Soviet kitchen classics

Seventy years of the Soviet Union left Irad a second kitchen. Borscht, pelmeni, olivier salad and buckwheat came with the Russian families who settled in the oil city of Nurzhan and the railway towns, and they never left. In Nurzhan these are still everyday dishes, and in every city you’ll find them on the name-day table next to the plov.

I learned most of them from my friend Olga’s mother, Tamara, who fed half her building and corrected my grating with great patience. More are on the way.