Russians eat salads in addition to main dish or can use them as main dish.

The most popular salads in Russia are potato salad, vinegret, red-beet salad, “healthy” salad.

Potato salad Russians often name “olivie”. Of course, it is not traditional French salad which is famous all over the world. When Russians offer you olivie they mean potato salad which has boiled potatoes, carrots, eggs, marinated cucumbers, fresh onion, tinned peas and meat or sausages as its components. This salad also includes mayonnaise.

Other Russian salad which also has the name of frensh dish in spite of the difference between Russian and French version of the salad – vinegret. It consists of boiled red beet and carrots, popatoes, onions, marinated cucumbers or sour cabbage. As the seasoning of the salad Russian use vinegar and vegetable oil.

Among every day meals of Russians you can find salads which unclude mainly one component as the basis. For example, it is “healthy” salad which is consists of cabbage, and red-beet salad. In spite of the simplicity of these dishes they are very useful and tasty.

Also in Russia you can try “Primorsky” salad, herring and potato salad and others.

Russian meals has meat as its main component. I think Russia is all like big piece of meat. Extremal weather, serious people… Siberians need to have power to live almost all year long in winter, so people in Siberia eat a lot of meat. In spite of eating a lot of meat, Russian have natural healthy diet. They eat meat with vegetables and never eat a lot, as in America people do.

Man from Great Britain:

In Russia I like their dairy products. They are all very tasty and useful. But the most interesting Russian milk food is milk soup. Nowhere in the world I met this dish! I tried to cook milk soup at home but could not. But sometimes it seems to me that Russians never heard about thing we name “healthy food”. They add mayonese to every dish they eat. It is so many calories there!

Woman from France:
Meals we buy in France every day in Russia are very expensive. Good cheese, meat can be bought only in elite supermarkets. But Russia has the tastiest fish in the world. In Siberia I tried wonderful salmon – you will not find such fresh fish nowhere in the world! In France sea products are expensive and not every man can buy them.

Mexican man: “In Russia it is popular to drink beer with vobla. At first it was strange for me and I did not like the smell. But once I tried it and beer with fish became my habbit. It is very funny to strike vobla on the table with the aim to make fish softer. The most crazy name of the dish I ever saw in Russian restaurant menu is “French meat”. The only French thing in it is the name. I visited France and never tried meat with cheese and tomatoes there. I think that the most tasty thing in Russia is long loaf. It is the symbol is Russia, I think, – white simple long loaf, that can be not so fresh, but it is always very tasty.”

Tourist from Argentina says: “In Argentina we never eat a lot during breakfast. Russians can eat soup in the morning! It looks like gluttony for us. On other hand, we have supper late at night. In Moscow people usually have supper at 19-20 p.m. Russian meals is very tasty, especially red-beat soup and ravioli.” As for the meat… there is no any compare with our meat at all.

Woman from Eсuador: In Russia I missed bananas very much. In Equador we have a lot of kinds of banana – little and big, green, red. In Russia people can’t cook Latin-American dishes well. The only thing that I like in traditional Russian meals is red-beet soup, because it resembles one of our soups. Russian food is very healthy. People eat a lot of vegetables. Russians drink tea constantly. They can drink it even in night club, during party. Water in Russia is of terrible taste.