Hello, comrades! My name is Sergei. I was born in the USSR in 1971. Since 1999 I have lived in the USA. Ushanka Show channel was created to share stories as well as my own memories of everyday life in the USSR. My book about arriving in America in 1995 is available on Amazon: www.amazon.com/s?k=american+diaries+1995&ref=nb_sb_noss Please contact me at sergeisputnikoff@gmail.com if you would like to purchase a signed copy of “American Diaries” You can support this project here: www.patreon.com/sputnikoff with monthly donations Support for this channel via PAYPAL: paypal.me/ushankashow Ushanka Show merchandise: teespring.com/stores/ushanka-show-shop If you are curious to try some of the Soviet-era candy and other foodstuffs, please use the link below. www.russiantable.com/imported-russian-chocolate-mishka-kosolapy__146-14.html?tracking=5a6933a9095f9 My FB: facebook.com/sergey.sputnikoff Twitter: twitter.com/ushankashow Instagram: instagram.com/ushanka_show/ Reddit: www.reddit.com/r/The_Ushanka_Show/

Semolina kasha in the US is called "cream of wheat"

In Germany they say Eat breakfast like a tzar, lunch like a king and dinner like a beggar. So very similar.

I lived and worked in Moscow in the early 2000s and was fortunate enough to be invited into the homes of Russians to eat. I've had most all of the dishes you feature here and enjoyed them. I was kind of apprehensive of the dish "herring under fur coats" the first time because it was translated to me as "furred herring", so I thought it was herring mixed with fur. As far as dinner, it may be a light meal for everyday eating but for a special occasion, like when you've invited a foreigner over for dinner, there are two parts: the zakuski and then main meal. There are so many dishes set out as zakuski, the first time I thought it was the main meal, and after I'd stuffed myself I learned that the main meal was arriving on the table. Afterwards I was as full as if I'd visited my grandmother for dinner. But the food and the hospitality were great.

The thing I notice about food in Eastern Europe (and this isn't just the USSR): There's lots of butter and dairy, lots of pickled foods, and lots of root vegetables. Obviously that's not all there is, but it shows how much the climate of Eastern Europe effects the cuisine.

Being an American child during the Cold War, I love hearing how kids from the USSR had it growing up. Asked a friend I work with now who grew up in Bulgaria if he saw Star Wars as a kid. He said he had to get a card punched saying he watched 4 or 5 Soviet propaganda films before seeing a Western film. Said his grandmother took his card, watched the films and got it punched for him so he could see Star Wars sooner. Any similar stories? Thanks.

Спасибо сергей. I enjoyed the video. I have Russian neighbors and I have learned some Russian words. We watched this video together and it brought tears to their eyes, as they remember the USSR and many of the hardships. I have never met a more warm and caring people in my life. Please continue to enlighten us.

Sergei, my mother's parents were from Kyiv. I remember as a kid my mom would make borscht served cold with a dollop of sour cream. She also made cottage cheese and sour cream over wide egg noodles (boiled) , topped with cinnamon. I remember boiled meat wrapped in dumplings that were boiled. My dad's parents were from Lithuania, so many meals you showed brought back fond memories. Cheers.

my mother came from a poor background during WWII She was incredible She created dishes from few ingredients BUT there was one meal, eat it now, or eat it later, your choice !! I can hear her still now "waste not, want not" Spaseibo bolshoi

Semolina is sold also as a brand called "Cream of Wheat". Many people I know we all grew up eating this and loved it. Now it is considered "Baby food" (yes babies love it too!) but it is a hearty breakfast, and even a good snack. Some like it lumpy, others like it smooth.

