The Taste of Nationalism:Food Politics in Postsocialist Moscow
Melissa L. CaldwellHarvard University , usa
abstract In this article I consider how Muscovites cultivate and express nationa-list sentiments through their food choices. During the last ten years of the post-socialist transition, Russian consumers have encountered an expanding and increas-ingly transnational commodity market. Locally produced elements of Russian cuisineboth compete with and imitate foreign food products. In response to perceptionsthat foreign cultures are displacing or subsuming local cultural forms, Russian officialshave launched a ‘Buy Russian’ campaign. Domestic food producers, store clerks,and customers collaborate to classify foods and other products as either ‘Ours’ (Nash)or ‘Not Ours’ (Ne nash) and describe local goods as superior to foreign goods interms of taste, quality, and healthfulness. In their own narratives about consumptionchoices, Muscovites echo these nationalist themes by explicitly linking their perso-nal food experiences with broader political issues. Drawing from ethnographic field-work on food practices in Moscow (1995–2001), I suggest that consumption strategiesmediate Muscovites’ experiences with growing nationalist sentiments in the con-text of a globalizing Russia.
I n summer 2000, I was riding the metro in Moscow when an advertise-ment overhead caught my eye. The poster depicted a steaming cup offast-cooking ramen noodles, and the caption read: ‘American equipment,
Russian production. We all eat only our [nash] soup. It’s noodle time!’ Dur-ing the last several years of Russia ’s ‘postsocialist’ transition, such pairings ofthe local and the global, the national and the transnational, have popped upthroughout Moscow on subway walls, billboards, restaurant menus, transitmaps, and in glossy magazines and plain newspapers. Summertime sidewalkcafés serve Russian-sty le foods and beverages under umbrellas decorated with
the logos of global corporations, and the cheerful sayings that cover the plas-tic bags in which customers’ purchases are placed are as likely to be in Eng-lish as they are in Russian. In myriad and complex ways, Russians’ consump-tion experiences have been transformed so that the new, post-Soviet Russiais strategically positioned within the ebb and flow of global advertising; andjuxtapositions such as these are commonplace in local culture.
As a commercial commodity , ‘the West’ has long been present in daily lifein Russia and other socialist states, both as a foil to state political ideologiesand as a viable economic currency (Berdahl 1 999b; Crowley 2000; Kelly 1 998).Formerly visitors to what was then the Soviet Union recall surreptitious trans-actions with local entrepreneurs that involved American blue jeans and ciga-rettes in exchange for Russian souvenirs. Foreign commodities from West-ern Europe and North America, when obtainable, were generally procuredonly by elites w ith special privileges or by fortunate individuals with fruitfulexchange networks.1 In the post-Soviet period, however, Western commoditieshave become widely available throughout Russia and are compelling indica-tors of the political and economic changes that have occurred in the countryduring the last ten years. In the first half of the 1 990s, food products fromNorth America and Western Europe were typically found only in more ex-pensive, specialty supermarkets that catered to foreigners living in Moscowand to Russia ’s political and economic elite. By the late 1 990s, the availa-bility of foreign food products (and other commodities) in Russia has grownas a result of a combination of such factors as increased production at trans-national food corporations in Russia, decreased costs associated with imports,and greater market demand by local consumers. Today Moscow shopperscan fill their shopping carts w ith American frozen pizzas, German meats andsausages, Finnish dairy products, and Chinese noodles and spices. Sidewalkstands selling sausages and chops from the local state-owned meat factory,or milk products from the state dairy , increasingly compete for space withkiosks offering pizza slices and Chinese take-away.
These changes reveal that foreign food products now compete directlywith local products, thereby complicating the status of ‘the West’ as ‘the Other’in Russians’ increasingly globalized consumption practices. In state-ownedshops, privately-owned stores, small sidewalk kiosks, and foreign supermar-kets alike, Russian-manufactured staples such as flour, sugar, and salt, oftenwrapped in monotone packaging with minimal descriptions of the contents,share shelf-space with gaily wrapped foreign-made prepared foods and in-stant meals.2 In the Eliseevskii Gastronom, an elegant pre-revolutionary food
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shop that attracts tourists and local residents with its ornate wooden wallcarvings and glittering chandeliers, brightly colored advertisements assurecustomers that by eating a particular brand of American breakfast cereal theywill be members of a global community of like-minded consumers.
Yet, even as many Muscovites have assimilated into their daily lives suchaspects of capitalist consumer practices as credit cards, fast food restaurants,and American business English, other Muscovite consumers have expressedmisgivings over the incorporation of foreign elements so completely into localculture. These concerns have been reflected in a recent surge of nationalistsentiments oriented at cultivating and maintaining an idealized Russiannessthat privileges ethnic, religious, cultural, and ideological homogeneity overdiversity (Caldwell forthcoming; Filipov 1 999; Lemon 1 995 ; Humphrey 1 999).In practical terms, this phenomenon that Khazanov has termed ‘exclusiveethnic nationalism’ (Khazanov 1 997 :1 25 ) has been realized through purifi-cation efforts to rid Russia of potentially polluting foreign elements, includ-ing commodities, ideologies, and even people. One striking by-product ofthese trends has been the growing appeal of a specialized niche of commodi-ties that draw on Russian linguistic markers and historical-cultural allusionsin order to cater to the notion that Russians share a unique set of tastes andvalues that is not satisfied by imports or other transnational products. Thegrowth of this commercialized nationalism has found popularity among con-sumers who carefully calculate the extent to which the foods and other itemsthat they buy reflect the specifically Russian values and attributes they es-pouse. Through the shared consumer experience that emerges from the carefulmanipulation of these products, these shoppers publicly situate themselveswithin an imagined national community.
My aim in this article is to investigate the current popularity of nationalistfood practices in Russia as part of a reorientation of Russian consumer proc-esses. This shift, however, is more than simply the creation or resurgence oflocal food practices in the face of transnational influences (cf. Watson 1 997 ;Wilk 1 999). Rather, I suggest that it highlights a Russian consumer culturethat refashions practices more typically associated with market capitalism topreserve values that are more recognizably ‘socialist’ – notably ethics of socialityand collective responsibility. In Moscow, consumers’ food choices reflect theirunease w ith the implications of the transition to democratic capitalism. Inparticular, Muscovites’ food practices reproduce a commitment to a morecollective, singular sense of Russianness than that envisioned with capitalistindividualism and autonomy, and particularly the variety of capitalism typi-
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cally associated with American culture. Through their food choices, Musco-vites emphasize their connection to a cohesive sense of Russianness by trans-forming Russia ’s political and economic concerns into personally and col-lectively meaningful experiences.
