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Spoons of Victory

Forget drums and vuvuzelas, the 2018 World Cup had its own musical instrument: traditional Russian musical spoons that resonate louder than castanets with a distinctive “clack” — the wooden spoons are traditionally placed back-to-back and hit with a third to create a rhythmic beat. As with all works of art, the Spoons of Victory come with no expiration date. Finally, you can also use the noisemakers to eat soup and kasha. Choose your personal design online, place the order, or buy the basic set, and then use them during the pivotal matches of your favourite team.

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PIKE IS A BELOVED DISH IN RUSSIA AND AN IMPORTANT CHARACTER IN FAIRY TALES. WE FIND OUT WHEN THE FISH TASTES BEST AND WHICH PIKE DISHES ARE ON OFFER IN MOSCOW’S RESTAURANTS by Maxim Marusenkov

The 18th century Russian poet Gavriil Derzhavin wrote with gusto about the joy of eating delicious pike while living the good life in Russian countryside manors. The spectacular image of the blue pike conjures up associations with the romantic “blue flower”, and with the “blue trout” or truite au bleu. This ancient cookery technique involves dip- ping gutted, but not cleaned, trout in boiling vinegar to give the fish’s back a blue colour. In the Russian Empire, the famous Gatchina trout was prepared using this method, and there are similar recommendations for cooking pike.

Today pike is no longer served whole, as Pushkin wrote, in a napkin: “The soup and the wine in the glass are smoking, and the pike lies in the tablecloth”. In modern Russian cafés and restaurants, pike dishes have generally become a rarity. The most common are pike patties, the most familiar and understandable dish. In Moscow’s Sirena restaurant it’s served with mashed potatoes, white mushrooms, and Dijon sauce, while in Erwin it comes with fried mushroom mash, and truffle oil. For a more exciting accompaniment to your pike patties, if you are travelling that far, there’s a restaurant in Tobolsk in western Siberia, Mark & Lev, that serves them with baked beetroot, pike caviar, pike and salmon caviar sauce, and marinated green radish. At the LavkaLavka farmers’ cooperative, they make a pike burger, a pike patty in a bun, with a crispy potato pancake and home-made mayonnaise. The Savva restaurant has perfected another familiar dish: dumplings with pike, served here with Champagne sauce and pike caviar.

Igor Kornev, chef of the Beluga restaurant, decided not only to put pike on the menu, but also to make it a signature dish. Firstly, the fish is lightly smoked and all bones are removed. Then the pike, chopped into pieces, is cooked sous vide with butter and thyme: the fish is juicy and tender, and the smoky flavour is preserved. But the main focus, according to the chef, is the mushroom sauce, which has a rich creamy taste, but does not contain any cream. This effect is achieved by the use of tapioca starch. The tapioca and olive oil are added to a strong mushroom broth and beaten to an emulsion. The airy sauce does not kill the natural taste of the pike, but actually emphasises it. In St. Petersburg, the best pike is said to be found at the Shalyapin restaurant. Classic pike patties are served with a no less classical accompaniment, for Russians, any- way: creamy beetroot sauce. Pike caviar is combined with whipped cream, lemon juice is added, and the dish is served with a salad and rye bread crisps. Stuffed pike is cooked for two people at Shalyapin and arrives chilled, in the shape of two medallions, underneath “hats” of vegetable marinade. This is food associated primarily with the Jewish, or more precisely, the Ashkenazi culinary tradition. In Russia, how- ever, the recipe for stuffed (gelfite) pike was first published in a German cookbook. A translation of Andrew Christian Krist Kochmeister’s New Cookbook was published in Russia in 1775, and since then stuffed pike has appeared regularly in Russian cookery books, and later in restaurants. The greatest variety of pike dishes in Moscow can be found in Café Pushkin. The restaurant’s signature hot dish is “Pike’s head, prepared in the genteel fashion” which has not gone off the restaurant’s menu in over a decade. The head of the freshwater predator (the flat half remains) covers a large pike patty on a bed of honey bread. Inside there is apple, which has been poached in sugar syrup, and a creamy sauce with horseradish is generously poured over the composition. The side dishes that go with this “head” are traditional and perfect: mashed potatoes and stewed sauerkraut. The result is a dish that is brilliantly balanced in terms of taste, which can be a whole meal. You can also order stuffed pike and pike in aspic in there. From afar, the latter is easily confused with a slice of cake: the delicate layers of 63 jellied pike, salmon, and pike perch are interlaced with layers of jellied mayonnaise, and the beetroot and horseradish sauce, placed in star shapes, looks like meringue. You really need to try it.

