Regional Specialties

Many non-native dishes have crept into the Russian cuisine and taken hold. In metropolitan Moscow it is not unusual to find Georgian-style chicken, Uzbek pilaf, or Estonian cream cake on a restaurant menu. The Russians have eagerly embraced these new foods and adapted them as festive dishes in their own kitchens—a positive legacy of Soviet imperialism.

Fifteen republics made up the Soviet Union. Three were Slavic: Russia (including Siberia), Ukraine and Byelorussia (now Belarus). The Baltic republics of Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia hugged the coast of the Baltic Sea. To the south lay the second smallest republic, Moldavia (now Moldova), akin to Romania in both language and culture. The Caucasus, an extensive mountain range, lent its name to the three Caucasian republics: Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan. And extending deep into the steppes and mountains of continental Asia were the five Central Asian republics: Tadzhikistan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenia (now Turkmenistan), Kirghizia (now Kyrgyzstan) and Kazakhstan. Each region successfully preserved its own culinary heritage despite (or perhaps because of) the centralized and inefficient Soviet system of food distribution.