To explore these issues, I first examine how changes in Russia ’s consumerpractices during the last ten years reflect other shifts in Russia ’s relations tothe commercial West. From this discussion, I proceed to an exploration ofthe specific aspects of a nationalist mode of food consumption. The materialon which this article is based derives from ethnographic fieldwork conductedin Moscow between 1 995 and 2001 , as part of a larger project on changingconsumer practices in post-Soviet Russia.3 The ethnographic analysis in thisarticle combines data from interviews; surveys; personal observations in shopsand restaurants; and various textual documents such as product wrappers,commercials, advertisements, magazines, and journals. The Muscovites whoseperspectives I include in this article are middle-class high school and univer-sity students, faculty members, parents, and grandparents.
Socialized Food Consumption in RussiaChanging food practices in Moscow comprise one strand of the larger ‘con-
sumer revolution’ (Davis 2000) that has swept Russia, Eastern Europe, China,and other socialist societies during the last ten years (Barker 1 999a; Berdahl1 999b; Gillette 2000; Jing 2000; Verdery 1 996; Watson 1 997 ). According toone interpretation, these changes are important because they signal a shiftaway from the chronic shortages and state-dictated supply conditions thatformerly characterized socialist states and curtailed the extent to which citi-zens were active participants in consumption activities. Caroline Humphreyhas argued (1 995 ) that Soviet citizens were not active consumers becausethey did not participate in the consumption process. Two financial consult-ants argued that as of 1 992 , ‘markets and consumers do not as yet exist in anyreal sense in Russia ’ (Clarke & Koptev 1 992 :23 ).4
An alternative perspective, however, holds that socialist societies wereindisputably consumer societies because citizens were compelled to find creativeways to negotiate the existing system (Barker 1 999b; Berdahl 1 999b; Condee& Padunov 1 995 ). One element common to Soviet-sty le societies was thatthe state established itself as the provider for citizens’ needs by owning andoperating all aspects of production and distribution (Verdery 1 996). In con-trast to market capitalism models that are geared to consumers’ demands(Smith 1 981 ), state socialist plans dictated consumers’ needs by determining
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which goods would be produced and in what quantity. One consequencewas that this process constrained the degree of product variation, thus en-suring that the goods available in Moscow were identical to those availablethroughout the Soviet Union.5 The homogenous nature of the consumerexperience also limited shoppers’ abilities to distinguish themselves throughmaterial resources.6 Only elites and foreigners had easy access to unusual orimported commodities, and this was primarily through travel abroad or throughprivileges at special stores that were closed to the rest of the population. Thesecircumstances did not mean that ordinary citizens were denied the ability toexpress agency and individuality in their consumer choices, however. Rus-sians who wanted to set themselves apart from their neighbors resorted tochannels and strategies that existed outside the officially legal realm. Exchangetransactions through extensive informal networks thus became another im-portant means of access for both everyday necessities and periodic luxuries,while black market traders who sold goods that had been smuggled acrossthe borders or traded from foreigners offered another avenue for creative con-sumption.7
The transactional nature of Russians’ consumer practices was inherentlysocial and acutely shaped people’s daily routines and practices. The unpre-dictability of market supplies and episodic scarcities prompted shoppers tobuy up goods when they were available and store them for the future. Cus-tomers also participated in collective consumer activities such as sharing, shop-ping for relatives and friends, approaching store departments with a ‘divideand conquer’ method when shopping with friends, and holding places in queuesfor other shoppers. Informal transactions depended on the integrity of ex-change partners who could offer personal guarantees for the quality or reli-ability of the goods, services, and information that was transmitted throughthe networks. Thus social relations became powerful forms of currency inthe socialist economy, both as means to procure and exchange goods, and asmeans to evaluate the worth of the goods and the information that flowedthrough the transactions.8 This emphasis on social networks as a necessarycomponent to everyday life has continued into the present period (Caldwell1 999; Pesmen 2000).
For many Russians, the acquisition and display of foreign commoditiesprovided opportunities to articulate personal opinions about the state andtheir experiences with state socialism. On the one hand, consumer practicesthat existed outside the official economy emphasized the inability of the stateto meet the needs and interests of its citizens. On the other hand, the careful
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creation and maintenance of scarcities revealed the state’s control over themost intimate aspects of everyday life. For those citizens whose personal viewsdid not match those of the state, the consumption of foreign goods such asAmerican-made blue jeans provided a channel for articulating dissent (Hum-phrey 1 995 ). For others, the conspicuous exhibition of foreign products repre-sented the successful navigation of informal networks. The carefully arrangeddisplays of foreign shampoos, toothpaste, or detergents that graced people’sbathroom shelves, a feature also observed by Berdahl in Eastern Germany(1 999b), testified to one’s worth and status in manipulating exchange activities.
It is within this context of socialist consumption that food practices haveprovided a particularly critical vantage point for exploring intersections be-tween state-level efforts to cultivate an appropriate and productive citizenand the concomitant efforts of those citizens to carve out unique and inde-pendent identities for themselves.9 Part of the Soviet project to promote andenforce communism included the transfer of food preparation and eating intothe public realm. Public dining in communal kitchens, workplace canteens,and state-owned cafeterias and food shops was envisioned as an opportunityto instill in Soviet citizens socialist values of social and economic emancipa-tion, egalitarianism, and collective responsibility (Borrero 1 997 ; Goldstein1 996; Rothstein & Rothstein 1 997 ). Despite the state’s intentions, however,public dining never replaced completely the family kitchen (Glants & Toomre1 997 :xi–xxvii; Goldstein 1 996), and ironically the kitchen became valued asa safe space where close friends could interact away from the prying eyes ofthe state (Ries 1 997 ).