I lived in St. Petersburg from 1992 to 1996, and encountered all of these dishes during my time there. I also learned to make quite a few of them at home, both while living there and after returning to the US. "Tvorog" is actually called "farmer's cheese" in English. Cottage cheese curds are typically larger and the consistency is more runny than farmer's cheese. I love how "tvorog" can be used in sweet and savory forms. I had never heard of "grechka" (buckwheat groats) before living in Russia. I learned to cook it by wrapping the pot in a blanket after bringing it to a boil and leaving it to steam for awhile so the groats were tender. As mentioned below, many forms of "kasha" can be found in other countries, although prepared different ways. "Stolovaya" (cafeteria) cuisine ranged from pretty good to pretty terrible, depending on the day and mood of the women preparing it.😉 The green sorrel summer borshch is the BEST when it's really hot out, as is the cold summer beet borshch. I have made "vinigret" (cold chopped vegetable salad with beets, pickles, potatoes, carrots, peas and a few other ingredients with a light mustard dressing) for parties and everyone LOVES it, particularly due to all of the chopped dill and scallions included in it. Благодарю за отличный видеоклип!

I worked with a dear lady who didn’t own a car, didn’t eat out, sometimes had leftovers for lunch, and she saved all of that money. She worked extra jobs, too. Then every July she took a wonderful trip somewhere in the world! When she saw young girls ordering food in and going to Starbucks, she would tell them to save that money for later. They always looked at her like she was crazy! And she even traveled to St. Petersburg one summer!

I showed this video to my dad who grew up in the Soviet Union and he said this is very accurate. Good job! 👍🏼 keep up the good work!

I believe "Porridge" would be the best translation for that breakfast dish you described.

This video made me so damn hungry. My 7 year old daughter and I are going to try to make some of these. The recipes are not hard to find, but I would never know they existed if you didn't make a video. Thank you comrade general secretary Sergei!

My grandma made vareniki all the time, mostly with potatoes and fried onion inside or strawberry or blueberry for a treat, that was the boiled stuff but we also had piroshki, which I always thought were the similar to pierogis because they were often fried either after being boiled or just fried, she would usually put mashed liver in them or my favorite was with what she would call "kapusta", but it really wasn't cabbage so much as fried sauerkraut. I loved it so much I miss her cooking and watching your channel brings back all the memories.. she stopped cooking as much about 5 years before dying and died in 2019 at 101 years old having been through a LOT over there especially post 1917 and during WWII. But now she can be at peace with grandpa after such a long time being without him, that's the only thing that calms me is knowing that

All the same dishes in Estonia too! This video brought back so many memories, tastes and smells...:)

Always love too see what everyone is eating around the world

Hi Sergey . The sorrel soup ( green borsh) you have mentioned can be made with spinach, but it has to be English spinach if sorrel is not available. You will need to add some lemon juice to it for that ' sourness' touch. I often made it for my family, without meat, as a summer soup, because unlike meat based soup it could be served at a room temperature and even straight from the fridge. Very refreshing on a hot day when one prefers something light and cool.

I never had to ask my mother if she liked cooking. The food spoke for itself 😂

Love the Russian language tutorial mixed with food. This is awesome. Please keep this going.

One thing I've noticed about the US vs other countries is lunch. Here in the US you eat something fast for breakfast. Lunch is prepacked. Often it's something microwaved. Dinner is the big meal. This is, of course, dictated by employers and the typical work schedule. Now lunch just means the legally mandated half hour break. Some companies are pushing 15 minute lunch breaks. Effectively, they are banning lunch at work.

During intermissions at Bolshoi theatre, they offered 'julienne' - was mushrooms baked in a creamy gravy. Best flavour ever! Also there was a Georgian pepper relish was also delicious. Never get tired of Solyanka, eat it every day.

I was skinny in high school. My brother & I got $2-$3 per day for lunch so I would save mine up to buy CDs. I was hungry but had great music collection

Reminds me of traditional New England food I had growing up. Lots of cold weather vegetables, soups, stews and boiled dinners. Minus the seafood of course, but didn’t get that too often as a kid. 14:15 the word I think your looking for is “tender” that hammer with the pointy ends we called a meat tenderizer. When you only have cheap tough cuts of meat, it helps break down the connective tissue making it easier to chew. Great video! Thanks for sharing this!

I was also born in 1971 as a first generation Canadian. My mother was Ukrainian and my father was Croatian. We were really big on soups too for lunch. Cabbage, potatoes, meat. Fresh bread was also a staple in our home. Smoked meats for cold cut sandwiches... liverwurst... rye bread.... good cheese..... yum yum oh those thin pancakes at the end of your video ... we call them palačinke.... yummy!! Served with a sweet cream cheese filling rolled up and served with some kind of berry sauce.

