tchaikovsky, Rachmaninov, Stravinsky and Shostakovich.
Onion shaped domes is Russia’s most identifiable architectural style. Religious icons, Fabergés handcrafted beauties, paintings and portraits, 20th century revolutionary art and so much more that can be easily identified as Russian. Films like Eisenstien’s Battleship Potemkin and Ivan the Terrible, the works of Andrei Tarkovsky too made its mark on world cinema . Classical ballet and folk dances, music and theatre, handicrafts, embroidery, woodcarvings and wooden dolls - the list is as endless as the work is valuable.
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