Thus both practically and ideologically , food practices have occupied aspecial position within Russians’ experiences with state socialism, both intheir relations w ith the state as well as their relations with each other. Forinstance, despite the access of most citizens to an extensive set of social net-works, the ability to procure scarce foreign commodities remained the privi-lege of a small minority , thereby reminding Russians that social differencesdid in fact exist within an official ideology of equality. Marina Fyedorovna, auniversity professor, recalled an occasion during the 1 97 0s when she was in-vited to visit a private dining room that was available only to a small group ofelite officials. There she encountered bananas for the first time in her life, andimmediately fell in love with their taste. Afterwards, a friend remarked thatit was unfortunate that she liked bananas because ‘They are unpatriotic,’ mean-ing, as Marina Fyedorovna explained, that they were unavailable to the gen-eral Soviet public.
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Food practices also became entangled with Soviet foreign affairs. As Crowleyhas noted, ‘consumption, in the context of the Cold War, became a symbolicfield of conflict on which allies and enemies could be plotted’ (2000:28). Amongthe goods that were the most symbolically dangerous to the image of theSoviet state were Western goods (Barker 1 999b) – most notably Americancommodities, which were alternatively associated with cultural impoverish-ment and imperialism (Crowley 2000; Kelly 1 998 ). Commercial negotiationsover food-related transactions between the Soviet Union and its ideologicalrivals during this period were frequently infused with politically chargedpropaganda. The efforts by McDonald’s Canada (and not McDonald’s u.s.a.)to provide the food services for the 1 980 Olympic Games in Moscow werereportedly turned down by Soviet officials who were loathe to reveal to theirrivals the inefficiencies of the domestic food service system (Hume 1 990:1 6).10
[McDonald’s Canada subsequently opened its first Russian restaurant in Jan-uary 1 990.] In the late 1 980s, an American food corporation became ensnaredin Russian popular opinion against u.s. President George Bush’s policies to-ward Russia when Russians renamed the company ’s frozen chicken legs ‘Bushlegs’ and alleged that the products were tainted. Meanwhile, the Snickerscandy bar became associated with a distinctly American sty le of Fordist in-dustry and business, and the word Snikerizatsiia (Snickerization) emerged inlocal discourse as a disparaging comment on the American-influenced re-forms that were occurring in Russia ’s commercial spheres.11
The increasing openness that accompanied President Mikhail Gorbachev’spolicies of glasnost and perestroika during the late 1 980s, and later continuedwith the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1 991 , paved the way for changesin Russian consumer culture, most notably the state’s acceptance of foreignfood and other commodities. As a result of reforms that eased restrictions tothe outside world, foreign companies rapidly entered the Russian market andeither joined forces with local industries in joint-venture projects, or estab-lished themselves as competitors, thus generating myriad alternatives to lo-cal goods, service sty les, and production practices. Today the institutionalhomogeneity and scarcity that marked Soviet consumption has given way toproduct variety , and store shelves sport multiple brands, sizes, and sty les ofevery product conceivable. One source reported that in the post-1 991 pe-riod, Russian consumers preferred imported food products to domestic goodsby a two-to-one ratio (McChesney 1 999).
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The Appeal of the ForeignOn one level, the popularity of previously unknown foods in Moscow
corresponds to the inquisitive interest that surrounded their initial appear-ance in Russia ’s commercial market. In Moscow, many respondents reportedthat they had been curious to see for themselves what foreign life looked –and tasted – like. Several people cited McDonald’s as a novel experience infood taste, culinary sty le, and public dining. When two North American col-leagues and I treated a Muscovite friend to dinner at a Thai restaurant inMoscow, the young women reported that she was expected to describe themeal in great detail to her work associates the next day. Other Muscovitesmentioned being curious about foreign candies; one informant remarked thatthe combination of milk chocolate and nuts in American-sty le candy barswas intriguing because it differed from Russian chocolate bars that were ap-preciated for their subtle taste variations. Soft drinks such as Pepsi-Cola, andlater Coca-Cola, also contrasted w ith domestic carbonated beverages thatsported herbal flavors (see also Caldwell 1 998). The term ‘exotic’ (ekzoticheskii )frequently emerged in discussions with Muscovites about why they had triedor continued to use foreign foods. Yet for many consumers foreign commoditiesalso represented features of quality and taste that were not simply differentfrom Russian commodities, but were in fact seen as lacking in local products.One university student explained his preference for foreign foods w ith thestatement, ‘Russian markets lack domestic food goods that are the equiva-lent [of foreign products] in terms of taste and quality.’ In similar terms, hisclassmate noted that he preferred foreign foods ‘because of their tasty quality.’
Marketers often woo Russian customers by appealing to these convictionsthat foreign foods, particularly those from Western Europe or North America,embody higher standards of quality than their domestic counterparts. In turn,Russian producers strategically capitalize on the popularity of foreign goodsin the ways they market their products and the technology they use. Localenterprises import foreign machinery as a means to replicate the quality ofproducts made in the West. For instance, in the early 1 990s, following thesuccess enjoyed by McDonald’s, a fast food restaurant named ‘St. Petersburgers’opened and advertised that it had imported cooking equipment from the West.
Many Russian companies have also adopted customer service philosophiesmore usually associated w ith North American business practices. Previously ,with the Soviet emphasis on production over consumption (see Verdery 1 996),employment was guaranteed and workers had little incentive to assist buy-ers. Consequently , prompt and polite service was a rarity. Although such prac-
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tices continue today, notably in state-owned businesses or bureaucratic of-fices, the overall consumption experience in the commercial sphere has beentransformed. McDonald’s ideology of serving customers efficiently and withcourtesy , for example, has spread throughout the service industry in Russia.Customers who walk into restaurants and shops throughout Moscow andSt. Petersburg are welcomed by smiling employees who offer assistance andhover helpfully nearby. Perhaps even more revealing is that it is becomingmore common for managers to apologize to customers who have been keptwaiting or whose food has not been prepared properly.
Finally, some local producers have resorted to imitating foreign productsdirectly, either by making claims as to the goods’ authenticity as non-Rus-sian, or by asserting that they are widely popular in their alleged countries oforigin.12 In most cases a claim of Americanness seems to provide a criticalselling point, such as w ith Baskin Robbins ice cream that is advertised as ‘Themost favorite ice cream in America.’ Often the labeling attached to domesticproducts closely resembles their foreign prototypes, such as boxes of coldcereal (a recent introduction to Russian breakfasts that are more generallyidentified by hot cereals) that bear an uncanny resemblance to their Ameri-can competitors, complete with large striped felines and red poultry. A breathmint that supposedly neutralizes the alcohol in one’s blood is purported tobe the drug of choice for American motorists who drink and drive. In a moreunusual pitch, I overheard a vendor at a souvenir market try to sell a carvedchicken toy with the claim that it was ‘very American,’ and that chicken wasa popular comestible in the United States precisely because of its great sym-bolic value there.