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Business class “President”

A business class of enhanced comfort for passengers who travel on long-haul flights over six hours.

You’ll be greeted with a welcome drink and offered the restaurant service on board our aircraft. You will be able to choose a drink from a broad wine list including the New World and the Old World white and red wines, elite brands of still drinks, champagne.* A wide choice of soft drinks and juices is avail- able. Each table is laid with a table-nap- kin, each passenger is provided with metal flatware, porcelain plates, glass tumblers. You can choose from a wide selection of meals: a starter, a soup, a main course, a dessert or ice-cream of your choice. There is always a great choice of newspapers and magazines in “President” business class cabin. For your comfort this cabin is equipped with cocoon seats that can be trans- formed into beds. You will be offered a blanket, a pillow, a travel set for adult passengers and children.

“President” business class is available aboard Boeing 777 and Airbus 330 on long-haul flights.

* The Flying attendant can refuse to give alcohol to a passenger violating on-board rules or disturbing the other passengers.

** Sets of toiletries in Business class lavatories on flights longer than eight hours; blankets and pillows in Business class on all flights; adult travel sets are offered on all flights over three hours, including night flights to Berlin, Vienna, Copenhagen, Istanbul; children’s travel sets for kids on all flights.

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1 Embarkation card: A Family name. B Given names. C Nationality (country). D Date of birth (day/month/year). E Flight number when leaving Japan. F Signature. 2 Disembarkation card: A Family name. B Given names. C Nationality (country). D Date of birth (day/month/year). D Sex. E Country of residence. F City of residence. G Occupation. H Passport number. I Flight number when entering Japan. J Purpose of visit. K Intended length of stay in Japan (years/months/days). L Intended address

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Novaya Gollandiya

St. Petersburg, 2 Admiralteiskogo Kanala Emb.

One of St. Petersburg’s most romantic spots, a product of the inspired fantasy of Peter the Great, the small triangular islet of Novaya Gollandiya was hidden from curious eyes for many decades. It’s as if a forgotten kingdom had been frozen in time behind the 23-metre high archdesigned by Jean-Baptiste Vallin de la Mothe in the late 1700s. Novaya Gollandiya (New Holland) was originally built as a series of warehouses for the nearby shipbuilding yards. In the 19th century the architect Alexander Staubert added a circular prison here in a shape resembling that of a bottle. In 1890 experiments took place in the laboratories of Novaya Gollandiya to create smokeless powder, and in 1892 the central pool was used to test the submarine Delfin, the icebreaker Yermak, and the battleship Imperatritsa Maria. In 1915 Novaya Gollandiya was fitted with a radio installation to maintain communication with ships in the Baltic and Black seas. The Soviet era brought a plan to turn the monument into a “temple of culture”, with branches of the Hermitage, the Central Naval Muse- um, and a second stage for the Mariinsky Theatre, but this never became a reality. In 2006 a competition was held to produce a design for the reconstruction of the complex, but the winning design by Norman Foster was also destined to remain on the shelf. In the end it was Roman Abramovich’s asset management company Millhouse that paid for reconstruction work on the site. This time the project was developed by the American architectural bureau WORKac: the national monument needed adapting to the requirements of the present day. Two years ago the first stage of restoration was completed, and the island began operating year-round. The complex’s three buildings — Kuznya (The Foundry), Dom Komendanta (The Commandant’s House) and Butylka (The Bottle) — are now overflowing with life. The ballet star Diana Vishnyova has opened Context Pro, a ballet and yoga school, 41 and there is also a lecture hall, cafes and restaurants — and ice cream kiosks. You can often catch performances by the likes of Upsala Circus (a circus for rebellious children from deprived backgrounds), as well as concerts by up-and-coming bands and cerebral indie groups. Book fairs and gastronomic festivals also take place here.

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The Joy of Old Age

Dagestan’s main landmark is the ancient city of Derbent. And the word ancient is not just used for effect — not long ago this 5,000-year-old city was considered to be the oldest in Russia. Only in 2014 did the city of Kerch, in Crimea, take this title, and two years before that historians in one fell stroke “re-counted” Derbent’s age and said it was only 3,000 years old.

