Chinese Restaurants Now Found in Almost All Settlements in Russian Far East, Zyuenko Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Sept. 13 – Chinese restaurants are now found in almost all settlements in the Russian Far East and often are the only place in the smallest villages where Russians can celebrate major events like birthdays and marriages, according to Ivan Zyuenko, who was born in that region and now works as a specialist on China at MGIMO in Moscow.

            Almost all these restaurants, known locally as chifanki, a corrupted translation of the Chinese “to east rice,” were set up in the 1990s to handle the influx of Chinese into that region. Gradually, they opened up to Russians and now occupy an important niche in the life of Far Easterners (profile.ru/abroad/dalnevostochnyj-fjuzhn-kak-kitajskaya-kuhnya-stanovitsya-russkoj-vozle-frontira-1753647/).

            The most successful of these have adapted their offerings to Russian tastes, eliminating the use of certain spices, adding more salads, and so on, and to Russian conditions by providing pick up and delivery of food, services that make them a staple of Russian life in that region, the Chinese specialist says.

            He adds that few Russians try to prepare Chinese food at home, but he notes that Russians in the Far East now use far more soy sauce than those in any other part of the Russian Federation. One indication of the influence of Chinese restaurants in the region is that they have successfully countered the appearance of Uzbek restaurants there.

            Another sign of the strength of this soft Chinese occupation is that there has not been the spread of Russian cuisine and restaurants in the other direction. While there was once a booming Russian restaurant industry when Russian emigres dominated Harbin, that largely disappeared. And a burst of interest in Russian food in the 1950s long ago burned out.

            Indicative of this is that Chinese specialists on Russia have told him that they long to eat the Russian food they consumed while students in Moscow but currently have no chance of doing so because there are no Russian restaurants and so much wait until they visit Russia for academic conferences or other meetings.