Verifiable authenticity is not at stake in these connections; instead it is theallusions that these products make to a specific field of nationally orientedvalues, qualities, and tastes that factor into consumers’ expectations. For in-stance, one Russian-made potato chip flavor was advertised as ‘American’rather than ‘barbecue,’ while a package of apple- and bacon-flavored instantmashed potatoes was marketed as ‘German.’ In addition, counterfeit prod-ucts that play on recognized Western brands – for instance, ‘Finta’ orangesoda, ‘Redbok’ sporting gear, and the ‘Oil of Olayz’ and ‘Oil of Ulay ’ cos-metic brands – have flooded the Russian market. Despite the problems ininternational copyright law that these forgery products have caused, theyhave had a direct impact on local technology standards and capabilities, sothat many domestic foods and other products are as good as their foreigncompetitors.
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On another level, the lifesty les that are embodied in foreign foods corre-late more closely to the new needs and interests of workers in today ’s Russia.The Soviet-era commodity shortages disciplined consumers to seek out cre-ative ways to maximize the time and effort they could use for shopping andstanding in line.13 Many citizens used their time on the job to do their shop-ping, thereby fostering more flexible distinctions between ‘work time’ and‘personal time.’ The introduction of North American corporate practices, es-pecially a strict accounting of work time and sharp delineation between ‘companytime’ and ‘personal time,’ has severely curtailed these possibilities for com-bining shopping and other personal responsibilities with work. American man-agers have complained that one of their most difficult challenges in restruc-turing Russian businesses has been to keep employees in the office from 9a.m. until 5 or 6 p.m., or later, with only a short break for a mid-day meal.
The introduction of packaged, prepared foods such as soup in a cup, fro-zen dinners, fresh salads, jars of baby food, and boxed juices and milk haveappealed to Muscovites who are juggling family and work responsibilitieswith limited free time. By way of illustration, before Valentina, a sixty-year-old pensioner, could leave Moscow for a week-long visit to her friend’s sum-mer cottage, she spent an entire day shopping and cooking for her thirty-year-old son who remained at home. Television commercials and magazineadvertisements strategically market the benefits of easy-to-prepare foods toharried parents and workers. One young woman, who was expecting her firstchild, admitted that she favored pre-made Western foods because they helpedher save time for other chores. Two middle-aged women supported the im-portance of time-saving techniques when praising the jars of baby food thathave hit Russian store shelves in recent years. Both women were doctors andrecalled that 20 years ago, when their children were small, they had to de-vote long hours to making meals for their husbands and then making foodthat their children could eat. They confessed that they envied their daugh-ters-in-law who used convenience items such as commercial baby foods anddisposable diapers. Children, meanwhile, can feed themselves with instantsoups, thereby reducing the responsibilities of mothers and grandmothers toprepare extra meals in advance. One university student summed up the gen-eral sentiments of her classmates when she remarked that foreign foods were‘faster to prepare, cheaper, and easier to procure.’
The diversification of the foreign food market in Russia is further linkedwith increasing socioeconomic diversity. As Roseberry (1 996) has similarlydescribed for the growth of a differentiated coffee market in the United States,
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and Terrio (1 996) for the place of artisanal chocolates within a gentrificationmovement in France, Russian consumers can make claims to social identitiesby aligning themselves with the values and ideals associated with specificfood choices. In Moscow, children and young adults admit that they pur-chase American and European foods and other commodities in order to ac-quaint themselves with life outside Russia or to identify themselves as mod-ern. In response to my question about why he preferred foreign foods, oneyoung Muscovite casually replied, ‘I am cosmopolitan.’
This packaging of food with a lifesty le of global sophistication is presentin the marketing tactics of restaurants and companies. Restaurants cater toMoscow ’s new financial elite by offering ‘business lunches,’ often completewith French champagne and American liquors. Food corporations sponsorcontests in which the prizes – all possible through the consumption of theappropriate beverages or snack foods – link tastes with opportunities to travelabroad or to win tickets to concerts given by foreign musical groups. Ex-treme examples of this preference for the foreign are evident in the conspicu-ous consumption practices attributed to New Russians, Russia ’s class of nou-veaux riches. It is more than simply expensive tastes that characterize NewRussians, however; popular opinion generally links the economic elite withforeign commodities such as American and German supermarkets that sellimported bread, meat, cheese, and beer; as well as with foreign luxury automo-biles and electronics.
Nevertheless, even as many Muscovites identify lifestyle, convenience, price,and novelty as motivations for buying foreign foods, other Muscovites havereturned to buying both Russian foods and Russian imitations of foreign products– even when these products are more expensive or harder to find.14 Transnationalcorporations have recognized the economic implications of consumers’ pref-erences for the local and have given their products distinctively Russian attri-butes: for instance, a series of Coca-Cola commercials in 1 997 –1 998 featuredcharacters from Russian folklore, while McDonald’s has widely publicizedthat its meat and produce are domestically produced. In the next section Iexplore the growth of this locally oriented niche of consumer products, andconsider its importance within a larger nationalist movement in Moscow.
Buying Russian: The Power of the LocalThe popularity of foreign foods and their domestic imitators has been matched
by the emergence of a more explicitly nationalistic orientation to consump-tion in Moscow. In 1 995 , Russkoe Bistro, an inexpensive Russian fast food
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chain that sells Russian foods such as pelmeni (dumplings), pirozhki and otherfilled pastries, and vodka, opened its first restaurant directly across from thesite of the first McDonald’s in Moscow. Since then, a number of restaurants
This billboard on the side of a bus stop shelter reads: ‘We support Russian production!Buy domestic! Help Russia!’ Photo: Melissa L. Caldwell.
