RUSSIAN WINE, WOMEN AND SONG
Some friends are hoping to start up a business exporting California wine to Moscow and St. Petersburg, Russia, so we went there to check out the food and wine market. On the way to Moscow we stopped in London, and had a chance to tour the state rooms of Buckingham Palace, and we were duly impressed. Then suddenly we were in Moscow, and were invited to visit the Kremlin Palace in Red Square. This made Buckingham Palace pale by comparison. The incredible carved décor covered in gold gilding, the huge rooms filled with exquisite parquet floors, and the beautiful chandeliers were breathtaking. One could easily envisage some mighty fine wines being consumed at dinners held here. We did the tourist circuit, checked some wine stores, had some fine meals (but only the soups were really good) walked down main streets, and admired the people. Of course, I expected Russian people to be short, and slightly stooped, like my Russian grandparents. But Moscow streets are filled with six foot plus tall thin blond women dressed in designer jeans, with the Britney Spears look. They must manufacture jeans with extra long pant legs for the local market. It's no wonder the Russian women are winning the tennis tournaments. Then we left for St. Petersburg, the cultural capital of Russia. We visited St. Petersburg 33 years ago, when it was called Leningrad, and made friends there with some ham radio operators. Then it was a grey, grim looking city although the government supplied guide kept saying how beautiful it was. Now nearly every façade has been or is undergoing restoration, and the city is truly beautiful. The buildings are clean and sparkle with pastel colors and gold or white trim. There are five rivers and dozens of canals that transverse the city, and there are wide streets and many green parks. There are famous palaces everywhere, and the history of the 17th , 18th and 19th centuries comes alive. The French stopped competing when they had their revolution in 1789. The Russians kept trying to outdo the French architecture until the Russian revolution in 1917. But there are no skyscrapers, and no modern buildings. And there is not much commerce, by our standards. But tourism is flourishing, the hotels are wonderful, the ballet and opera were fantastic, and the Russian people really a There's clearly a rapidly expanding upper middle class in the urban areas, with lots of interest in fine foods and wine. We visited a very upscale food store in Moscow, filled with expensive delicacies. It was quite different from here, especially in the prepared seafoods department, and there was lots of caviar. But the price of the caviar wasn't very different than in Gelson's. An entire room was devoted to wines, and I saw a lot of familiar labels, including some well-known California wines, the typical Italian wines (at about the same prices as here!) and a large selection of French wines. Most of the hotel wine lists contained primarily French wines, I came to expect, considering the influence of French culture in the restored palaces. But at the "Russian Club" wine cellar restaurant in St. Petersburg, next to the church pictured here, we had a great New Zealand wine tasting. Perhaps the best find for me in terms of wine were the Armenian Brandies. These rivaled the best of the French Cognacs, at 20% of the price. One memory I bought home is the tie I wore at our farewell dinner. When I cut into the Chicken Kiev, parsley butter spurted out onto my tie, as Russian cookbooks say is supposed to happen with properly made Chicken Kiev. Then, while cleaning it, I spilled some of the delicious brandy on it. What a great souvenir! ADDITIONAL ARTICLES |
ppreciate alcoholic beverages. At almost every meal we were served vodka, served like coffee in a Midwest café: as soon as you drink some, the waiter refills the glass. At a ham radio party 33 years ago we all drank vodka at Eugene's apartment. This time we again went to Eugene's same apartment and he offered us a glass of vodka. Then he showed us his newest "toy," an automatic machine gun that he says he needs for security during weekends at his dacha in the countryside.
A TOUCH OF FRANCE IN HAWAII