Did not expect this to make me hungry, but soviet breakfast looks pretty damn good.

Wait -- soup for lunch is super-common in the US. There are restaurants that specialize in soup and sandwich or salad.

Dear Comrade Sergei - I happened upon your channel by accident. I'm very thankful I did! I served in the US military where of course USSR was the "bad guy" - so I learned only the "bad stuff" - but I always admired the Soviet people and I wanted to learn more about everyday life in the Soviet Union ... Your channel does this very well. Thank you! :)

Hi Sergey, this channel is really unique. It's amazing how nice you could explain in english what we ate in USSR with great photos. I grew up in Orenburg region and we had absolutely the same food:) Thank you.

My Father grew up in a German tradition home and my Grandmother was absolutely convinced that Buckwheat gave a person hives. My Dad had Buckwheat Pancakes anytime he could and I think he did so as a means of rebellion. As I said, I regularly eat Buckwheat groats that I get from Amazon. Thank you

You get a Porche, I'll keep my borsh. [ Soviet Union Slogan ]

Sergei I am Pole and was born in 1991 (in Poznań city) and a lot of those meals are my childhood foods ^^ :D in Polish army zupa grochowa is still main meal for obiad :D

I recently had buckwheat kasha for the first time when a friend from Dagestan made some :) it was tasty! I grew up with “semolina kasha”/farina. I’m looking forward to trying to cook some of these meals! Thanks a bunch for sharing.

11:07 looks like my mom's split pea soup. She would cook it with a ham hock and serve with corn bread.

"Hammer with pointy ends": meat tenderiser.

Milk noodles! we had that sometimes in germany , and I loved it as a kid. We had something like tagliatelle ("ribbon noodles in german"), only made with eggs in them (basically the standard german noodle), boiled in milk with a pinch of salt, with a small amount of butter added, and maybe a little cinnamon and sugar over it. Also soup for lunch is very popular in germany. And for breakfast, boiled oatmeal is also quite popular. So, something like kasha. usually with milk over it, and maybe a little jam, or fruits. But I definitely have to try that fried cottage cheese with flour. It looked absolutely delicious. And actually, I think beef from old milk cows is best. Also for roasting or barbecue, btw. best barbecue I ever had was from beef I bought quite cheap, as it was deemed "soup meat". A brasilian told me that the pieces we usually boil are actually the best for barbecue, and he was right....

Thank you. Food history explains a lot.

Thank you very much for the show, me and my wife immigrated to Israel as little kids in the early 90's (I'm from Argentina, she's from pre-independence Moldova), so I watch your episodes as a way to better understand her background and her family's,I'll send her the link to this ep. I have to admit that before I dated her I had no idea what buckwheat was, let alone ate it, now I do enjoy it occasionally :P

I'm an American living in Poland. Traditional Polish food is very similar to Russian cuisine. My wife and my mother in law cook many of the dishes shown in this video. Since living in Poland I have learned to appreciate Slavik cooking. There are very few pre-prepared foods available here at the supermarkets. Everything is made from scratch the way it should be. People here are rarely overweight. Only the old woman. Unfortunately with the opening up of eastern European countries to western fast-food franchises that is starting to change. McDonald's, KFC, and the like are taking over. The former state-subsidized local eateries for students and workers that served good basic healthy inexpensive local dishes are now very rare. More the pity. It's next to impossible to find a local grilled sausage to eat on the street but a Big Mac with fries and a shake is no problem. Fat, salt, and sugar. Just what people need to keep healthy in this new era of post-communist Europe. As for trying to find a good hot bowl of healthy soup, forget it. Have a super-sized coke instead. Progress, some would say. Not I.

"you eat what your mom cooks for you" that's right! and I can't wait to try the cottage cheese cakes for breakfast.

If you like sweet cottage cheese you should try cottage cheese with peaches. You can get it in some breakfast restaurants but I think it’s generally more popular in the southern states

I'm from Canada and my mom's parents are from the Ukraine and I'm very familiar with quite a few of these dishes. Seeing this vid just reminds me of Christmas at my grandparents. Some of the names are different but I could recognize allot of these by sight. lol. And everything had garlic and sides of sour cream.

