MOSCOW — The homemade poster hanging next to Yana Shikhlyarova's honey stand doesn't just list the halfdozen varieties of honey she has on sale. It also lists the various ailments they cure. Clover honey, it says, is good for the heart. Forest honey, rich in vitamins from the blackberries and wild strawberries of the woods, is good for the eyes. And coriander honey, the poster announces in extralarge print, increases male potency. "Well, that's what it says in the literature," Shikhlyarova said with a smile. "Whether it's really true, I don't know." For centuries, Russians have practiced the art of honey healing a local take on homeopathy, where the nutrients of wild herbs and flowers rub off on bees, and eventually find their way into the honey that Russians put in their tea. It's a form of folk medicine that has spawned numerous books and lasted through wars and revolutions. This autumn, there is no better place to learn about the phenomenon than the 16th AllRussian Honey Fair, where more than 1,000 beekeepers from throughout the former Soviet Union are selling their sweet, sticky wares to healthconscious Muscovites. On a recent weekend afternoon, the outdoor fair in Kolomenskoye Park in southern Moscow was packed with shoppers tasting free samples of honey. At the gates, teenage girls in bee costumes handed out leaflets touting beevenom pills (which are good for back pain, they say) while a few customers checked handwritten lists to make sure they had gotten every kind of honey they had intended to buy. Nearly 100 types of honey can be found at the fair, which runs to Oct. 8. Some of the more exotic flavors include chestnut, acacia and pumpkin. The fair's geographical diversity is also impressive: Some vendors come from as far away as the Khabarovsk region, located on the Sea of Japan, seven time zones away. Shikhlyarova, 24, is from Vladikavkaz, the capital of the mountainous region of North Ossetia. She comes to Moscow twice a year to help sell the honey that her father makes in the foothills of the Caucasus Mountains. "Mountain honey is considered ecologically clean, and there's plenty of demand for it," she said confidently. Purity, in fact, is the fair's raison d'être. Honey bought in Moscow stores can't be trusted, says Arnold Butov, head of the Russian National Beekeepers' Union, which organizes the fair with the city government. In a phone interview, Butov rattled off a list of wrongs that unscrupulous merchants had inflicted on honey: adulterating it with sugar, slapping counterfeit labels on it, or freezing it and then thawing it out later, which causes it to go bad eventually. At the fair, however, the union tests the purity of every batch, and badapple beekeepers get kicked out if they try to pawn off substandard honey on unsuspecting customers. An energetic backer of the Russian beekeeper, Butov can quote statistics about Russian honey exports going back to the reign of Ivan the Terrible. But while he is a driving force behind the fair, he admits it never would have happened without the support of a key individual: Moscow's mayor, Yuri Luzhkov, an amateur beekeeper himself.
Transcript
MOSCOW — The homemade poster hanging next to Yana Shikhlyarova's honey stand doesn'tjust list the halfdozen varieties of honey she has on sale. It also lists the various ailments theycure. Clover honey, it says, is good for the heart. Forest honey, rich in vitamins from theblackberries and wild strawberries of the woods, is good for the eyes.And coriander honey, the poster announces in extralarge print, increases male potency."Well, that's what it says in the literature," Shikhlyarova said with a smile. "Whether it's reallytrue, I don't know."For centuries, Russians have practiced the art of honey healing a local take on homeopathy,where the nutrients of wild herbs and flowers rub off on bees, and eventually find their way intothe honey that Russians put in their tea. It's a form of folk medicine that has spawned numerousbooks and lasted through wars and revolutions.This autumn, there is no better place to learn about the phenomenon than the 16th AllRussianHoney Fair, where more than 1,000 beekeepers from throughout the former Soviet Union areselling their sweet, sticky wares to healthconscious Muscovites.On a recent weekend afternoon, the outdoor fair in Kolomenskoye Park in southern Moscow waspacked with shoppers tasting free samples of honey. At the gates, teenage girls in beecostumes handed out leaflets touting beevenom pills (which are good for back pain, they say)while a few customers checked handwritten lists to make sure they had gotten every kind ofhoney they had intended to buy.Nearly 100 types of honey can be found at the fair, which runs to Oct. 8. Some of the moreexotic flavors include chestnut, acacia and pumpkin. The fair's geographical diversity is alsoimpressive: Some vendors come from as far away as the Khabarovsk region, located on theSea of Japan, seven time zones away.Shikhlyarova, 24, is from Vladikavkaz, the capital of the mountainous region of North Ossetia.She comes to Moscow twice a year to help sell the honey that her father makes in the foothills ofthe Caucasus Mountains."Mountain honey is considered ecologically clean, and there's plenty of demand for it," she saidconfidently.Purity, in fact, is the fair's raison d'être. Honey bought in Moscow stores can't be trusted, saysArnold Butov, head of the Russian National Beekeepers' Union, which organizes the fair with thecity government. In a phone interview, Butov rattled off a list of wrongs that unscrupulousmerchants had inflicted on honey: adulterating it with sugar, slapping counterfeit labels on it, orfreezing it and then thawing it out later, which causes it to go bad eventually.At the fair, however, the union tests the purity of every batch, and badapple beekeepers getkicked out if they try to pawn off substandard honey on unsuspecting customers.An energetic backer of the Russian beekeeper, Butov can quote statistics about Russian honeyexports going back to the reign of Ivan the Terrible. But while he is a driving force behind the fair,he admits it never would have happened without the support of a key individual: Moscow'smayor, Yuri Luzhkov, an amateur beekeeper himself.
