Stuff Russians Like

russian potato Olivier salad, how to cook

Russian cuisine is seen by plenty of foreigners as something exotic. Being an innate, I can’t understand how these dishes look or taste strange, as through all my life porridge, soup, borsch, bliny, etc. were with me. So, I am used to this food. One of the most beloved for Russians and controversial for foreigners dishes is Russian potato salad or Olivier salad.

Most of the Russians like it. May be it’s because this salad reminds of holidays, especially winter holidays, as Olivier is a must on a New Year’s table in Russia. Another reason is that it contains some of the most favorite products of Russian diet: potato, pickles, canned peas and mayonnaise of course.

Foreigners have less enthusiasm about this salad, as it seems strange to eat this mix of products drowning in mayonnaise. As well as they have the same attitude toward a range of Russian national dishes, e.g. dressed herring.

This is a modern recipe of Russian Salad in English:

Boiled beef – 400 gm
Canned peas – 1 can
5 boiled eggs
2 boiled carrots
3-4 boiled potatoes
3-4 pickled cucumbers
Mayonnaise
Salt

I must say that there are a lot of variations of this recipe. Every fine housewife has her own recipe. But this recipe has nothing to do with the original one, which was created by Lucien Olivier in 1860s. He had a restaurant in Moscow and held his recipe in secret, but the visitors of his restaurant and other fans of the salad could approximately restore the recipe after the cook’s death. The reason why the creation of Olivier was so popular is that the cook added to his salad the most beloved ingredients of men of those times. The salad included meat of hazel grouse, capers, crayfish tails and other expensive items, which were replaced by cheaper products in Soviet times.

Meanwhile in Soviet Russia, Russian potato salad gained widest popularity. It became the national dish. And the Olivier salad of our days is an invention of rather Soviet cooks and housewives, than Lucien Olivier. By the way, along with Olivier’s work of creating the miracle of Russian cuisine (even though Olivier was French), pure Russian cooks created their own version of Olivier – Stolichnyi salad (Capital Salad), which is still in today.

recipe of russian salad in english, new year russian dishes

Outside Russia the Olivier Salad is known as Russian salad. It says a lot about our feelings toward this dish. Moreover we have created our own analog of the Big Mac index, which is the Olivier index, as it contains the most necessary products for population.

Anyone who have ever had an online conversation with Russian people noticed that they have a tend to use brackets instead of proper smileys. Moreover, the quantity of the brackets can tell a lot about the emotions and mood of your Russian pen-friend. But what is odd is that very often Russians use brackets in the end of every sentence, because it seems that without the emoticons their sentences look rude or mean. I see irony in this, as it’s believed that Russians don’t smile in regular life, but online they are the most friendly folk!

One bracket in the end of the sentence means that your interlocutor is just friendly.

- Hi
- Hello) How are you?)

Two or three brackets usually mean that a person actually has a smile on their face. But sometimes it’s just politeness and your Russian interlocutor still wears Russian smile on their face.

- I am so happy! I just have passed the last exam this semester!
- Well done)))

If you see more than three brackets it means that something is funny… or again it’s supposed to be funny and the person doesn’t actually laugh, you never know.

So, why do Russians particularly use brackets? First of all, it’s a trend. When the majority of people do that, one gives up and participate in this too. The second reason is Russian keyboard format. In English in order to type the “eyes” (the colon) one needs just to press shift and the button next to L, but in Russian there is a lot of work to do: one needs to press shift and 6. Therefore it’s much easier to press shift and 0 to get as much ))))) as we want. *evil laugh* :)

After all Russian language has a plenty of long words, not like in German, but still. Therefore, we like shortening words. We are used to this since school, because it’s unreal to write down all the teacher’s speech otherwise. I believe this habit turned into something more and now we shorten Internet symbols as well.

The other issue is when Russians, particularly the young ones go too far with that. They literally communicate like this (no exaggerating):

- Hey)))) I checked into a hospital today((((((( I broke my arm((((( But the football was great))))))))))

I get ripples in my vision when I see this amount of Russian emoticons. Luckily I can’t say this about all of the Russians. Most of them are ok with using just a couple of brackets in a message!