My mom grew up in the Soviet Union and she always cooked like this. Dad was Canadian and had a huge appetite and ate anything she cooked.

Hi Sergei, very interesting. It's important that the everyday history of the USSR is kept alive. Please continued with the videos. I was born in the West (UK) in the 1950s. It's very hard to explain to young people today what the Cold War meant to ordinary citizens on both sides. To us, the USSR as a secret, almost magic, land totally closed to Westerners where interesting, remarkable things happened - all buried for us under our own obvious anti-Soviet prejudice and propaganda. I was privileged to visit the Black Sea area in the early 70's - Yalta where the East and the West put aside their differences to fight Nazism and Odessa with the amazing Battleship Potemkin steps. It was like travelling to another planet - but underneath politics, people are still people, good and bad. It wasn't so different really. I also visited Leningrad - as it was called for most of my life - in the mid 1990s. The Soviet Union was still very obvious.

For our english speaking friends: Kasza - Grits, groats and a bit more general term Pierogi have to be stuffed. The thing in the picture is more like kopytka, at least here. Obed (Obiad in my country) - sort of a late lunch at 1-2 pm, also the biggest meal of the day (like dinner). At least in Poland. Our friend here seemed to have a bigger meal at the end of the day. Obiad traditionaly was made of soup and a second course in Poland, not so much now most places. Cooking for 2-3 days was common and I even do it today. There's a lot of slavic dishes that are much tastier the next day. It seems that Ukrainians and Russians actually had the biggest meal at dinner, not so much for Polish people. Everyone likes some barszcz (bortsch) and it indeed has to be eaten with potatoes or on special occasion with a kind of pierogi called uszka in Polish, no idea about Russian or Ukrainian, we got some differences here, I guess you could call it pelimeni in Russian. Soral, or szczaw in Polish, was used to make soup, in Poland we didn't call it a barszcz. Rasolnik looks like rosół but the pickles used suggest that's it's pickle soup (ogórkowa), the only difference is that we put sour cream in it usually so it's more white. The recipe is simple, do a basic slavic vegetable soup just fry pickles that are cut up into small pieces and throw them in. It's delicious. Pea soup is actually split pea soup (the yellow stuff) It's amazing and a staple. Grochówka in Poland. Nowadays I pack it full of kielbasa and pork. In Poland we used a lot of chicken and beef bones to make broth. Amazing stuff and yeah, takes a whole day to make it properly The Polish eat jajecznica (scrambled eggs) for breakfast. Looks like this is different as it's more like jajko sadzone, a fried unscrambled egg Nothing complicated abous "russian" salad. Boil vegetables and eggs, cut them up into tiny cubes (there's actually a tool for that), add mayo.

Very informative thank you! I was eating 1 of the dishes watching the video 😋😋

What a great video. Thanks so much for this insight into your culture.

I came here not only for learning experience, but to also see how many foods I recognized from LIFE OF BORIS' channel. Guy does some pretty good how-to videos on cooking Eastern European dishes.

my parents cooked like that more than 20 years after we left the soviet union

I'm not an American but for some reason I grew up with a lot of soups with my grandma. Never have borscht yet drill. Still want to try cooking it though because of LifeOfBoris showing me how! Great to see another soup fan for comfort food;

All of what you were eating looks SO good to me. Thanks

Just what a UK citizen needs right now, soothing video from someone who understands great change...

