Königsberger Marzipan
One chilly evening in early January we went to see Krasnaya Street, which in Königsberg’s times bore the name Schrötterstraße and was located in a …
Kaliningrad Croissants
Königsberg may have specialised in marzipan, but present-day Kaliningrad seems to have a particular liking for croissants. So much so that there’s a chain called …
Spasibo
The other day I came across an Instagram post by the gallery Другое дело (‘Another Matter’) in which they point out that culture has been …
Breeze Kaspiysk
My short trip to Kaspiysk was about abundant food and book shopping. When I arrived, at first I thought I’d find nothing in that seemingly …
Another Coffee Shop Makhachkala
Makhachkala impressed me with its variety of trendy Western-style coffee shops scattered all round the city centre. Not many of them serve Turkish coffee, prepared …
Dagestani Halva
Featuring three ingredients — flour, sugar and butter — this traditional Dagestani dessert is commonly referred to as flour halva. It’s the first thing I …
Pirosmani Makhachkala
Pirosmani, a two-storey Georgian restaurant in the centre of Makhachkala, was recommended to me well in advance of my trip to Dagestan last August. I …
Raf Coffee Dagestan
A few years ago I read an article investigating the origins of ‘raf coffee’ and discovered that it’s apparently named after Rafael, or Raf, a …
The Queen
It must have been at school that I somehow fell in love with England, the English language and culture, which Queen Elizabeth II is an …
Hafız Mustafa 1864 Nuruosmaniye İstanbul
On the morning of my departure I made one more visit to Hafız Mustafa, this time the Nuruosmaniye Street branch. It turned out to be …