Curiously, when you walk around Derbent, you might see one advertising banner saying it is 5,000 years old, then another say- ing it is 2,000 years old, and in the shops souvenir mugs with different dates on them stand side by side. The locals aren’t bothered about it. “We know how old our city really is,” they say. And no one has taken it off the UNESCO World Heritage List. At the entrance to Derbent, there

is a powerful fortress, which in the evening lights looks like a golden crown capping the city. And from the observation platform of the citadel, it’s most interesting of all to watch Derbent itself, with its colourful quarters leading to the Caspian Sea, as if a carpet with rich designs, and crenellated fortress walls, has been rolled right out.

Today, the “Sun Fortress” of Naryn Qala, towering in the strategic pas- sage between the mountains and the Caspian Sea, is an open-air museum. If you take a tour through its territory you can see the remaining bathhouses, water supply systems, the foundation of the mosque, and the ruins of the Khan’s palace, and as a contrast, you may look into the deep stone oubliette it had for keeping prisoners. Most importantly, you should take a stroll along the perimeter of its antique walls.

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Forest Hills

Opened in 2012, this course was designed by one of the best architect bureaus in the US, Hills & Forrest International Golf Course Architects. Arthur Hills and Steve Forrest managed to tailor a course from seven different plots of land while preserving the natural landscape with its hills, tall trees, winding rivers, and splendid panoramic views. Especially impressive are the ninth fairway and the lake at the 14th hole, where the natural landscape creates the course’s signature hole. Most of the holes have wide fairways running from the tee to the green, which makes the course extremely attractive for beginners. And speaking of beginners, a magnificent golf academy has also been created here for both kids and adults, administered by an alumnus of the Nakhabino club, multiple Russian champion Andrei Pavlov.

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Aeroflot flights from/to Moscow are operated from Terminals B, D, E, F of Sheremetyevo International Airport

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Krasnopresnenskaya

Opened: 1954 Architects: Viktor Yegerev, Mikhail Konstantinov, Felix Novikov, and Igor Pokrovsky

Krasnopresnenskaya was young architect Viktor Yegerev’s debut. The future creator of the symbols of the Khrushchev thaw, the Pioneer Palace on Lenin Hills and the TASS building, proved to be disciples of Stalin’s excesses. The story of the revolutionary events of 1905–17, which the station — located on the site of those fierce battles on the barricades — is dedicated to, is told through the language of basreliefs, vigorous angles, white marble, and red granite. Scenes of the rebellion on the battleship Potyomkin, the shot from the Aurora armoured cruiser, and the storming of the Winter Palace stretch up to the arch. At the end, now the passage to Barrikadnaya station, stood the figures of Lenin and Stalin by sculptor Alexei Zelensky. He also made the “druzhinik” (a public order volunteer) sculpture on the ground level.

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Mocha with a mountain view? The new SkyTeam waiting area at Vancouver airport lures the customers with signature coffee, breathtaking panoramic views and excellent salmon caught in the Pacific north

LOUNGING AROUND

Ready to relax? As well as 600+ lounges worldwide, First, Business Class and Elite Plus SkyTeam fliers can escape to six special SkyTeam branded lounges worldwide, plus new locations coming later this year.

Vancouver Mountain views with your mocha? SkyTeam’s newest lounge offers stunning vistas across the run- way, plus Pacific Northwest drinks and locally sourced salmon.

Hong Kong Construct your ideal oriental dishes at the noodle bar, and count over 50 different plant species blooming from the botanical wall at this Hong Kong hot spot. London Order a worldly vintage at the wine bar (pictured) or de-stress with a holistic treatment at the Clarins Spa at this modern two-level lounge. Beijing The first SkyTeam Lounge at a Chinese hub promises a stress- free escape for catching up on work, and a TV room for catching up on the news. Dubai Depart the desert city in style. Admire the plants adorning the buffet area, and entertain the little ones with cartoons in the Kid’s Room.

Sydney Sit back and recharge your gadgets with outlets beside each seat, and then re-charge your body in the relaxation room.

Coming soon: Santiago & Istanbul

SkyTeam’s two newest international lounges will bring natural light, refreshing showers and power at every seat to SkyTeam travellers in 2018. Help your- self to local flavours like Turkish meze and pide in Istanbul New Airport, and an empanada station in Santiago, Chile.

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Comfort class

The Aeroflot Comfort Class travel option is available on Boeing 777 aircraft operating on long-distance flights. While developing this class’ space, we took care of many details that will help you relax and enjoy the flight.

