Kazan — summer 2012

The closest mall to my apartment is called Кольцо ‘The Ring.’ You have no idea how weird that sentence is. When I first started coming to Russia, there was no such thing as a mall. The idea that there are now malls with food courts and movie theaters is just bizarre. Of course, these are changes for the better, but they are still so very strange.

The local mall has a food court. You are not allowed to take pictures in the mall. Here is a picture of my favorite food place there. It is called "Barbeque," which sounds so bizarre in Russian, I can hardly express it.

This place is definitely overpriced, but I still like some of the items. One of the items I like here is the lasagne. But it's an odd lasagne. First of all, it has Russian sour cream in it, which of course is superior to every American sour cream I have ever had. But there are none of the typical cheeses you might expect, like mozzarella or parmesan. And the meat is a boringly unspiced groud beef. But somehow it works. And the salad is a Greek salad.