How are you planning to welcome our new Russian masters?

Fortunately, I have a Russian Imperial flag at hand, so that should go down reasonably well.

The neighbours and I are scratching our heads when it comes to cooking. Borscht is about all we can come up with. I have some Russian tea, so that should help.

For drinks........ well, we've gone with the obvious and stocked up with various vodkas. Hopefully, the invading forces will find something they like. Anyone know any good wines from the Crimea?

Music. Well, we're going with the old Soviet anthem and God Save The Tsar. Authoritarian tastes can be awkward. Once the ice is broken, Tchaikovsky, Rimsky-Korsakov, Borodin, etc., should give us some breathing space.

We're boning up on Tolstoy, Dostoyevsky, etc. Cyrillic is proving a little troublesome, but once learned, we should be able to communicate with Bulgarians and Serbs also.

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dervish's picture

beluga caviar, reindeer, shish-kabob, weird stuff in aspic, pork cutlets, multiple combinations of either pickled or cooked root vegetables, cabbage, noodles, dumplings and meat, fish in many variations, kefir, yoghurt. Their food tends to be heavier than ours, but is pretty good.

Don't stock up though, they aren't coming. I was watching a documentary on Netflix, and it looks like it will be the Nicaraguan and Cuban armies who invade us, with maybe a few Russian advisors.

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"Obama promised transparency, but Assange is the one who brought it."

As for the CIA & Russia . . .

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run by an actual russian guy named Boris.

highlights included some sort of spiced carrot salad, a simple but hearty mushroom and barley soup, and his version of pierogis, which are not the same as peroshka, but i don't know remember what the russians (as opposed to the ukrainians) called them.

i think maybe he also had a version of something my polish ex-mother-in-law called a pelushki, which was a bit like a tater tot -- a deep-fried mashed potato ball.

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The earth is a multibillion-year-old sphere.
The Nazis killed millions of Jews.
On 9/11/01 a Boeing 757 (AA77) flew into the Pentagon.
AGCC is happening.
If you cannot accept these facts, I cannot fake an interest in any of your opinions.

riverlover's picture

If they bring caviar, welcome home!

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joe shikspack's picture

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Lookout's picture

As our future AG might say...Make Amerika like Alabama again.

[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jrg0X9H6FGU]

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“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”

Thanks.

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"We've done the impossible, and that makes us mighty."

dervish's picture

[video:https://youtu.be/MUyFS9kacgE]

and here's a Moldovan group, O-zone that became an internet meme:
[video:https://youtu.be/0HR4hp_-kSI]

That Red Army Choir singing "Sweet Home Alabama" was fantastic! Don't show it at TOP though, they'll cite it as proof of an impending invasion.

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"Obama promised transparency, but Assange is the one who brought it."

TheJerry's picture

I visited Russia in 1993, a week after Boris Yeltsin stood up to the tanks surrounding the Russian White House. I remember seeing the black soot above the windows of the building. I was primarily in Gatchina/St Petersburg (airport still said Leningrad) and Moscow.

I ate in both Soviet era cafeterias (both public and academic--as nasty as any movie could make it), academic dinners, homes of private citizens and in a very upscale restaurant in Moscow.

My main takeaway was the the Soviet empire had committed a crime against its people in terms of what it did to the food supply and eating habits. Food was very scarce and nasty in the public markets. But you could get good stuff in the black market.

I have to tell you I was amazed at what I had in the homes of private citizens, how they got the ingredients and put it all together was and still is a mystery. This was cooking from scratch and at a very high level. Given the ingredients, Russians really know how to cook. They know food.

So you would have to have very good food to impress them.

We will never get seafood good enough, at least not for those accustomed to the fruits of the arctic circle. Don't even think of providing vodka. It is pointless.

Good beef, yes, that we can provide, but make sure to cover it in mayonnaise--it's amazing what they can do with it. And they put it (or some variant) on everything that doesn't come out of the sea.

If we go organic/fresh/in season, we can provide them with good fruits and vegetables. That is generally in short supply due to infrastructure problems. Great big Idaho potatoes would be a good root vegetable choice.

I don't think they will know what to do with Kale or other odd modern lettuces. They do cabbage. Went to Pizza Hut wanting a personal pizza and salad bar on a cold winter's day after visiting Lenin's tomb. Only cabbage on the salad bar--no lettuce. So keep it simple--iceberg, romaine, spinach they will need time to get used to kale, arugula and the rest.