If you know anything about life in Russia, you must be familiar with the type of accommodation most of Russian people possess, which are not very spacious flats. Very often in the flats there is no a special place, where a family can spend time together, sipping Russian tea and talking. Therefore, it turned into tradition to spend a lot of time in a kitchen, rather than in lounge rooms, for example.

When guests come over, they are usually escorted to kitchen. Anyway, it doesn’t matter a guest it is or family circle, Russians like discussing sophisticated topics in a kitchen. And everyone does it according to one’s lights, which depend on social status, education. More intelligent people discuss ideas and problems, rather than persons, while less intelligent ones complain and often like proving their point with Russian swear words. There is a range of things to complain about, but one of the most popular topics is politics and Government decisions.

Small salaries, poor medical service, low level of education, bad roads, etc. – are the things that follow not very forward-looking government decisions, as residents suggest. Usually politicians are the bad guys, as they are involved in budget allocation and enactments. Isn’t it logical?

I believe, complaining about the government in Russian society is as old as the hills, as I cannot remember a period in Russian history, which could be called a golden age. Over the course of history, the majority of the population was oppressed. In 1897 77% of population were peasants, living in poorest conditions and serving noblemen. Today in our country 90% of revenue are possessed by 15% of people. This is outrageous inequality. So we have something to discuss.

Back on topic of discussing things in a kitchen, it’s worth mentioning, that conversations go with feast or tea (or vodka drinking). So we can spend hours, eating, drinking and speaking. It is a kind of evening leisure, which is unarguably one the things Russian like.

It’s believed that Russians are fully loyal to their Motherland (Rodina) and it’s undeniably true, but also there is some kind of a contradiction, as Russians respect plenty of foreign things highly.

First of all, there is rather peculiar tendency of majority of Russians to think that neighbor’s grass is always greener. Immigrants from Europe or USA living in Russia are seen as weird people who left ‘pais de Cocaigne’. It’s like an axiom that abroad means better (I am not speaking about our guests from Middle Asia). Even tourists in Russia are held in great respect. Locals are usually very friendly to them and eager to help even more than their own tribesmen. I have experienced that myself, while walking around Moscow and Saint Petersburg with my foreign friends and on my own. Such a contrast! May be it’s Russian famous hospitality? Anyways, we are more hospitable to foreigners, as I observed.

This respect to foreigners also has something to do with an interest to everything unusual. And you know that Russia has been isolated for so long, so that these days all the external things seem unusual and attractive to us.

The other thing on the list of foreign stuff Russians like is imported goods. Since Soviet times foreign goods have been considered as desirable and hardly accessible. Just a half had changed. Today Russians are able to buy the goods of best world trademarks, anyone can order anything on the Internet, and we do that. The issue is that Russia doesn’t produce much. And even those goods of national production that we can find on the market are very often of poor quality. Therefore, it’s not a surprise that Russians like foreign goods.

As a result of this obsession with foreign goods, particularly food, even a meme appeared on the Internet. In translation it means: ‘Sorry, but you live in Russia’. It usually depicts an example of food that is not sold in Russia.

This obsession has started in 1980s, when the flow of Snickers, Coca-Cola, bubble gum, etc. broke in Soviet market. It was a beginning of the end :)

The technology of today allows people to see every corner of the world. Travelling became a kind of a mainstream and a piece of pop culture. And Russians joined the tendency. Outbound travelling (versus internal trips) is much more popular. It’s a new trend in Russian society, as before the frontier was closed for the majority of Soviet residents. Can you imagine how much Russians value this opportunity?

Moreover, according to population survey conducted in 2010 73% of Russians would immigrate from Russia to some nicer place. Doesn’t it prove their love to foreign stuff?

typical russian flat, soviet home, Russian carpets

Traditional Russian home is a cozy and warm place, as it’s usually not a picnic outside. Since olden times the folk used different tools to make the life in Russia as comfortable as possible. Surely the list of Stuff Russians like couldn’t ignore the fact that in the majority of Russian houses and flats one can find carpets. In addition, those carpets find themselves very often on the walls rather than on the floor.