Luzhkov is perhaps the world's only bigcity mayor who holds a patent on a type of beehive. (Itcontains a ventilation system designed to help bees survive in northern climes.) Last year, aMoscow park was host to an exhibition called "MayorBeekeeper" that displayed kitschy imagesof Luzhkov being chummy with a cartoon bee.Thanks to the mayor, the city government provides the honey fair with healthy logistical support.Billboards promoting the event can be seen throughout Moscow, and a free bus shuttlescustomers between the fairgrounds and the nearest metro station. The bus is often full of elderlypeople, who also get a small discount on honey at the fair.True fanatics don't just buy the various flavors of honey to imbibe with their tea. They also buybeeswax, chunks of honeycomb and even the crushed bodies of dead bees all of which arepurported to have some sort of health benefit.And it isn't only wrinkled babushkas who swear by the benefits of honey healing. YoungerRussians also say they believe in the medical uses of honey. Lyuba Volkova, a 35yearoldlawyer, said she had always viewed honey as a medicine first and a sweetener second."I guess some people eat honey as a dessert, but here it's generally considered a form ofmedical treatment," she said. Whatever the true health value of honey may be, there's one groupthat undeniably benefits from the AllRussian Honey Fair: the beekeepers. Many of them comefrom economically depressed rural areas, where the industriousness of the bees stands insharp contrast to the unemployment of the humans around them.Alexander Piskovoy comes from a village outside Krasnodar, near the Black Sea, where he runsa relatively small 40hive operation with the help of his wife and children. He is selling his honeyat the Moscow fair for the first time this autumn. Asked whether he expected to make a profit,Piskovoy shrugged and said, "We'll see."But the 40yearold beekeeper had no doubts about the health value of honey. He started keepingbees in 1995, he explained, after honey helped him recover from an illness that had paralyzedthe left side of his body."The doctors helped, too," interjected his wife, Elena, who was sitting beside him."Yes," he agreed, "but they also told me to eat honey."
Medovukha
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Konstantin Makovsky's painting featuring Medovukha.
A bottle of Medovukha.Medovukha (Russian: Медовуха or Lithuanian: Midus) is a Slavic honeybased alcoholicbeverage very similar to mead but cheaper and faster to make.[1] These two words are relatedand go back to the ProtoIndoEuropean meddhe (honey). Known in Eastern Europe sincepagan times, it remained popular well into the 19th century (unlike in Western Europe, wheremead is traditionally associated with the Middle Ages).
History and manufactureWild honey farming was one of the first Slavic trades. They discovered that honey could befermented, and the first fermented honeys appeared as a luxury product in Europe, where it wasimported in huge quantities.Fermentation occurs naturally over 15 to 50 years, originally rendering the product veryexpensive and only accessible to the nobility. However, Slavs found that fermentation occurredmuch faster when the honey mixture was heated, enabling Medovukha to become a folk drink inthe territory of Rus'.In the 14th century, the invention of a distilling tank and a process of distillation made it possibleto create a prototype of the modern Medovukha. In the 17th century, the increasing popularity ofvodka eclipsed the former fame of Medovukha. During the rule of Peter I of Russia, ancientrecipes were lost. Leading production engineers are actively searching for the ancient recipes ofMedovukha.Medovukha producers are very proud of the fact that it is made solely from natural ingredients.Honey from several Ukrainian farms is used, including farms from Poltava and Cherkasyregions, and from Crimea and Carpathians. The honey first undergoes preparation for blending(a hightech process affordable only by manufacturers with special equipment), then the honeyis blended with distilled water to obtain the final product.[1] Other manufacturers add concentrateto a prepared wateralcohol mixture.Modern commercially produced Medovukha is sold at the honey product shops (that also sellhoney itself and a variety of health products produced at honey farms). The revival of thewidespread honey products consumption in Russia centers itself around the healthawareconsumers, and thus Medovukha itself hasn't yet asprired to any significant share of thealcoholic beverages market. Nonetheless, modern examples include bottled Medovukha sold atthe "Russian Bistro" fast food outlets across Moscow, and tap Medovukha of different brandsoffered by a network of honey shops in St. Petersburg.
For hundreds of years there was a tradition in Russia to make special drink from honey and hopplant.It is a lowalcohol drink, that was sometimes mentioned by famous Russian classic authors too.They say that before the wedding all the members of the family helped to prepare a good stockof this honey drink for the marrying pare. Then during the wedding and 30 days after the marriedcouple had to drink only this beverage – no any other was allowed. So the honeymoon wascalled in Russia after an actual honey drink.
The recipe itself is easy. First they boiled a water in the pan, then add there enough honey, thenafter sometime some very small quantity of hop plant is being added and then, it’s being takefrom the fire, put aside to calm down and then the yeast is added. That’s all, after five days theyhave a true Russian drink that is even stronger just a regular beer.