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and cafés that offer Russian food at both the low and high ends of the pricescale have opened in Moscow, as well as in other cities in Russia. It is worthnoting that even here, at the level of the ‘local,’ imitation continues to shapethe market. Knock-off restaurants such as Slavianskoe Bistro offer menus andpeasant-themed logos very similar to those of Russkoe Bistro; more telling isthat the napkins and sugar packets in Slavianskoe Bistro are identical to thoseof its archetype – including the logo and words ‘Russkoe Bistro.’
Despite the wide availability of restaurants that serve foreign foods, Rus-sian cuisine is a popular choice among Muscovites. In a survey that I con-ducted among high school and university students, most respondents reportedthat although they had tried foreign foods and, in some cases, liked itemssuch as pizza and hamburgers, they preferred ‘Russian’ foods – even when‘Russian’ foods were pizza or hamburgers that their mothers had prepared athome. One young woman explained that Russian food contained Russian‘soul’ (dusha).15 Her classmate stated more simply, ‘People from Russia likeRussian tastes.’
In an effort to tap into these taste preferences, as well as to acknowledgethe improving quality of domestic food and other goods and to respond tofears that foreign products are controlling the local market, Russian officialshave launched a ‘Buy Russian’ campaign for food and other goods. In thecontext of a country with growing nationalist sentiments and political move-ments, Muscovites who ‘buy Russian’ fuse brand loyalty with national loy-alty. One particularly compelling aspect of this claim to nationalistic con-sumption has been the deployment of images and values drawn from Rus-sia’s past. Muscovites variously characterize authentic Russian foods as thosemade by ‘traditional preparations,’ from ‘traditions…mentioned in conver-sations about Russian cooking,’ and according to ‘traditional criteria – as Ihave been accustomed to think since childhood.’ Several young women men-tioned ‘historical factors.’ Others remarked that Russian foods had Russian‘roots,’ while one person added that Russian traditions were supplementedby Russia ’s unique ‘climatic basis.’
Anthropologists and others who work in postsocialist spaces have observedthat the socialist–postsocialist transition has been characterized by a com-mercialized appropriation of the past and the traditional.16 The comestiblepast is a powerful lure for Moscow shoppers who are interested in preservingand perpetuating an idealized Russian nation. Not only does a commercial-ized historicity situate consumers within an uncontested version of Russian-ness, but it also facilitates a ‘mechanics of shared memory and hidden histo-
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ries’ (Watson 1 994:7 ) that unifies customers in a singularizing national expe-rience. Russian companies have implemented aggressive marketing tacticsthat appeal to consumers’ sense of national pride by emphasizing the histori-cal components of their food products. One brewery claims that its beer iscreated according to traditional Russian recipes: ‘Our enterprise ... employsthe best traditions of Russian brewing.’ A flyer for a brand of Russian cookiesassures customers that: ‘We make all products according to old Russian re-cipes, without modern additives.’
Allusions to the past are made explicit in such items as Nostalgia brandvodka beverages, which depict historic monuments on its cans; Peter the Greatcigarettes; Stepan Razin (leader of a 1 7 th-century peasant rebellion) beer;and Istok (‘The Source’) vodka advertisements that feature pictures of famousSoviet personages with the promise ‘When I return’ (Kogda Ya Vernus’ ). Idyl-lic peasant themes and bucolic countryside motifs are another popular mar-keting ploy. For instance, cartons of ‘House in the Village’ (Domik v derevne)brand of milk products feature a grandmotherly woman standing in front ofcows in a field. Popular cooking magazines such as Kulinar and Gurman in-clude special sections devoted to foods from the ‘Russian home,’ Russian holi-days and traditions, and even to ‘Soviet recipes.’ Moreover, the names of sev-eral of Russia’s oldest (i.e., predating the post-Soviet – and in some cases Soviet– period) and finest confectionary companies explicitly invoke revolutionarythemes from Russian history: the Red October, Red Front, and Bolshevikcandy companies.
Svetlana Boym (1 999) and Theresa Sabonis-Chafee (1 999) have arguedthat these strategic uses of the past reflect a nostalgic movement currently invogue in Russia. These forms of nostalgia can be both sentimental, as in thecase of kitsch, and ironic, as in the use of camp (Sabonis-Chafee 1 999:37 3 ),but together produce a mythologized national past and identity.17 One fad inMoscow is the spread of nostalgia restaurants that recreate the experience ofdining in particular historical periods. Customers can choose from amongnineteenth-century inns (traktir) and hunting lodges, or restaurants from themore recent past such as a Soviet-era canteen, complete with decorationsfrom that period. A restaurant in a hotel associated with an old monasteryoffers ancient recipes that have been adapted to contemporary products. Insome cases, however, commemorative dining is available only to the afflu-ent, such as patrons of a more European-themed restaurant named ‘Nostalgie’that claims to offer ‘a more democratic menu’ at noticeably undemocraticprices: according to one advertisement, dinner prices start at US$5 0. Repre-
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sentations that evoke images and ideals from the Russian and Soviet pastcelebrate the good times of earlier moments as desirable values and featuresthat continue to shape and respond to the unique circumstances of postso-cialist daily life. More significantly, these ideals also appeal to a nationalistpride that reinforces the specificity of a Russian experience at odds with theencroaching outside world.
Nash: Consuming the NationThe most striking aspect of this nationalizing culinary movement, how-
ever, has been the deployment of classifiers such as ‘our own’ (svoi) and ‘for-eign’ (chuzhoi), and more routinely, ‘ours’ (nash) and ‘not ours’ (ne nash). Theconcepts of ‘nash’ and ‘ne nash,’ or ‘ours’ and ‘not ours,’ respectively, are importantconcepts of social inclusion and exclusion in everyday Russian life (Caldwell1 999; Humphrey 1 995 ; Pesmen 2000; Stepanov 1 997 :472 ; cf. Okely 1 996).For Muscovites, the ‘nash’ system is both a segmentary system of inclusionaryand exclusionary identity and a marker of sentimental solidarity and imag-ined uniformity. Typically , people distinguish between friends and strangers,or between co-nationals and foreigners, by classify ing them as either belong-ing to or outside of a group known as ‘nash.’ For instance, on one occasion inMoscow, a friend and I observed a young man dressed in biking clothes andcarry ing a mountain bike come out of the metro. My friend turned to me andcommented, ‘He’s not dressed like one of ours’ (On odet ne po-nashemu).
