Impact of Political Shifts on Russian Cuisine

In Russian cuisine, dill and mayonnaise have stood the test of centuries. They came to popularity in Imperial Russia, lasted through the culinary restrictions of the Soviet Union, and hold their own in copious and oft-ridiculed amounts on Russian plates today. Dill is still used so much that a Facebook group called DillWatch has gone viral. Members of this group regularly post photographs of what they consider to be “inappropriate sightings of dill.”

Although mayonnaise and dill proved indelible, shifting power structures have divided Russia’s national cuisine into three distinct eras with widely differing pantries. Imperial cuisine focused on food from family farms, Soviet cuisine focused on mass produced food and government regulated recipes, and modern Russian cuisine combines the two previous food eras with a wide array of ingredients resulting from globalization.

Imperial Russian Cuisine

Imperial Russian cuisine centered around simple dishes of vegetables, grains, and proteins produced on family farms. Food came from family farms for a few reasons: quick transportation across massive tracts of land was not always feasible, Russia still had a rural agricultural economy, and Russian culture encouraged family structures that kept women in kitchens and large broods of children working on farms.

Along with the influence of agricultural subsistence, fasting restrictions of the Russian Orthodox Church impacted the dishes that Russian families ate. Russian Orthodox families fasted for 130 days each year. As a result of the fasting rules, Imperial Russian cuisine included many hearty vegan recipes. Meat was rarely the main component of Russian dishes. Cooks mostly used meat to flavor brightly colored root vegetable soups like borsch or to accompany potatoes in the velvety filling of handmade varenyky dumplings. Varenyky took hours to form, and the various soups and vegan buckwheat kasha dishes that frequented Russian tables during fasting times took hours to simmer. Family structures with women who stayed home and prepared food for their families enabled these time-consuming recipes to become staples (Smith). Therefore, the traditional Russian diet directly reflected the social structure of the country.

Simple, home-grown produce comprised the majority of the Imperial Russian peasant diet, but the diet of the wealthy was far more varied. During the heyday of the tsars and tsarinas, the Russian elite had access to fine foods from all over Europe. Fine wines, cheeses, meats, caviar, and chocolate were frequently imported for the enjoyment of the wealthy. Although wealthy people had more diverse pantries, they still regularly consumed some dishes that peasants ate, like schi, a cabbage soup used as a first course by all classes (Brandes). This schi, along with the dill and mayonnaise used to top and fill many dishes in Imperial Russian cuisine, is ubiquitous to this day.

Soviet Cuisine

Russian food changed with the official formation of the Soviet Union in 1922. State seizures of private lands led to massive food shortages and caused a shift in agricultural practices (Nelson). The Soviet Union worked to collectivize agriculture, mass produce protein, and accelerate urban industrialization. These changes led to the development of the Soviet Cuisine, which required meat or fish at every meal. The switch to collective agriculture was intended to increase grain production to stock the state-run canteens that fed growing urban populations. This grain production attempt failed due to mismanagement, causing mass famine, so the Soviet leadership turned their attention to the development of meat as a main food source.

One Soviet food rule that impacted Russian foodways was the requirement for Soviet worker canteens to serve meat at each meal. This rule reflected a public relations need to prove that the USSR was strong enough that its protein consumption could be on par with that of other industrialized nations. Some researchers suggest that the meat requirement was also an attempt to take power out of the hands of the Russian Orthodox Church. If people tried to follow the fasting rules of the church while eating at the Soviet canteens, they would leave hungry. This method of starving orthodoxy out of the Russian people succeeded. Due in part to Soviet food controls, the Russian Orthodox Church lost significant support during the Soviet era (Scott). The biggest impact of Soviet food controls was the idea that meat should be consumed daily.

Along with meat requirements came recipe regulation. In Soviet canteens, specific recipes had to be followed each day. When Stalin took power, he required the canteens to serve some of his favorite Georgian dishes. These dishes, such as khachapuri, a cheese-stuffed bread, and khinkali, meat-stuffed dumplings, still populate Russian menus today (Smith, 2008; Scott, 2012). Russian people who identify with their Soviet history especially appreciate consuming the Georgian dishes that Stalin loved. While the USSR is no longer in power, culinary effects of its presence still impact Russia today.

Modern Russian Cuisine

Modern Russians have returned to making some of their traditional vegan-friendly recipes like kasha and vinigret salad (Dmitrovna), but they still largely maintain the Soviet idea that meat is necessary at every meal (Puzakov). Soviet influences on modern Russian foodways include the importation of millions of cattle (and American cowboys) for the largest cattle drive in world history in 2016. The long term effect of Soviet protein requirements at each meal also led to a national craving for canned fish. The ongoing demand for fish has caused the depletion of many major fisheries.

While Russian consumers may not consider stress on fisheries, they are more likely to consider the sustainable sourcing of their produce. Locally sourced organic produce is coming into vogue in Russia, just like it is in the rest of the developed world. A Lonely Planet search of Moscow restaurants reveals establishments like Lavka-Lavka in Moscow, which names its menu items after local farmers. While the idea of small farms and friendly farmers is gaining appeal with consumers, the reality in Russia is that major private corporations have started to take over agricultural production. According to a survey of Russian agriculture from 1990-2014, large farming organizations have been dominating production at significantly increasing annual rates since 2005. Increased pressures to compete in global food markets and public policies that inadvertently discourage rural farming have caused this industrialization of agriculture (Nefedova). It will be interesting to see how Russian agriculture continues to change and influence Russian cuisine in the next few years, particularly as crops like soy become more popular.

Modern Russian cuisine is now heavily influenced by globalization. Along with the slew of Georgian restaurants that remain from the Soviet era, lots of international restaurants are opening up. In Moscow, it is possible to sample Moroccan, French, Indian, Korean, Chinese, Mexican, Vietnamese, Middle Eastern, Italian, and Jewish cuisines, jut to name a few. For fast food options, Russians particularly enjoy sushi and pizza (Mack and Surina). The majority of the Russian populace now consumes food sourced from all over the world (Wegren). Modern Russian cuisine combines the simple ingredients and painstaking culinary processes of Imperial Russia with the nationalistic pride embodied by dishes from the Soviet era and varied ingredients from global trade and industrial agriculture in the modern era.

Works Cited

Brandes, G.C. Impressions of Russia. New York: Crowell, 1889.

Dmitrovna, Elizavetta. Samovar. Richmond: The Dietz Press, Inc., 1946.

Mack, Glenn Randall and Asele Surina. Food Culture in Russian and Central Asia. Wesport: Greenwood Press, 2005.

Nefedova, T. G. ” Twenty-Five Years of Russia’s Post-Soviet Agriculture: Geographical Trends and Contradictions.” Regional Research of Russia 7.4 (2017): 311-321.

Nelson, H. I. “A History of Soviet Russia: The Bolshevik Revolution, 1917–1923 . II. The Economic Order by Edward Hallett Carr (review).” The Canadian Historical Review 34.3 (2017): 302-303.

Puzakov, Alexey V. “Meat and meat products market in Russia: current state and development prospects.” Statistika i Ekonomika 0.6 (2014): 446-452.

Scott, Erik R. “Edible Ethnicity: how Georgian cuisine conquered the Soviet table.” Kritika 13.4 (2012): 831.

Smith, Alison K. Recipes for Russia: Food and Nationhood Under the Tsars. DeKalb: Northern Illinois University Press, 2008.

Wegren, Stephen K. Russia’s food policies and globalization. Lanham: Lexington Books, 2005.