[slideshow]Photo courtesy of Peter Hadvab;Photo courtesy of Peter Hadvab;Photo courtesy of Peter Hadvab;Photo courtesy of Peter Hadvab;Photo courtesy of Peter Hadvab;[/slideshow]

The glaring red title welcomed us as we entered: Russian Kitchen House Cafeteria. Though the small space, decorated by red-bricked walls and ten tables, looked empty, a middle-aged man inside took a break from watching Russian Channel One to reassure my friend and me that the cafeteria was open. We sat down and waited.

After some noise and bustle in the kitchen, a woman dressed in white with a cooking cap suddenly appeared. She threw the poorly-copied menu down on the table and left again without another word. It took me about half a minute to realize that all the names of the meals were completely unfamiliar to me, but luckily, my Kazakh friend spoke Russian, and began trying to explain every dish.

I decided to give the Chicken Kiev Roll a try. In the meantime, the waitress, who doubled as the cook, returned with a glass of Kvas, a traditional fermented beverage. The yeasty taste of the drink hit my palate, and I quickly put it down.

The door to the cafeteria opened and a woman in her fifties stepped inside. My friend Rustem whispered to me that it was the owner, and she approached to ask us in a strong accent if we’d ordered. Her smile and politeness encouraged me to respond with questions. “Yes, we did. Can I ask you something? Are you from Russia?”

The man stopped watching TV and turned to me. “Where are you from?” the woman replied.

My heart-rate immediately sped up. Since Slovakia is known for its support for Ukraine, especially in gas supplies, I hesitated before answering.

“I am from Slovakia,” I said finally, waiting for her reaction.

“Ah, Slovakia.” The owner smiled and thought about this for a while. “I am from Ukraine. We are from Ukraine. This is my husband, Juri,” she added, and pointed to the man watching TV.

My chicken roll came fried in brown corn batter, surrounded by yellow mashed potatoes that were decorated with dill. Rustem had ordered Lagman, a combination of vegetable, mutton and noodle stew. Dill was one of my least favorite herbs, and so the tasty chicken roll filled with cheese was finished before the mashed potatoes. I quickly switched my unfinished Kvas with Rustem’s.

Though this move went unnoticed, when the waitress came to clean our table, she spotted the unfinished potatoes. “And who will finish potatoes?” she asked strictly, and I turned red as I started quickly eating the rest, trying to fight through the strong aroma of dill.

The owner of Russian Kitchen House Cafeteria, Anna, was born in Alexandrovka, Ukraine. As it turns out, she had moved to Crimea when she was little. There, she began her studies at a university in Kirovograd where she studied mathematics. After that, she got married. “I was 21, can you imagine? 21 was considered an old woman,” she laughed.

“Do you remember how you met your husband?” I asked.

“Ah, that was long ago. Juri, do you remember?”

Juri did not react, and Anna began to explain that they met in college, at a snow fight outside between students. “You know, he looked at me, I looked at him and then we went out. We used to go to cinema a lot.”

I asked her what she thought about communism in Soviet Union. “There was never communism,” she said, raising her voice. “They promised the communism would happen in 2000, but I knew they were lying. There was only socialism.”

After college, Anna moved with Juri to join him where his family lived. They were living there for 27 years before their daughter, Iryna, decided to try her luck in the UAE as a piano teacher. Anna told us how people were leaving post-Soviet Ukraine. “You know, the first two years after the USSR broke were no good. Everyone had to learn how to survive by themselves. Many people left to other countries to start their business.”

Anna’s original plan was only to help her daughter with setting up the restaurant, but she soon realized that it would be too much work for Iryna and decided to stay. Anna, Iryna and Iryna’s Egyptian husband were running the restaurant at the beginning; Juri joined them three months later. “It was a family business. The whole family was working here. Iryna’s child was raised here in the kitchen,” Anna recalled.

“You know, I tell you one secret,” she added. “One and a half years, I did not have a day off. Always working … I worked from 10 a.m. to 12 p.m.”

At that moment, another waitress appeared. Aimi from the Philippines had been working at the cafeteria for two years. She explained that Ukrainian and Russian food and culture were new to her. “Babushka taught me everything – how to cook and how to speak. But I understand very little of the language,” she said “We are here like a family. Babushka is like my mama – she takes care of me. We also celebrate everything together here.”

According to Anna, there has been a recent decrease in customers, which she attributed to the higher wages and rents in the area. She complained about the price of meat, saying she used to pay 18 dirhams for one kilogram of beef. Now she pays 30.

“You know, there was a strong Russian community. This was a Russian and Ukrainian area. There was Russian bookshop, Russian audio shop, Russian DVD shop. Now, there is only us and Russian Gold Shop,” Anna said. I was her seventh customer of the day.

“What is the most popular meal?” I asked.

“Borsch, definitely Borsch,” said Anna. “Russians, Ukrainians, Uzbeks and all internationals – they all want Borsch.”