Additionally, in a society in which informal social relations have long beeninstrumental for everyday survival (Ledeneva 1 998 ; Pesmen 2000), Musco-vites explain that it is to ‘nash’ individuals that one offers assistance or emo-tional sympathy because they are the persons w ith whom one feels a sense offellowship and collective responsibility. The flexible ideology of ‘nash’ is sim-ultaneously expansive and constrictive, however, and the communities thatare constituted through perceptions of solidarity and similarity do not al-ways align neatly with ethnic, racial, religious, or even nationalist identities.For instance, I have noted elsewhere that Russian recipients in a transnationalsoup kitchen community in Moscow bestow ‘nash’ status on particular Afri-can and North American volunteers, even as they keep other Russians at a‘ne nash’ distance (Caldwell 1 999). Yet, for the purpose of the larger nation-alist movement that is currently gaining power in Russia, the strategic use of‘nash’ classifiers imbues everyday practices with a heightened sense of mem-bership in a finite and unique population. The importance of collective re-sponsibility to this community has emerged clearly in the efforts of the Rus-
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sian government to make citizens pay their taxes.18 In 1 999, the federal taxauthorities sponsored throughout Moscow large billboards that read ‘No onehelps Russia like we ourselves’ (Nikto ne pomozhet Rossii krome nas samikh).
Within the last five years, domestic food producers have increasingly ap-pealed to consumers’ sense of belonging to this imagined Russian collecti-vity by embracing the ‘nash’ and ‘ne nash’ distinction in their marketing stra-tegies, a practice that is comparable to what has been observed in East Ger-many (Berdahl 1 999a; Merkel 1 994). One strategy has been to advertise thatfoods have been locally grown and produced. Some companies promote theirproducts with labels or stickers that specifically designate that their foodsare ‘nash,’ or ‘Russian.’ Jaffe juice is representative of many domestic prod-ucts in that the labeling on its wrappers includes the phrase ‘Made in Russia ’(Sdelano v Rossii) and the product’s official Russian certification number. Storeclerks creatively arrange food displays that highlight domestic products andidentify them with captions such as ‘Nash’ or ‘Russian.’ Often these displaysoccupy a special, conspicuous place on shelves, while foreign goods are jum-bled together and relegated to less visible spaces. More subtle, regional dis-tinctions are further designated with labels that identify the city or area inwhich a particular item was produced. One cheese display contained four dif-ferent types of ‘Russian’ cheese, one from Moscow, one from Novgorod, onefrom Kostroma, and one from Yaroslavl. Each was identified by its city of ori-gin, and the clerk explained that the prices assigned to each product reflectedthe different reputations and market values associated w ith each location. Ina more aggressive ploy to reassure customers about the roots of its products,one company has even licensed the brand name ‘Nash’ to use on its products.
For their part, Russian customers invoke the ‘Nash’/ ‘Ne nash’ distinctionwhen buying food. As part of a tradition of collective shopping practices,customers routinely confer with vendors – and sometimes other shoppers,friends, and acquaintances – to discuss the merits of a particular product.More importantly , however, they ask whether or not products are ‘Nash’ or‘Ne nash.’ Muscovites explain that ‘nash’ products are superior to foreign goodsin terms of taste, quality, and healthfulness. Elena Viktorovna, an English pro-fessor in Moscow, reports that the first question she poses to food vendors atthe market is whether the products are ‘nash’ or ‘ne nash.’ Elena Viktorovonaclaims that she buys only ‘nash’ foods because she knows that they have beenpackaged very shortly before and have not been lying in shipping containersand on store shelves for months – or even years – as American and other im-ported goods are often rumored to be. ‘If a vendor says that a good is ne nash,’
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Elena Viktorovna remarked, ‘I just say “thank you” and walk on.’ Meanwhile,sellers encourage undecided customers simply by announcing that a particu-lar food is ‘nash.’ On a rare occasion when a salesclerk advised me to buy aforeign product, she apologetically noted that the item was ‘ne nash’ but ofa better quality than its domestic counterpart.
Some shoppers extend this ‘Nash’/ ‘Ne nash’ dichotomy by evaluating foodsaccording to the national origins of the vendors themselves. A perspectivethat I encountered frequently in Moscow was that foreigners, particularlydark-skinned people from Central Asia and Africa, were responsible for Rus-sia’s economic problems and acts of violence. Outsiders were therefore seenas suspicious and untrustworthy. When guiding me on how to shop for foodin the market, friends advised me to avoid the stalls run by merchants fromCentral Asia and instead recommended that I find Russian vendors. For poten-tially ‘dangerous’ (i.e., poisonous) items such as berries or mushrooms hand-picked from the forests, several friends further advised me that elderly Rus-sian women were the most reliable sellers.
More importantly, shoppers maintain that ‘nash’ foods are healthier thanimported products. Many Muscovites share the opinion that foreign prod-ucts are artificial and contain harmful preservatives and additives, a percep-
This billboard promoting the Otechestvo Political Party reads: ‘By buying domestic products, you helpyourself.’ Photo: Melissa L. Caldwell.
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tion that Nelson Hancock encountered when his informants in Siberia dis-cussed American hot dogs and chicken products (Hancock 1 998 ). In con-trast, domestically grown foods, and those procured from personal agricul-ture or windowsill gardens, are valued for their perceived purity and natural-ness. One Muscovite expressed an opinion that I heard frequently when sheargued that Russian-grown produce was healthier than imported productsbecause it contained nutrients directly from the Russian soil. Oksana, a mid-dle-aged mother and avid gardener, commented that local produce was clean(chistii ), and therefore did not need to be washed after it was picked. Shecontinued that it was beneficial for children to have access to fresh producethat they could eat directly from the ground. This made them stronger, Oksanaconcluded. McDonald’s and other restaurants in Moscow have respondedto this local bias toward home-grown foods: wait staff describe to customerswhich ingredients have been grown nearby and in some cases the process bywhich the foods have been harvested and processed. McDonald’s advertiseswidely that it buys much of its produce from a Russian firm named BelayaDacha, or ‘White Dacha [summer cottage],’ a specific reference to the im-portance of cottages and summer gardens in Russian daily life.
