Russian Tea

Russian tea-drinking tradition first began in 1638 when the Russian Tsar Michael Fedorovich received a tea-set as a gift from Altyun-Khan, then the ruler of Mongolia. Russian tea is served following meals and in the afternoon. Guests are often invited to a cup of tea, served along with cookies, sandwiches, candies, and cakes. Making tea the classical way by boiling it in a pot on the stove is still much preferred in Russia, even with the advent of modern tea bags. Russian families usually have their own porcelain tea-pots of various sizes and decorations, with the most plain ones being used for everyday tea-drinking and the most decorative being used for festive occasions. Here is a recipe for a modern-day and "Americanized" Russian tea created for the winter holidays:

Ingredients: 

• 6 cups cold water
• 1 cinnamon stick
• 6 whole cloves
• 4 black tea bags
• 1 cup orange juice
• 2 tablespoons lemon juice
• 1/4 cup sugar, more to taste
• 1/2 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg

Method: 

Bring water, cinnamon stick and cloves to a boil in a medium saucepan; remove from heat and add tea bags. Steep, covered, for 5 minutes. Discard the tea bags and whole spices.

In a small saucepan, heat orange juice, lemon juice, sugar and nutmeg. Warm until the sugar dissolves.

Add the juice mixture to the tea. Taste and add more sugar if desired. Reheat and serve.

Mishka Kosolapiy

These Russian candies, translated as "The Clumsy Bear," were chocolate candies produced and made popular during the Russian Soviet Era. They were highly coveted, but during this epoch, not many people in the Soviet Union were able to get ahold of the candies due to supply shortages. The Clumsy Bear sweets were often tucked away and saved for special occasions because of the difficulty associated with acquiring them. The wrappers of these candies depict four bears playing on a tree in a forest, and some of the oldest of these well-known wrappers are now considered to be collectibles. The candies are comprised of two small waifers covered in milk chocolate, with almond filling in-between them. The Clumsy Bear candies are still considered some of the best Russian candies around. I've had some of them myself-- they're different, but actually pretty good!

Ayn Rand: Novelist and Philosopher

Ayn Rand, initially born Али́са Зино́вьевна Розенба́ум, was a Russian-born American novelist and philosopher in the twentieth century. She was born in Saint Petersburg, and went to Petrograd State University after the Russian Revolution, when women were allowed to enroll in college. She showed early signs of skilled literacy, and was able to read French, German, English, and Russian. She is most well known for her novels The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged, in which her famous philosophical ideal, termed Objectivism, is explored. This philosophical system defines itself in that is the moral purpose of life to pursue one's own happiness. This idea is also known as rational self-interest. Ayn Rand is still a prominent figure in literature and philosophy to this day. 

"I am often asked whether I am primarily a novelist or a philosopher. The answer is: both. In a certain sense, every novelist is a philosopher, because one cannot present a picture of human existence without a philosophical framework. . . . In order to define, explain and present my concept of man, I had to become a philosopher in the specific meaning of the term."

— Ayn Rand, “Preface,”
For the New Intellectual

"The question isn't who is going to let me; it's who is going to stop me."

-Ayn Rand