page_title: Russian culture
section_title: Cuisine
hierarchical_section_title: Russian culture / Lifestyle / Cuisine
caption_attribution_description: Español: Pelm'enyРусский: Приготовление пельменейEnglish: Preparation of pelmeniالعربية: مكرونه الرافيولي الروسيه한국어: 러시아 라비올리
context_page_description: The culture of the ethnic Russian people has a long tradition of achievement in many fields, especially when it comes to literature, folk dancing, philosophy, classical music, traditional folk-music, ballet, architecture, painting, cinema, animation and politics. In all these areas Russia has had a considerable influence on world culture. Russia also has a rich material culture and a tradition in technology.
  Russian culture grew from that of the East Slavs, with their pagan beliefs and specific way of life in the wooded, steppe and forest-steppe areas of Eastern Europe and Eurasia. Major influences on early Russian culture and Slavic people in Russia included:
  nomadic Turkic people and tribes of Iranian origin through intense cultural contacts in the Russian steppe
  Finno-Ugric peoples, Balts and Scandinavians through the Russian North
  Goths in the Pontic littoral, who left linguistic traces in the early Russian dialects
  the people of the Byzantine Empire with whom Old Russia maintained strong cultural links
context_section_description: Russian cuisine widely uses fish, poultry, mushrooms, berries, and honey. Crops of rye, wheat, barley, and millet provide the ingredients for a plethora of breads, pancakes, cereals, kvass, beer, and vodka. Black bread is relatively more popular in Russia compared to the rest of the world. Soups, stews and filled dumplings are very characteristic for Russian cuisine. The most popular soups include shchi, borsch, ukha, solyanka and okroshka. Smetana (a heavy sour cream) is often added to soups and salads. Most popular dumplings are pirozhki, pelmeni, varenyky and Turkic manti. One of the most popular are foods are blini, which are like syrniki native types of Russian pancakes. Furthermore, Cutlets (like Chicken Kiev) and shashlyk are popular meat dishes, the last one being of Tatar and Caucasus. origin respectively. Popular salads include Russian Salad, vinaigrette and Dressed Herring. One of the main characteristics of Russian food culture are Zakuski, which define a Russian-laid table.
caption: Preparation of pelmeni, a common Russian dish which originated in the Ural region (the word itself is from Komi and Mansi languages).[citation needed] Khokhloma handicraft is seen on the background.
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