Ironically , this preference for ‘Nash’ foods periodically leads to shortages,a phenomenon reminiscent of Soviet times and decidedly at odds with a capi-talist-oriented marketplace. Oksana commented that it was more expensivefor Russian factories to operate today because they were required to pay forwater and electricity, unlike during Soviet times when the government pro-vided those services. Thus, she continued, Russian factories can not produceas much as Western ones, and customers may not be able to buy ‘nash’ foodswhen they want them and so must wait. Oksana further reported that Mus-covites were again standing in long queues to buy Russian-made foods. Shenoted that at her local market, those stalls that offered Russian products of-ten had longer lines than those that sold foreign goods.
This privileging of domestic foods has emerged in Russian politics as well.In summer 1 999, two different political parties appealed to voters by capital-izing on food themes. One party called itself the Yabloko, or ‘Apple,’ Party,and espoused liberal economic and political reforms.19 Meanwhile, the ‘Fa-therland’ (Otechestvo; this term has two additional, related meanings of ‘do-mestic’ and ‘home industry’) political party appealed to voters with billboardsthat displayed such pictures as a woman feeding her chickens, people eating,and employees working in a meat-packing plant. Each image included a re-commendation to voters to ‘buy domestic’ or to support the domestic in-
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dustry.20 By manipulating visual and rhetorical associations among food, pa-triotism, and national history, the candidates poignantly asked voters to linktheir personal food experiences with political issues that affected all Russians .In summer 2001 , a poster on the side of a bus stop shelter supported the largermovement to support the domestic economy with the caption: ‘Let’s sup-port Russian manufacturing! Buy domestic [otechestvennoe]! Help Russia!’ Inturn, Muscovites often use food references to display their support of or dis-pleasure with national events. Through references to food, people commenton shifts in government policies and the differences among leaders: com-parisons of the prices of foods such as bread, sausage, and cheese at variousmoments in Russia ’s political history index public opinion and satisfaction.
Nationalism and the Responsible Citizen in Today’s MoscowFood consumption offers a powerful venue for Muscovites to navigate the
political, economic, and social changes that have occurred in Russia duringthe 1 990s. Through selective food choices, shoppers react concretely anddecisively to the revolutions that have swept both local markets and the nationalfinancial market. Moreover, they are actively invested in Russia ’s affairs be-cause their choices influence the economic system at the same time that theytransform the anonymity and impersonal feature of national affairs into per-sonally meaningful events. By linking their individual food experiences withbroader political and economic concerns, Muscovites articulate practicalideologies of national loyalty that affirm their membership and participationin a more singular, homogeneous Russian experience. In the face of growingincome disparities and class stratification, each conscientious consumer of‘nash’ foods remains a committed member of the ‘nash’ collectivity of Russians.
This connection of the personal w ith an imagined collective nation oflikeminded consumers is particularly significant for older Muscovites whoare concerned that the combination of foreign convenience foods, restau-rant meals, and the images of American social life portrayed on televisionwill entice Russian children to become more ‘American’ and lose touch withtheir Russian identity and heritage. Many people asked me if it was true thatAmerican women did not know how to cook, a perception that has been re-inforced not only by the prevalence of American convenience foods in Rus-sian stores, but also by American television programs and movies that depicttake-away boxes as staples of American cuisine. Several mothers expressedtheir fears that their daughters would lose their ability to cook and their ap-preciation for Russian dishes – as well as their potential to be good wives
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and mothers. Tatyana, a retiree whose adult son continues to live at home,remarked that children who aspired to become too ‘American’ in their tastesand desires would find themselves unsatisfied in Russia – and worse still, perhapseven unemployed.
Tatyana’s comment highlighted a source of tension for many Muscovites– that foreign foods and practices will eventually fragment the collective identity,the narod (folk), of Russians. This concern has become more evident in thelast several years. During my research in 1 995 , although Muscovite acquain-tances made pointed remarks about the extraordinary lifesty les and financialresources of ‘New Russians,’ they maintained that these individuals werenonetheless indisputably Russian. As one woman explained: ‘They are stillRussians.’ By the late 1 990s, this impression had shifted significantly , and NewRussians were more closely associated with a group of outsiders who hadturned their backs on their fellow Russians. In popular discourse they wereassociated with recent corruption scandals and blamed for funneling resourcesaway from the collective of the nation; this included suggestions that NewRussians were among those most likely to evade paying their taxes. On sev-eral occasions, friends and acquaintances told me that New Russians wereselfish and had distanced themselves from their social responsibilities to theRussian nation.
These evaluations of appropriate Russian behavior reveal Muscovites’discomfort with the new consumer practices that have arisen with Russia ’sshift to a capitalist-sty le economy. Individuals who participate in the non-Russian economy by buying foreign goods and acquiring foreign values andbehaviors are perceived as having lost something intrinsically Russian – name-ly, the ability to be both social and socially responsible. Parents lament thatstudents who rely on instant snack foods forsake the time and conversationsthat would otherwise be spent over a meal shared with friends and relatives.Shoppers who purchase imported berries and mushrooms in gourmet super-markets may purchase convenience and a sense of anonymity, but they alsobypass the social networks and personal stories that are invested in jars ofhome-made preserves and pickles made by one’s friends and relatives. Fi-nally , consumers who direct their interests and funds toward foreign com-modities and the economic systems in which they are enmeshed divert thoseresources aw ay from their own ‘nash’ communities.
Thus, the impersonal and disinterested nature of capitalist economic sys-tems characterized by immediate transactions and regulated by anonymousmarket ‘forces’ (Sahlins 1 972 ; Smith 1 981 ) is at odds with a socialized system
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of consumption that works precisely because of the personal connectionsand sentiments that flow through it. Muscovites can trust Russian foods be-cause they are familiar and reassuring. More importantly , Russian foods sym-bolically link Muscovite consumers with other Russians. By contrast, foreigngoods are dangerous, both to the overarching politico-economic system, aswell as to consumers’ social and biological health. For Muscovites who areconcerned about the disintegration of social cohesion, mutual support, andcollective responsibility , the creation of a nationalist cuisine represents anopportunity to reclaim a set of standards and practices that defines them asRussians and marks their unique cultural experiences. Moreover, by exercis-ing the ability to choose freely, consumers who select ‘nash’ foods demon-strate that there is room within capitalist individualism to express unify ingand meaningful relationships with each other.