MORE LUGGAGE

Additional free baggage allowance applies to Comfort Class passengers: two pieces of checked baggage of up to 23 kg each and one piece of up to 10 kg for hand luggage.

MORE CONVENIENCE

Comfort class features wide new seats with increased pitch between rows manufactured using Shell technology, which allows you to create a private space in flight and enjoy comfort without disturbing your neighbour.

An important advantage of seats is an innovative control mechanism that moves the passenger slightly forward for maximum comfort. You will be offered pillows and blankets, and personal travel kits.

MORE BUSINESS

Your flight may not only be comfortable, but also highly productive. Seats are equipped with USB-ports and sockets to make it possible for you to charge your mobile gadgets, as well as with an individual illumination system and a fold-out table.

MORE DISHES

We are happy to offer hot meals from the Business Class menu – an example of haute and gourmet cuisine. To develop our menu, we invite the best chefs from Russian and foreign restaurants, as well as experts in haute cuisine.

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Peterhof Golf Club

The first city club with a 18-hole championship course (5,911 metres, 71 par) opened in summer 2017. Located just five minutes from the Grand Palace at Peterhof, it was once part of the Romanovs’ princely hunting grounds. The course was designed by the “Great White Shark” Greg Norman and Steve For- rest. Perhaps it is in this creative tandem that the secret of the course’s multifaceted identity lies, just as history and modernity are woven together in its surroundings. The course seems at first to be a classical links, then suddenly turns into a parkland, then transforms into an exotic heathland. The club- house is also built on contrast: the minimalist design by the Arch Group bureau from dark granite with full panoramic windows is in close proximity to the Alexandria Park and the former stately summer residence of Mikhailovka.

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Fish ukha could be divided in three varieties: the black one — simple in preparation and taste, more complex white ukha, and beautiful red ukha made from the finest ingredients

Ukha

In the era of Domostroi any broth was called ukha, whether made with meat, poultry or fish. It was only 300 years ago that the name finally became synonymous with one of the most famous kinds of Russian soup, fish soup.

The rivers and lakes were full of fish in those times, and the calendar was full of Lenten days, when people were forbidden to eat meat and dairy products. It is no surprise that the German traveller and diplomat Adam Olearius, who visited Moscow in the 17th century during the reign of the first Romanov ruler, Tsar Michael I, wrote: “They are able to make many diverse dishes from fish, flour and vegetables, so you can forget the meat”. To this day, connoisseurs and fishermen in Russia divide fish into “white” and “black”. The first group includes zander, perch, ruff, and whitefish. Ukha made from this fish is particularly soft, sweet and slightly sticky. It’s not even advised to clean the little ruff, with their spiny fins: this way the brew is especially rich. “Black” ukha is made with bream, pike, roach, crucian carp, and bleak. There is also fish for “red” ukha, “red” from the old Russian word for beautiful. In this case it means the very best ukha, made from sturgeon, nelma, salmon, starry sturgeon, or beluga. A whisper of saffron will make the ukha, already amber from the fat, a truly golden colour. Don cockerel ukha occupies a special place in ukha lore. Large pieces of freshwater fish, tomatoes, and dill seeds are added to a boiling broth made with cockerel (by no means should it be chicken). The cooked tomatoes are later discarded, but they leave a delicious sour- ness in taste and a light blush of col- our. The bright anise aroma and the complex interplay of flavour transform Don ukha into a 3D installation, enhancing the perception of the nuances of the fish’s taste and smell. Purists say that ukha should be made with only one or two types of fish, and the fish must be freshly caught. Only onion and salt and pepper are added to a soup like this (it is boiled for little over 20 minutes), so that its fresh fishy flavour can be enjoyed in full. The charm of eating Russian ukha is in its swift preparation, in the freshness and brightness of its taste, and in the sense of being a locavore

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Aeroflot flights from/to Moscow are operated from Terminals B, D, E, F of Sheremetyevo International Airport

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WIDE-BODY FLEET Overall quantity – 39

NARROW-BODY FLEET Overall quantity – 207

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Mercure Hotel

Kaliningrad

Kaliningrad is distinguished by a unique intertwining of cultures — it’s the most European Russian city and famous for amber. The new hotel under the Mercure brand of the global Accor Hotel chain opened in Kaliningrad on the shores of the Upper Lake, just 10 minutes away from the city centre. The joint’s design is an artistic reinterpretation of traditional German architecture together with an inherent French charm. Another good idea is the Torro Grill restaurant, straight from Moscow.