Also thinking our monster chickens with wing drummettes that look like legs might freak them out. So if you want to serve hot wings, make sure you use the scrawny old school chickens.

Cognac, they like good cognac, but it will need to be top shelf. Cuban cigars and of course, pot. These would probably be good.

Remember, the true Russian elite will have been living in London for sometime and will be nearly impossible to please.

We need to focus on pleasing the rank and file--"middle class" Russian masters. Tickets to Disney World will be much appreciated.

Just my thoughts.

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____________________________________________________________________________
"I'm not interested in preserving the status quo; I want to overthrow it. "
-Niccolo Machiavelli

"Sorry Hillary"
-TheJerry

Bollox Ref's picture

pass us by, and we can fake the average Russian with the crap we have to hand.

Caviar might just have to be fish food sitting in water for an hour.

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Gëzuar!!
from a reasonably stable genius.

ppnortney's picture

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The smaller the mind the greater the conceit. --Aesop

CB's picture

Nebraska cowboy helps to build Russian prime beef industry. They now produce some of the best beef in the world. (highly marbeled steaks can be seen at about 9:00 if you are a red meat lover)

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comrade. She hates beets, loves vodka.
Didn't I read somewhere that Smirnoff is not a good vodka?
I need vodka guidance, please.

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"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." ---- William Casey, CIA Director, 1981

tapu dali's picture

The well-known Stolichnaya is doable.

Luksusowa from Poland is my favourite, but if I could get it, I'd go for Viru vagev from Estonia.

Watch it though: it's 160 proof (80% grain alcohol).

For real.

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There are known knowns; there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns – the ones we don't know we don't know.

tapu dali's picture

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There are known knowns; there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns – the ones we don't know we don't know.

TheJerry's picture

I would have to think the alcohol taste would be extremely strong. If it is not, then that would be quite interesting.

I personally prefer potato vodka. I do like Luksusowa. Chopin (original--not rye) is my first choice, the American Blue Ice is also good.

But if you want something interesting that is also, surprisingly, good you should try Blavod the "Black Vodka" it literally puts the "black" in a Black Martini. It is black in color, not clear. I got it on a lark, but often get it when I find it. It is perfectly suitable for a dirty martini, which is my preferred drink (voda with 1/8 part of olive brine)

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____________________________________________________________________________
"I'm not interested in preserving the status quo; I want to overthrow it. "
-Niccolo Machiavelli

"Sorry Hillary"
-TheJerry

ppnortney's picture

have you ever tried Corbin? Saw someone buying some at the checkout and they said it's made from sweet potatoes and the smoothest vodka they've ever had.

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The smaller the mind the greater the conceit. --Aesop

Pricknick's picture

Not much scares me anymore.
I breath.
Deeply.

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Regardless of the path in life I chose, I realize it's always forward, never straight.

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riverlover's picture

KFC makes good takeout there, gravy could be passable. Pickles! I need to try pickling something other than shrimp.

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Not Henry Kissinger's picture

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The current working assumption appears to be that our Shroedinger's Cat system is still alive. But what if we all suspect it's not, and the real problem is we just can't bring ourselves to open the box?

sojourns's picture

the song "Russians" sang by the pop singer Sting, which was popular in the '80's. The irony lies in that the melody of the song was written by Sergei Prokofiev for a film titled "Lieutenant Kije" It can be found in the romance segment of the score and was taken by Prokofiev from an anonymous folk melody known as "The Little Grey Dove is Cooing". Naturally, Sting did not give credit to the great Russian composer.

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"I can't understand why people are frightened of new ideas. I'm frightened of the old ones."
John Cage

dervish's picture

featuring Eduard Shevardnadze's grand-daughter Sophie (the one in green)

[video:https://youtu.be/BYlm5w_d8Kc]

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"Obama promised transparency, but Assange is the one who brought it."

Roy Blakeley's picture

Russian art, actually just the itinerant painters called the Wanderers in English. I learned most of what I know in French, however, and the transliterations from Cyrillic are different and the titles don't translate easily, so that probably doesn't help. I also am not very fond of vodka or hockey. I would much rather be invaded by Cuba. Baseball and rum are much more my style.

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mimi's picture

in the hope they would send them into a re-education camp to make them "great" again.

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WaterLily's picture

Brava.

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janis b's picture

skod's picture

consulting career, I was working for a client in White Plains, New York, and was asked to host a group of 4 Russian engineers from a design center in Moscow. They came prepared with a long list of different bourbons to try. They can get vodka, Scotches, and all the european wines they want- but not bourbon, apparently.