AcknowledgmentsAn earlier version of this article was presented in the panel ‘Consumers ExitingSocialism: Ethnographic Perspectives on the Reconfiguration of Post-Soviet SocialLife’ at the American Anthropological Association Meetings in San Francisco,1 8 November 2000. I am grateful to our discussant, Nancy Ries, the other mem-bers of the panel, and members of the audience for their questions and comments.I would also like to thank Eriberto P. Lozada, James L. Watson, and the three ano-nymous reviewers for Ethnos for their suggestions. I owe a special debt of gratitudeto Jennifer Patico, who has carefully and cheerfully read multiple drafts and of-fered many helpful recommendations. Finally, I would like to thank D. Kulick andW. Östberg for their generous support and suggestions for improving this article.
Notes 1 . In surveys and interviews that I conducted in Moscow (1 997 –2001 ), informants
acknowledged that much of the fresh produce available in stores and marketswas imported from outside Russia (generally from Central Asia, northern Africa,and Asia). Muscovites did not identify the exact geographical origins of suchproducts, however, but described them simply as being ‘exotic’ (ekzoticheskie).All translations in this article are mine.
2. For an analogous description of Russian book covers, see Condee and Padunov1 995 :1 5 8.
3 . This fieldwork was conducted over the following periods: June–July 1 995 ; No-vember 1 997–October 1 998 ; May–July 1 999; June–July 2000; June–July 2001 . Iam grateful to the U.S. Department of Education, Mellon Foundation, and theAbby and George O’Neill Traveling Fund, Kathryn W. and Shelby Cullom DavisCenter for Russian Studies, and Department of Anthropology at Harvard Uni-versity, for funding support.
4. For the analogous case of China, Maris Gillette has noted that consumers were‘clients’ of the state because their consumption possibilities were structured bythe state (2000:91 ).
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5 . Other observers have remarked on this ubiquitous homogeneity in Soviet life(e.g., see Boym 1 994, Humphrey 1 995 ), and it is the basis of the movie IroniiaSud’by (The Irony of Fate), in which the main character’s various troubles resultfrom the fact that he is mistakenly living in an apartment that is identical to hisapartment in every way, down to the address, except that it is in a different city.In another example, during my fieldwork in 1 998, this consumer homogeneitywas evident in the widespread availability of a black, white, and red plaid flannelshirt; throughout Moscow, I repeatedly encountered men and women alike wear-ing identical shirts.
6. Daphne Berdahl reports (1 999b) that in East Germany, homogeneity was oftenthe consequence of shortage. It was the scarcity of a particular item that increasedits worth and desirability.
7 . See Ledeneva 1 998 for a detailed discussion of blat, an exchange relationship ofaccess, in the Soviet period; see Caldwell 1 999, Pesmen 2000, and Jennifer Patico’sarticle in this issue for discussions of exchange relations in postsocialist Russia.See Yan 1 996, Yang 1 989, and Smart 1 993 for comparable discussions of exchangerelations in China.
8. These practices are more fully elaborated in Caldwell 1 999. 9. For additional information on Russia’s rich culinary history , see the collection of
articles in Glants and Toomre 1 997 .1 0. See also McDonald’s Canada President George Cohon’s account (1 997 ) of these
negotiations.1 1 . This antagonism toward a different economic ideology was not unique to the
Soviet Union. When efforts by the Coca-Cola corporation after World War II tobuild bottling plants in the Soviet Union were turned down, company officialsinterpreted this failure as evidence that Soviet authorities feared the politicalideology associated with the soft drink enterprise. At their international con-vention, Coke representatives hung up a placard that read ‘When we think ofCommunists, we think of the Iron Curtain… But when they think of democracy,they think of Coca-Cola’ (Pendergrast 1 993 :23 8).
1 2. See Jennifer Patico’s discussion (2001 ) about the appeal of geographic originsfor consumer goods. Compare with Goldfrank 1 994 for a description of the stra-tegic marketing of geographic origins for Chilean produce sales in the u.s.a.
1 3 . Katherine Verdery (1 996) has described such constraints as means by which thesocialist state confiscated and manipulated the personal time of its citizens.
1 4. Price is not always a reliable indicator for predicting Muscovites’ purchasingpractices. On the one hand, many consumers cite personal income limitationsas motivations for buying Russian foods. For instance, in Moscow a loaf of breadfrom a Russian bakery averages 5 rubles, while a loaf of French bread from aforeign bakery may cost 20–3 0 rubles; a liter of milk from a Russian dairy costs1 1 rubles, while a liter of milk imported from a Finnish dairy costs 1 4 rubles; anda tub of Russian-made ice cream may cost 20 rubles, while its American equivalentexceeds 1 5 0 rubles. These issues became even more important after the August1 998 financial crisis, when many people lost their jobs and savings, and thevalue of the ruble fell. During that period, the prices of domestic goods remain-ed low and more affordable than those of foreign and imported products, whichwere affected by inflation and temporary shortages. On the other hand, domestic
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production does not always guarantee lower prices. High-quality Russian vodkasand chocolates are typically priced comparably to their foreign competitors.Meanwhile, videotapes of Russian movies and compact disks of Russian musicalgroups typically cost two to three times more than those of foreign artists – afact that informants claim is justified because of the greater artistic quality andmerit of domestic productions.
1 5 . See Pesmen 2000 for an extended discussion about Russian notions of dusha.1 6. E.g., Berdahl 1 999a; see also Gediminas Lankauskas’s article in this issue.1 7 . Catriona Kelly has called this ‘post-Soviet ‘retro chic’’ (1 998:229).1 8. Cf. Boym’s claim (1 999:384): ‘Appeals to collective responsibility have become
much less popular than they were during glasnost, and, more important, muchless marketable.’
1 9. I would like to thank one anonymous reviewer for pointing out that the name ofthe Yabloko party is also an acronym formed from the first letters of the party ’sfounders: Grigorii Yavlinskii, Yurii Boldyrev, and Vladimir Lukin.
20. Theresa Sabonis-Chafee describes a similar tactic that was employed during the1 996 presidential campaign in Russia. A series of pro-Yeltsin posters depictedeveryday Russian life ‘before’ and ‘after’: the ‘before’ picture portrayed emptyshelves in a grocery store, while the ‘after’ images presented a family laden withbags of food products (Sabonis-Chafee 1 999:37 2).
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