While traveling around Russia, you’ll find hundreds of gift shops. The first day you’ll be excited to see colorful nesting dolls, painted balalaikas, or colorful shawls. But after a while, the same sets of souvenirs will seem quite dull. What unusual gifts can you bring back home?
Russian Chocolate
Russian confectionery history goes back to the early 19th century. The most famous old chocolate brands are Babaevsky, Red October, and Rot Front. In Moscow, you can find a variety of candy stores offering a great choice of Russian chocolates. Among the most loved chocolate sweets are “Belochka”, “Stolichnye”, “Kara-Kum,” “Grilyazh”, “Alyonka”, Vdohnovenie”, “Mishka Kosolapy”.
Original sweets
Why stick to chocolate? The Russians have invented a great choice of delicious desserts.
You may try a very interesting Russian marshmallow, which is cooked according to old recipes and has a delightful taste. Sugared cranberries will appeal to both adults and kids. Russian pryaniks or honey cakes have been famous for ages and still are. Russia borrowed lots of culinary traditions from the neighbors. Thus, you should try such eastern sweets as chack-chack, which comes from the Tatar culture. These are deep-fried pieces of dough mixed with honey syrup. While in Russia you may find lots of original tastes of jam. The most exotic ones include dogwood, pine cones, or cloudberry jam.
Russian tea
Herbal teas that you can find in Russia are not only fragrant, tasty but also healthy. It might appear a lovely gift to your friends and relatives. While in Russia, you may try pleasant-tasting fireweed tea, which is known as Ivan Chai. The tradition of drinking this herbal tea goes back to the 12th century. You may find elegant packages of fireweed tea in some souvenir kiosks. Another tasty tea we recommend is a mix of black tea with thyme. In Russia, you’ll find a great variety of herbal teas brought from Siberia. Most herbal teas are used in herbal medicine and have a delightful taste.
Space food
Curious to taste space food which Russian cosmonauts eat now and which didn’t change since the flight of Yury Gagarin? Such a gift will appear a great surprise for kids and adults.
Due to a unique package, the tubes can be stored at room temperature for a year and even longer. You can get a single tube or tube sets, each one weighing 165 grams. Among the various tastes are borscht, mushroom cream soup, mashed potatoes with chicken, pork with vegetables, meat with buckwheat, cranberry fruit drink, and many more. Besides, you’ll get universal heaters and tube squeezers that will help heat the tubes and get the content out of them. In Moscow, you may find several vending machines selling space food.
Books
Books would always remain a memorable gift from your Russian trip. Among popular book stores that have English-language books are Biblio-Globus on 6/3 Myasnitskaya street and Moscow House of Books on Novy Arbat. You may also find great souvenir books in various museums. Thus, during your Moscow Kremlin tour don’t miss the souvenir shop in the Armoury museum where you can find excellent English books about Russian history and culture.
Soviet-era watches
Some of your friends might appreciate vintage Soviet-era watches such as Vostok, Raketa, Poljot, and some other ones. A number of these watches were made for military purposes. Thus, Raketa delivered watches to the Soviet Navy, the Red Army, and for North Pole expeditions
Poljot produced watches for Russian cosmonauts. You can find a shop selling Soviet watches in the Izmailovo flea market.
Tea Glass Holders
The tradition of drinking tea goes back to the 18th century. At that time, women drank tea from porcelain cups while men would use glasses. Glass holders were invented to protect hands from hot glass.
Glass Holders were massively produced in the USSR, and starting from the 1950s were mainly used in Russian trains. Glass Holders appeared extremely handy as they help to serve tea in constantly shaking carriages. A Russian glass-holder will be a beautiful and unusual reminder of your journey across the country.