I was in Kiev last January. I was determined to try BORSCHT. I knew that it was made from beets, and thought that it might be bland or tasteless. I couldn't have been more wrong. It was DELICIOUS! I never imagined all of the veggies and meat in Borscht. I was told by my two Ukrainian companions that I must have Vodka with it (tradition) as well as a small bread roll. They suggested horseradish in the Vodka, and I complied. Different, but tasty. One of my friends (both female) actually had Chicken Kiev. In Kiev. 😊 Our restaurant was a really unusual place in the underground mall in Independence Square. Dont remember the name, but very cool! I cannot recommend Kiev enough! It's красивий! I dated a Ukrainian girl a few years ago in my hometown of St. Louis. She was a sweetheart! Ukrainian girls are funny in a lot of goofy ways. Sergei, since you brought up the subject of potatoes, Kate (Yekaterina) claimed that U.S. potatoes taste like fish. Is that your opinion too? I strongly disagreed with her. I asked where she got them and how she prepared them. It was then I learned the importance of potatoes to Ukrainians. "What did you and Slava (her roommate) have for dinner last night?" Kate: "Meat and potatoes." "And the night before that?" "Meat and potatoes." And so on.... She asked me once, "Why do all restaurants in America put cucumbers on sandwiches?" Me: "Huh?...." Lol Me: "Kate, where did the bruises on your thigh come from?" 😜... Kate: "From work. I am clumsy." (She worked at a hotel as a service worker cleaning rooms. Apparently she wasn't very good at it). Miss her. (Sits back and waits for the douche-bags to "correct me on "Kiev". Popcorn at the ready).....

I'm from Lithuania , I was born in 1993 and lived post Soviet Union . Everything food related here you describe is essentially was my childhood meals , both in home and school .

I find your presentations VERY interesting. Just recently found your site. Thank you

Well, that was very interesting, indeed. I only wish the names of the dishes were in the video (such as the Russian words for "breakfast", "lunch", and "dinner" were in the video), because then I could Google the recipes and cook some of these delicious meals, too. :-)

Just discovered this channel and this video in particularly! In my view, you ate very much like I did and still do here in Appalachia.

Excellent Video! Thanks a lot!

I think the "catch all" English word you may be looking for is *Porridge* It seems to have the same flexibility for time of the day meal choice ["camping situational" ease of preparation] but primarily describes breakfast and usually the former definition of "cereal" in the morning before USA's industrial mass market idea and definition currently. 🙋‍♂️ Irishmen married into a Texan Hispanic family for context. Love the show and people from all over the world. 😊👍 Diversity is fun and good I think.

The breakfast dish you couldn’t translate, the semolina kasha, would be called “Cream of Wheat” in English. Semolina is a kind of wheat. And if any of those kashas were made from corn, in American English, they’d be called grits. Grits are very popular in the South. Even northerners like them, although they aren’t as popular as oatmeal.

For older Lithuanians, the foods here and timing of meals were very similar except they had a thing known as supper (as distinct from dinner). I do not know what post-Soviet Lithuanians really eat now with the advent of pre-packaged foods. One difference is in beet soup. From what I saw, Lithuanians did not eat Ukrainian style borscht but made instead a very simple all heavy beet soup. Also some uniquely Lithuanian foods for special occasions the dish known as cepelinai which was essentially a very big potato dumpling.

Really Appreciate you Bro ,old memories😊

Your videos brought back some good memories. Thank you for sharing.

My dad LOVES buckwheat kasha with milk. He goes to the Russian store and buys a big thing of precooked buckwheat and just adds warm milk and voila, he has a good meal. Mannia kasha in our family is made out of cream of wheat by the way. Ok I keep editing this and adding more because these are all my childhood. Syrniki are my favorite! My aunt used to make it the absolute best and I miss her so much.

Ushanka Show .. That saying the General quoted at 2:12 was expressed in a different way in North America. It goes " Eat breakfast like a king, lunch like a prince and dinner like a pauper ( poor person ) "

Continuing to watch your top 15 posts.

This video is giving me second hand nostalgia. Never experienced your memories, but I feel like I miss them.

So Breakfast in USSR was your equivalent to Oats Meal

Now I feel like cooking a big pot of soup tonight for my Ukrainian fiancé🙂

Thanks for making this -- super interesting.

Awesome job, give us more.

The word you were looking for when you were talking about pounding the cutlets with a pointy mallet is "tenderize".

Lunch at the end looked wonderful! I don't know why buckwheat isn't more popular here either, I love it.

