Translated material
On duty
The country has been on lockdown since last week. Almost 50 days without meat and other goodies is no joke. But every year there are more and more people who want to exhaust themselves. Politicians are no exception, as we personally saw when we inspected the Federation Council and the State Duma.
Federation Council: fish is best
It is easy and pleasant to hold a post in the Federation Council. Each of the two catering halls has a huge selection of special dishes. Most of all in the second - dietary. Here Lent is on everyone's lips. As usual, the prices are not too burdensome. Judge for yourself: cabbage soup made from sauerkraut - 7 rubles 06 kopecks, boiled potatoes with mushrooms - 14.68, rice with vegetables - 4.62, beans with butter - 10.75, sauerkraut and stewed cabbage - 5.61, salads cost from eight to ten rubles. In fact, on most days of this fast you can’t eat fish, but people don’t know about it here: fried perch - 26.53, salmon - 29.53.
“Our fish is doing well,” Oksana Marakasova, cashier at the diet hall, told Interlocutor. — Our fasters try to eat a balanced diet.
“The initiative with Lenten dishes was received with a bang,” Tatyana Frolova, head of the SF food plant, told Interlocutor. — We decided to continue... The chefs come up with all the recipes themselves. And the officials like it.
It all started in 1994, when the Federation Council was still headed by Vladimir Shumeiko - it was he who insisted that those who wanted to abstain should not sit on water and bread. They say that Shumeiko’s personal security guard decided to support the boss, but when he began to “bend over”, he came up with an excuse: they say that fasting is not necessary for people with weapons.
The current chairman of the Federation Council, Sergei Mironov, is not going to fast. Unlike Nikolai Kondratenko, who represents the Krasnodar region.
“I have been fasting according to all the rules,” Kondratenko told us, “and have been for several years now.”
He believes that God himself ordered him to limit himself these days, and so does the representative in the Federation Council from the Novgorod region, Gennady Burbulis.
“I limit myself in everything,” he said. - But there is no special or favorite dish - I eat everything, the main thing is that it is tasty.
First Deputy Chairman of the Federation Council Valery Goreglyad was unlucky, as he has been unable to give up meat for five years now.
“I can’t stand it,” Goreglyad states with a sigh, “there are so many temptations around.” I hope to be stronger this year.
If the above-mentioned officials do not have any biases in the Lenten menu, then the Tula governor Vasily Starodubtsev made his decision a long time ago.
“My favorite dish is potatoes,” he says. - I'm not picky about food. I love both fried and boiled...
The Saratov governor Dmitry Ayatskov, who publicly called for observing Lent, is not averse to tasting it. Samara head Konstantin Titov also campaigned for the same thing. It seems that only the laziest officials are not fasting this year, which does not include Moscow Mayor Luzhkov, who has been restraining himself for two weeks at the sight of meat and dairy. Well, it’s good for him - he has bees, in extreme cases he can dine on honey.
State Duma: they’re eating, it’s not enough for them
The State Duma buffet has also been lively since the very first day of fasting: deputies and apparatchiks just can’t get used to the special menu called “For the Time of Lent,” which hangs next to the regular meat and dairy menu.
“We have been preparing dishes for fasting people for the second year,” said Inessa Skobeltsina, administrator of the State Duma restaurant hall. — Although we used to also have a choice for vegetarians. Deputies wanted to see Lenten food on their tables. We went to meet them halfway. Now there are at least twenty-five such dishes every day, and in total we have about 150 recipes in stock.
As in the Federation Council, the menu pleasantly surprises with its concern for the wallets of parliamentarians, who have long been equated with the least affluent segments of the population. So, for example, as a starter they can try soy cheese with seaweed for 4 rubles 47 kopecks, cabbage salad with carrots for 2.39 or squash caviar for 3.56. For main course on the day of our visit there was only cabbage soup made from fresh cabbage with potatoes - for 7.93. It even seemed that they had decided to mock the deputies in a completely Jesuitical way, but, fortunately, the impression turned out to be deceptive. Next on the list were potato pancakes with mushrooms and butter (12.57), stewed carrots with honey and prunes (9.90), steamed rice with vegetables (2.72) and fried eggplants (7.36). To wash it all down, it was offered with both standard drinks and pear jelly (2.83) and some blackcurrant infusion at a ridiculous price - sixty rubles. By the way, natural honey, so beloved by the capital’s mayor, can be tasted in the Duma for only 5.10, but if this is not enough for the deputy’s stomach, they will offer sambuco from apples and kiwi for 9.48.
“This list is updated every day,” continues Inessa Skobeltsina. “We are now introducing a lot of soy products; they are extremely healthy and contain all the components found in meat. We add a lot of vegetables and fruits to the diet, we try to stew everything rather than fry it. After all, we must think about the quality of food, the preservation of nutrients, and taste. And taking care of the soul is the job of the church and the deputies themselves.
The fact that new products are in demand can be judged by the large deputy queues.
“I’ve been fasting for several years now,” Vyacheslav Volodin, head of the Duma faction of the OVR, proudly told us. “And I really like that the State Duma menu is so varied.
You will laugh, but we also noticed the ardent communist Vasily Shandybin in the queue. Have you really decided to renounce your ideals?
“My post is unique,” he immediately reassured us, and at the same time all his fans. “One day a week, and sometimes two, I don’t eat at all, I only drink water, and I give the money I save to the poor.” This corresponds to my ideas about the great abstinence. I think this is much more honest than what our oligarchs, government members and deputies do. While 70 percent of the population is forced to fast, looking longingly at the shelves with expensive sausages and meat in stores, these are engaged in window dressing. And the State Duma menu is from the same category.
Behind Shandybin stood the leader of the SPS faction, Boris Nemtsov, who, shifting from foot to foot, could not decide for a long time what to order.
“I’m not very religious,” Nemtsov admitted. “But I stand on the side of those who follow the necessary rules.” Now is the time to think about your health. Therefore, I practically gave up meat and reduced the amount of fatty foods in my diet. I mainly eat fish, lots of fruits, vegetables and dairy products.
But State Duma Deputy Speaker Vladimir Zhirinovsky knew exactly what he wanted.
“I try to observe fasting as much as possible, but it doesn’t always work,” Vladimir Volfovich opened up. “Let’s say they invite me to a reception somewhere—you won’t have time to eat anything all day, but here the table is set.” They just don’t know how to do without savory dishes during Lent, in an Orthodox country. You take a salad, and it must have some chopped meat or sausage in it. Moreover, everything is seasoned with sour cream or mayonnaise. Involuntarily you will try something forbidden. And you can’t ask for porridge, because they will definitely add butter to it.
One hope remains - for a workplace.
“We can’t have meat in salad,” Duma chef Lyudmila Roshchina told Interlocutor. — And we take recipes either from our own or from cookbooks on Lenten cuisine.
But it still wasn’t enough for the deputies. Then the culinary specialists asked them to write what else their souls wanted, and it turned out that the servants of the people were missing fruit salads, semolina and pearl barley porridges, seaweed and green pea soup, baked potatoes with garlic and oatmeal, lobio, oatmeal pancakes, kvass and the like. The cooks were taken seriously: life is too hard for the deputies, it’s not good for them to refuse even trifles.
Maria Alferova, Alexander Levin.