Your tour leader will usually offer to take you to local restaurants so you can sample the varied regional cuisine. Russian dishes are widely varied, and combinations of spices give each city and region distinct flavours. Evening meals and lunches will generally be eaten in local restaurants. Please look at your trip notes for details about any included meals.

All drinks, such as bottled water or soft drinks, are relatively inexpensive. Water from a tap or well should not be considered safe to drink. Bottled water, carbonated soft drinks and fruit juices are widely available nationwide. Alcoholic drinks vary in price, with beer generally being the cheapest option.

Ask your tour leader if they can recommend any restaurants in the area that suit your taste or budget, or have fun exploring independently.

Soups are essential in the Russian meal, combining hot and cold dishes. Russian cuisine is famous for flavoursome soups, cabbage schi and solyanka, which are made of assorted meats. Russians love pelmeni, small Siberian meat pies boiled in broth. Even more varied is the choice of recipes for mushrooms, one of the most abundant and nourishing gifts of our woods. They are fried, pickled, salted, boiled and whatnot. “No dinner without bread,” goes the Russian saying. Wheat loaves have dozens of varieties. As to rye bread, Russians eat more of it than any nation in the world- a peculiarity of the Russian diet. It is made of brown bread or malted rye flour and goes down best on a sultry summer day. Adding it to chopped-up meat and vegetables gives you okroshka, an exquisite cold soup.