Read how Ukraine war sanctions will affect Russian families. Wall Street Journal:
Axey Furnosov, an auditor, lost money when the Russian stock market plunged at the start of the war and has been watching rising prices hit his pocketbook. He now says he will plant the entire garden at his dacha in Vladimir, a historic city near Moscow, this year with potatoes and zucchini for his young child, plus tomatoes and cucumbers to marinate for the winter.
Helps me understand why cucumbers were always served first when Russians invited us to their apartment home for dinner.
In winter 1995, on assignment in Yekaterinburg Russia, several families invited us for dinner at their apartment home. You were seated at the table upon arrival, toasted with vodka, and served first with cucumbers.
Often wondered, why always cucumbers? I didn’t want to offend our hosts, mostly faculty members from Ural State University. I was there to help counsel on the journalism department’s curriculum. But curiosity overtook me.
“Why cucumbers as appetizer?”
Answers were the same. Russia furnished their family with farmland where they go in the summer. On their ‘dacha’ they grow many different fruits and vegetables, but they marinate and preserve the cucumbers. And I surmise, serve when there’s three feet of snow and they invite the Americans for dinner.
As soon as I find out what the Babuskas–Grandmothers–teach their descendants to use to marinate the cucumbers, I’ll let you know.
Image by krzys16 at Pixabay
