 In the Soviet Union, borscht was one of the most popular everyday dishes. It was described by James Meek, a British correspondent in Kiev and Moscow, as "the common denominator of the Soviet kitchen, the dish that tied together ... the high table of the Kremlin and the meanest canteen in the boondocks of the Urals, ... the beetroot soup that pumped like a main artery through the kitchens of the east Slav lands". Among Soviet leaders, the Ukrainian-born Leonid Brezhnev was especially partial to borscht, which his wife continued to personally cook for him even after they had moved into the Kremlin.