At the time I was living at 6700 feet elevation, so I was in prime drinking shape down at sea level. We went out after work each day to all the various watering holes around White Plains, crossing off item after item on their list- and then I'd drive them back to their hotel. On the last day they were in town, I was helping get them back into their hotel after a particularly dissipated expense-account-fueled evening of steak and booze at Ruth's Chris, and their leader (and primary English speaker) threw his arm around my shoulders, exhaled a forty-thousand-horsepower breath in the vicinity of my face, and said "You are now honorary Russian....".

Good times. Don't try to outdrink a Russian engineer- can't be done. All you can hope for is a scoreless tie, and that only if you cheat (by having the altitude acclimatization under your belt, or some other form of blood-doping)...

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riverlover's picture

After age, I dunno, 50, they stop happening? 40? 30? Even good days I am not happy enough to claim heyday.

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skod's picture

I do still quietly celebrate every morning waking up on this side of the grass, though... It's like Rod McKuen said: "Take the little times and make them big times, and save the times that are just all right for the ones that aren't so good...".

Or like my dear departed gray-haired mammy used to say, "Your liver's a muscle, son, if you don't use it you'll lose it..."

Been a good long while since my last heyday as well.

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a decade or so ago two of them came floating downstream on our river in a very remote part of Alaska where we'd built our cabin and proved up on 20 acres.

Theirs was an impressive homemade rubber raft, but inexplicably they were traveling without bug dope or a tent. Needless to say, they were miserable by the time they reached us and were very happy to accept our hospitality for the night.

Neither spoke English very well and one barely at all. The better speaker took the leadership position and was somewhat of a braggart. Apparently they were visiting the world's rivers and taking at least one in every continent (save Antarctica) as an adventure. Finally the boaster got tired and fell asleep on the pullout bed and we remembered we had some green beer available for the drinking, so we pulled it out in its premature state and the 3 of us commenced without our beloved interpreter.

Amazingly, the more we drank, the better the communication! We learned the braggart had been the one who insisted no tent or bug dope was necessary, and that they were rarely paid for their work at their respective universities. The three of us became quite chummy into the wee hours (green beer is underrated!)

The following day we loaded them and their amazing raft into our boat and drove them downriver to another remote outpost where the denizens had plans to drive to town within the next few days.

A story I still tell from those days is that I was really a pretty intense chain smoker, rolling my own cigarettes. At breakfast, they wanted to tell me that I smoked excessively, but it came out " T, you are a GREAT smoker!"

And indeed, I was.

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Rikon Snow's picture

Vodka.

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But that's all we do: strike attitudes and imitate poses. We merely play at being Romans, and deceive ourselves, sometimes, into accepting the imitation for the reality. -- Robert Silverberg, Roma Eterna

Strife Delivery's picture

Since the scare of Russia is at critical mass, everyone already made it seem like Russia either owned the country now or did a stealth invasion. I'm supposed to look at every individual, and think... Is that guy a Russian? That dog? The air itself? Has my neighbor this whole time being a Russian spy? Sometimes you just...Oh God... oh sorry, thought there was a Russian spy in the corner of my room.

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dervish's picture

but mistresses, and submissive ones at that. The Atlantic ran some crazy article about how what Angry White Male Trump supporters really wanted was "submissive Russian women". I'd never call any of the Russian women I've met "submissive".

There were glimmers of this in the ‘90s and the aughts, when angry, white men flew to Moscow, and then St. Petersburg and Kiev, and then Tomsk and Omsk and Vladivostok, in search of beautiful, Russian women to replace their feminist wives in America. (I wrote a story about these men, “From Russia with Pre-Nup,” for GQ.) What they loved about Russian women, I learned, was not just that they were gorgeous, but rather that they were submissive.

Democrats disgust me lately, their media is every bit as bad as the Right's.

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"Obama promised transparency, but Assange is the one who brought it."

(she works in the US) because i needed a quick link to a paper she had published.

for a few weeks afterwards, my browser ads were populated with innumerable offers of beautiful russian wimmins for marrying.

it was kind of bizarre.

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The earth is a multibillion-year-old sphere.
The Nazis killed millions of Jews.
On 9/11/01 a Boeing 757 (AA77) flew into the Pentagon.
AGCC is happening.
If you cannot accept these facts, I cannot fake an interest in any of your opinions.