What’s the dominant taste of Russian cuisine? Surely it’s the sour taste of fermentation — sour cabbage (sauerkraut), sourdough rye bread, soused apples and, of course, sour (pickled) cucumbers. Real barrel-fermented pickles are delicious as appetizers and as ingredients for many dishes. Soups like rassolnik and solyanka and the classic salad “vinaigrette” wouldn’t be possible…
Ukraine’s atomic energy agency accused Russia of using Europe’s largest nuclear power plant to store weapons and shell the surrounding regions of Nikopol and Dnipro that were hit Saturday. Petro Kotin, president of Ukrainian nuclear agency Energoatom, called the situation at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant “extremely tense” with up to 500 Russian soldiers controlling the plant. The…
Russian energy giant Gazprom said Saturday it had asked German group Siemens to return a turbine it has repaired in Canada to ensure the Nord Stream pipeline delivering gas to Europe works. Gazprom started 10 days of maintenance on the Nord Stream 1 pipeline on Monday, with the European Union — particularly gas-reliant Germany —…