Eating In Russia

Food in Russia has been a pleasant surprise for Joey, Isaac and I. As it turns out, the food here is delicious, affordable (at least at the school canteen), and very hearty.

A typical dish is dominated with mayonnaise, a meat, vegetables, eggs, potatoes, and almost always bread. No doubt this ingredient list can be deceiving, and often the appearance of a particular meal is as well. For instance, if I hadn't experienced a Russian "salad" (a casserole like dish that seems to involve mayonnaise, cheese, and just about any other ingredient you could mix in) I would have been wary of it. But I've been nothing but pleasantly surprised at all the prepared food I've had.

The canteen offers a wide variety of food that you pick out in cafeteria line style. However, even with the help of my Russian classmates I never know exactly how much I've bought, but it always ends being more than enough and at an average price of six dollars I can't complain.

Preparing our own food has been relatively simple. We have a kitchen with three stoves and ovens on our floor and recently received some plates and silverware left over from previous students. Along with the food we've brought from home (largely being a healthy amount of peanut butter and candy) , the store across the street from the hostel offers a fair amount of food that is again priced very reasonably. Fresh fruit, milk, delicious Russian black bread, cheese, and really about all the normal staples you'd expect to find in a small American grocery store can be found there. Cooking a meal in itself is really no harder than it would be back home, but cleaning is often more tedious due to the fact that the water in our hostel is not potable. After preparing a meal, we scrub out the pots used, place our silverware and cups in the pots, and then fill them with water and boil the whole affair for a few minutes.

The First Few Days

I've been in Moscow now for three days. After an initial two days of obligatory paper work, ID photos, and cheerful haggling from the hostel guard who insists on speaking in rapid-fire Russian to non-Russian-speaking me on each occasion I've met him, we got a chance to see Red Square tonight. In a word, it's majestic. Check out Isaac's blog entry for more info.

My first impression of Russia was not the weather; it was airport security. I had heard and thought that Russian customs was a nightmare, and visions of army green guards denying me entrance to the country while I fumbled through stacks of labyrinthine paperwork haunted my dreams on the flight over. How different customs ended up being! Entering Russia was no harder than buying a ticket to an amusement park. There were around ten attendants, maybe my age or slightly older, sitting in box-office-like booths. No armed guards, no confusing paperwork. I simply handed my visa to the attendant, he looked me over, looked over my visa, and without saying a word to me, quickly stamped my passport and handed it back to me.

As for the weather, it's cold here. That's no surprise. But it's hard to explain the cold. Your face hurts when you walk outside, and the bottom of your nose feels like its splitting open. Your lips swell up, and when you pose for a picture, you can't help from blinking because the cold makes your eyes water. I never cease to be amazed at the Russians I pass who all seem to be wearing half the layers I do, but seem less affected by the cold.

If all Russians share this cold resistant trait, they also seem to share a trait of incredible kindness and generosity. From the moment we arrived in Moscow, our hosts have fed and shepherded us around. They are our constant translators and without them it is not hard to imagine what a different experience these three months would be. At times I almost feel awkward from their generosity, because I simply don't know how to repay them, and there is nothing and no one in America that I've met that I could compare it to.