Yes, it’s a hold-over of Soviet Russia, but up until these days, plenty of comrades are not capable of throwing it away, as it has some advantages, even though it’s not in anymore. Moreover, in past days one needed to spend a one-year salary to buy a carpet and it wasn’t as easy as in Western countries. In USA, for example, if one needs buy something, they just go to a store and buy it. Meanwhile in Soviet Russia one had to find the ways to get a carpet – with friend’s help or otherwise. These days the most of young people realize the ridiculous view of carpets in interior design, but as long as the older generations live, we will be able to observe this part of life in Russia.

The most popular carpets have oriental patterns. Also in past days there were popular images with deer and Russian trio of horses. Placing these kinds of carpets on floor was an actual sin in the atheistic country.

History

In the years of Khruschev reign in 1960s there was invented a type of apartment houses which was possible to build in 12 days! They were supposed to be a quick fix for the housing problem in Soviet Union, while the life span of such houses were 25 years, but most of them still host residents. What does is have to do with Russian carpets? You see, the issue of Khruschev houses was the terrible quality of accommodation. On the list of disadvantages, there are poor noise insulation and thin walls. That’s why the affordable solution was the carpets. Later the idea of having carpets was caught on, and more people started buying them and placing on walls, floor, even furniture! In Soviet Russia owning a carpet was a sign of wealth. Ironically, that today it’s quite the opposite.

The contemporary Russian carpets mostly remind Persian ones. So, historically, they came from Eastern republics. Even long before 1960s Russians used carpets at home, but it wasn’t that mainstream. For example, here is the photo of Finnish Marshall Mannerheim in front of the Persian carpet.

Marshall Mannerheim against Russian carpet

It has also become a tradition to take family photos against the carpets. Today Russian Internet is full of such photos and it even has become a meme.

Russian wedding photo against carpet, meme

Reasons

I have already mentioned some reasons why Russians like carpets so much and hang them on walls, but, basically, this is the whole set of reasons:

For winterization: primarily they are used near beds;
As a tool of money investment in the merchandise deficit conditions (there were not goods to buy, so people bought expensive carpets);
For noise insulation;
For hiding imperfections of walls and home improvement.

The years of Soviet Union have gone a long time ago, but the echo of it still exists. One of the Soviet ghosts is carpets, which are just too difficult to throw away, even though we understand that they are just dust collectors, which can become a cause to asthma and fire outbreak. :)

So many foreigners who had visited Russia were amazed with gloomy faces of the locals.

“They are too serious, do Russians ever smile at all?”

The answer is yes. Yes, they do! Russians love smiling, laughing, joking, fooling around. The only thing they are not fond of is smiling to strangers. It’s very typical for the folk, particularly in big cities, to wear masks on faces. And if in other countries the mask is smiling, in Russia the disguise is straight. If you have ever experienced metro, buses or trains in Russia, you know what I’m talking about: everyone seems to be wicked, mean and rude. An attempt to smile can be considered as mocking or even mental problems.

In Russian language there is a proverb, which can be translated as:

Laughing with no reason gives away a fool.

And all the kids know this one since childhood. They believe that this is the only right way to live. And very often Russians abroad are confused with all the smiling around them. Although expatriates get used to it rapidly.

So why then is Russian smile so rare and so hard to achieve for strangers? The major reason, as I see it, is that Russian smile should be sincere. How many people are you really glad to see? I don’t think that it’s every Tom, Dick and Harry. I guess it’s pretty narrow circle of people. In Russia one doesn’t need to smile because it’s polite, on the contrary, it’s not! Well the rule number one is: smile only when you really want to.

The rule number two that Russians like to follow is smiling only when you have a reason, otherwise you can be considered as mad or may be a Lovelace (if you are a man).

However, it’s worth to mention that a great number of young people, the new generation, is breaking this national habit. Those who experienced international trips and plunged into another cultures noticed that fixed smile is a useful tool in communication and life, that it also makes everything look not so gloomy. So, this generation decided to introduce “foreign smile” to the “market” of Russian national character. I am not sure if it has already become stuff Russians like, but in the majority of hotels, restaurants and other services fixed smile is something that is taught during a probation period. Nevertheless I can certainly state that it has already become one of the musts in hospitality field.

And a bit of self-irony in conclusion. The answer for the question “why Russians don’t smile” in pictures :).

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