RUSSIANS LIKE TO EAT WELL. RICH AND diverse Russian cuisine can add to even the most demanding of gourmet's wide range of palate - pleasing options.
Russian cuisine is renowned both for its soups, such as shchi, borscht and solyanka, and meat dishes, such as podzharka (a grilled or fried piece of beef) and Beef Stroganoff. Siberian pelmeni, or boiled meat dumplings, are among its most popular dishes, too.
Russian cuisine employs a whole variety of seafood: black and red caviar, salmon, sturgeon, crab, lamprey, and more. One should by all means mention alongside these expensive delicacies a cheaper sort of seafood which is highly popular among ordinary Russians - herring with onion and potatoes.
Every experienced Russian housekeeper has his or her own secrets for making pies and kulebyakas [traditional Russian pies filled with meat fish, cabbage, etc.], salted cucumbers and sauerkraut. And, of course, for frying, boiling and pickling mushrooms, which Russian forests yield in  abundance.
But as Russians say, "No dinner is good without bread." One important national characteristic is that, in addition to wheat loaves and buns, Russians also consume in large amounts rye bread, which they have always viewed as the most significant food product.
Other peoples populating Russia have their own, equally diverse and original, styles of cooking. Should you find yourself in the Far North, you will by all means be treated to stroganina, or long thin slices of raw frozen fish, as well as to various venison dishes. In the Caucasus, you will be able to partake of barbecued lamb. The Bashkirs and Tartars will offer you a kazy, or a dried sausage made of the meat of a horse, while the Jews will let you taste their famous stuffed fish known as gefilte fish.
Despite the fact that the former Soviet republics are now separated by frontier barriers, gastronomical barriers remain, as always, wide open. The menus of many Russian restaurants and cafeterias include Ukranian, Caucasian and Central Asian dishes. Culinary traditions of other countries, too, are well represented in Russia: there are French, Italian, Chinese, Japanese, Mexican, and Argentinian restaurants in large Russian cities, and there are a lot of diners across the country selling American-style hamburgers and hot dogs.
And now here are recipes of some popular Russian dishes for those of our readers who may decide to cook something Russian on their own: