Friday, July 7, 2017

The PA Melting Pot - Part 3-1 Russia: The Russian Republic

The Russian emigration to southwestern PA, northwestern WV and southeastern Ohio consisted of Russians from Central Russia (formerly Southern Russia) and those living between Poland and Russia.
  • Between 1872 and 1892:  81,511 Russians emigrated to southwestern PA & surrounding area
  • Between 1900 and 1913:  51,472 Russians emigrated to southwestern PA & surrounding area (second only to N.Y)
  • They were of the peasant class.
There are active existing organizations in southwestern Pa for Russian expatriots as well as other nationalities. 
--------------------------------------
HISTORY: Russia has evolved over the years from a small country to the great USSR when it overtook many other small countries in Eastern Europe.  In 1991 the USSR was broken up and some countries were reclaimed and some new ones were formed.  The list of countries under Russian domination pre-1991 were freed or formed:  (See the map photo below) 
List of reclaimed countries includes:
Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Belarus, Ukraine, Moldava, Georgia, Armenia, Azerbijan, Kazahkstan, Krygyzstan, Usbekistan, Tajikestan, Turkmenistan. 

List of new countries that were formed or ones that were returned to original owners:
Poland, Slovakia, Hungary, Czech Republic, Romania, Bulgaria, Macedonia, Albania, Montenegro, East Germany and
Yugoslavia which was broken into six parts:
Slovenia, Croatia, Serbia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Macedonia and Montenegro. 

 Now that your tongue is tied if you even tried to pronounce the above names here is:

the cuisine of Russia has been affected by all of these countries and Russian cuisine has influenced all of the countries above, as well (pre-1991) and the cuisine still crosses country border lines. 
  1. the census data in southwestern PA, northwestern WV and southeastern Ohio does not really reflect the actual number of Russians in the area because it says only 2-3% of the population in the area is Russian. However, many of the immigrants who came to this country (even though they were under the possession of Russia) would say they were (for example) Moldavian, Georgian, Armenian, Polish, etc. so an actual number would really be much higher. 
  2. For example from WIKI:  The 2011 American Community Survey estimated that 483,366 Americans held full or partial Armenian ancestry. Various organizations and media criticize these numbers as an underestimate, proposing 800,000 to 1,500,000 Armenian Americans instead.  Armenia is just one of the countries that was part of Russia. 
  3. The 2010 does not use ethnicity in the report. The census bureau has changed the way they report ethnicity.
  4. I will be dealing with Russian food in general in this blog post. 



LINK TO WIKI ON RUSSIAN CUISINE

Modern day links for recipes below

Also below the modern day links for recipes will be generic Russian country and food photos.


LINK from Master Russian What daily meals do the Russians eat? 











PHOTOS OF RUSSIA

































No comments:

Post a Comment