On my college tour in 1989 two classmates made a bet that one would need everything that we were fed. After a few meals over there it was a pretty sure bet he was going to win, the food was fantastic. I wasn't sure if we were getting great food just because we were Western tourists But it looks like we had a lot of the things that you showed here. I'm really happy you were able to eat so well. If I'm right I see you live in Michigan now, maybe the Southwest area near Berrien County closer to Chicago? Can you recommend any good Russian restaurants in the Chicago area? My favorite restaurant in the entire city is Polish, Czerwone Jabluszko or Red Apple buffet on Milwaukee north of Irving Park road, fantastic food some of which looks similar to what you showed here especially the pierogies.

Thank you for sharing! These look delicious.

Sergei, I think that what you had was farmers cheese, not what is sold as “cottage cheese” in our supermarkets. They are almost the same thing. They are made the same way. The milk is curdled so it separates into the curds ( casein ) , and the liquid part is the whey. The whey is sour. In the states they add some of the whey back into the curds. That us what is sold here as cottage cheese.

In the Southeastern US, it was common to have "soup and a sandwich" for lunch at a diner. Winter construction workers would have hot soup in a thermos or heat soups on-site. That has been mostly replaced by microwave and fast food. I remember making tomato or meat/cheese/veggie sandwiches and Wednesdays I'd bring a portable grill for grilled cheese sandwiches and let other people use it. The guys loved Grill-day. I love soup an still eat it for lunch several days a week.

Thank you for sharing your memories and life stories with us. Great video.

this is so great!! brought back a lot of memories. watching this video i honestly couldn't remember if i ate lunch at school or not. i remember lots of kashas in kindergarten though. haha i hated gerkules/hercules (oatmeal), but toasted manka (farina/cream of wheat) and buckwheat were my favorite. im surprised you didn't mention what you drank. kisel, kvas, kefir, and all the juices we had are so different from what people drink here. im also surprised you didn't mention shchi, tefteli, bigus, plov, zharkoye, golubtzy, vinegret, bliny/blintzes, or stuffed peppers...but i guess if your mom didn't really enjoy cooking that makes sense too. you should do a video on holiday food. all my american friends are always blown away by the spread at the new years table that russians put out. i dont really know any other nationality who does meal courses at home, even for the holidays.

Very interesting. The pounded fried meat reminds me somewhat of Southern chicken friend steak. I for one, like soup for lunch. So your soups and borschts look so delicious. As for beets, I love them. Fresh only. Not very popular in the USA, at one time anyway. Would love to have some of these recipes.

That reminds me of seeing “American” dressing in German supermarkets lol.

Thank you ! You made me hungry looks so good.

The food looks very delicious... thank you for sharing!

Kasa is also the same word for "porridge" in Hungarian :)

Pancakes made with buckwheat flour are great. I like the sort of sweet, earthy taste.

I don't know why this channel ended up in my feed, but I'm very glad it did

The pictures of Soviet times are very much appreciated. All your stories are. Thanks again friend.

This looks like torture for someone who is used to middle eastern cuisine. With lots of rice, herbs and spices.

We have Sorel and people in the United States my age and older love it and always used it. I grow it in my garden.

Even after the collapse of the USSR, the lunches in the “stolovka” are some of the best I have ever tried )

Thank you so much. The food looks amazing.

Sergey, you made me so hungry! I hope I'll visit Ukraine someday in the future and try all of those dishes! I didn't know people in the USSR ate pasta, and I really didn't expect them to have it as a side dish!

"Butterbrot" ... I had a smile in my face. My wife sometimes cooks Borschtsch with red turnip, potatoes, sour cabbage and beef.

I discovered your Channel about 2 or 3 years ago and I've learned more about the Soviet Union from your channel then I have anywhere else on KZfaq

Excellent video.

I live in Colorado and there's a Russian deli a mile away. My favorite food there is red beets with mayo and meatloaf cabbage rolls

The video shows pictures of fried meatballs, but I don´t think we hear what they are called. Fried meatballs are very typical danish food, and we call them "frikadeller". Apparently russians call some thick susages "frikadelki". In Denmark "russian salad" is very common, we buy it in the stores. It is made of red beets and look like the beet salad in the video.

The show's where you speak about food are my favorite.

Greetings Comrade! I am a new subscriber. I spent my youth studying the Soviet Union and even ended up going to University with Soviet Jews. I also had Bulgarian roommates for several years. This will be a channel I will enjoy much.