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Say what you like about Putin and the Russians, but these are the best balloons ever!
The Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia have commenced! Now I love the Olympics in all their forms, but, sadly, I have no strengths at winter sports (unless you count hilariously falling down on icy surfaces as a strength—in which case I am the comic equal of any silent movie star). Because of my lack of knowledge about sliding down icy mountains on sticks, I have been trying to find something to write about the Sochi games which does not involve winter sports.
Fortunately the history of Sochi is quite interesting (albeit somewhat dark). After being a contested territory during the Russo-Turkish War (1828–1829), the Crimean War of 1853–1856, and the long-lasting Russian Circassian War of 1817–1864, the Sochi area was somewhat…denuded of local population. In 1866, the Tsar’s government pronounced a decree was promoting relocation and colonization of Russians to Sochi. But what would these peasant farmers do for a living in the strange semi-tropical mountains by the Black Sea Coast?
Tea Plantations of Sochi
The solution arrived in the early 1900s when a Ukrainian peasant farmer named Judas Antonovich Koshman introduced a new strain of tea to Sochi. Tea was then the most popular (non-alcoholic) beverage in Russia, but its cost was prohibitively high. A series of tea plantations had been planted in the Sochi area during the 1870s and 1880s but they had all failed because of the cold (or they produced bitter disappointing harvests). Koshman’s tea, however, was different: the plants were more tolerant of the cold and they had a rich unique flavor which appealed to the Russian palate. And thus the great tea plantations of the Black Sea came into being. Throughout the tumult of World War I, the Soviet Revolution, Stalinism, World War II, the Cold War, and the painful birth of modern Russia, the tea has grown along the foothills of the Caucasus Mountains in scenes reminiscent of Assam. Krasnodar tea is one of the world’s northernmost varieties of tea. It is said to have a pleasant fragrance and an appealing tart flavor. It also contains a very high level of caffeine so that Russian tea parties stay lively and awake around the Samovar!
Family Portrait (T. Myagkov)
ferrebeekeeper 