Russian South Market

Russian South Bazaar

 

Russia is a pretty big country and usually people from the North don’t know anything about the South, or those who live in the West can’t imagine how people in the East really live.

As I used to live in three different towns (in the North in my childhood, in the central part of the country and in the South) I always compare life in these different regions as they are so different from each other

And if you ask me about my favorite place in the South, I will tell - The Market. Here people call it “ The Bazaar”, like in Turkey. I believe it is the most picturesque place in my city.

A Bazaar is a kind of a huge market under the open sky (alfresco?) where one can find all ingredients for any traditional Russian dishes. Often everything here is sold by people who make or grow products themselves. But it is not a rule.

The man I love the best in my city's Bazaar is a good giant who sells “salo”.

It is a piece of salty or smoked pig fat. Those pieces that have a thin meat interlayer in England called bacon, but in Russia we don’t fry it, we eat it raw with bread and a drop of very spicy Russian mustard.

By the way, you should eat “salo” only with  “black bread” ( rye bread with coriander, called “Borodinskiy” – from the Soviet 1930s).

                                    

                                    

Another part of the Bazar that is worth mentioning, is the “Meat market”. Long rows of raw meat looking especially picturesquely from the second floor. You can find here all sorts of meat that are typical in the south part of Russia.

                                         

                                        

Things that are also sold indoors  - are milk products. Russian people are crazy about everything that is made from milk. It comes from Soviet times.It turns out to be a problem nowadays: we  only have dairy cows and no any beef species, like in Argentina, Australia or the USA.

  

For example a kind of home-made milk product – “ryazhenka” ( “zh” here pronounced like the first sound in the word “join” but without “d”). It is cow milk, that is first heated and than baked in the oven till the crust is brown. In the market it is sold in a “faceted” glass ( with a spoon ) – the most widespread glass all over the country. It usually has 12 or 16 edges in order not to roll from the table.

                                           

  

I can bet that Russia is the only country where one can find such a diversity of dainties ( pickles – but without adding vinegar – only salt and sugar ). We have salty cucumbers, tomatoes, paprika, garlic and cabbage. The most exotic things for a foreigner are soaked salty apples, plums, water-melons and blackthorn.

                                 

                                            

Another kind of Russian “delicacy” is a dried or jerked fish. We have dozens of different sorts, depending on the part of the country. In the South we have bream, vimba and sea roach. For Russians it the best beer appetizer

Have a good gay on the Russian Bazaar!