Song, Dance, and Celebration at Taste of Russia
By Sherry Li 
August 3, 2010 
18 Comments
On June 23rd, the 2nd floor of the Manhattan Automobile Company was filled with people, food, and dancers instead of cars, celebrating the 8th annual Russian Heritage Festival. Serving as the private reception for supporters of the Russian American Foundation, the Taste of Russia event was a fun-filled evening with song, dance, and traditional Russian cuisine. The evening was but one night in a month-long celebration of the arts and culture of New York’s 3rd largest ethnic group. The month started off with art and photo exhibits, a community festival and a sport fair.
Mari Vanna restaurant in Gramercy showed off several infused vodkas (the cherry vodka was delicious!) and different types of blini, stuffed crepes with your choice of tuna, sturgeon, chicken, or roasted eggplant. Among the other delicious food choices were caviar, various pastries, a scrumptious chicken and carrot stewed rice, stuffed grape leaves, and grilled meats. Dessert was also abundant – with an entire table dedicated to cookies, chocolates, and honey cake.
In the midst of guests hovering around the abundance of food and drink tables were youth dancers dressed in full costume from Moscow Folks and Somana-Kukun. Performances were kicked off by the introduction of Gary Flom, President and CEO of the Manhattan Automobile Company, and continued with traditional folk songs and dance performances.
Photos by Patrick Chang for Appetite for Good.
Related Posts
Author
Wow — Russian food isn’t something I would think to try, but it looks so good!
Kudos to the photographer for making it look good, then!
I’ve never really had any Russian food either… but it was delicious! Especially the chicken rice and the crepes!
Caviar is my favorite Russian treat, haha! There are some others like pirashkis that I adore as well
It’s definitely a guilty pleasure! Everything at the event was really yummy
My dad sometimes used to make blini with spinach or caviar. We had Russian friends who always used to give us a lot of caviar whenever they came to visit.
Oooh, spinach sounds amazing! I love spinach!
Beautiful pictures
Thank you!
What fun. Interesting dishes, though a bit out of season.
Haha yeah, everything was delicious! I’ve never had much Russian food, so this was definitely an eye opener!
Man, I have never tried 50% of those dishes. What does sturgeon taste like?
Haha Patrick will have to answer that. I didn’t have any of the sturgeon. But it looked delicious though!
I loved the crepes too! They were really soft and fluffy
Wow…those russian food looks so so tasty and the folk dance looks really interesting and cool!
It was super delicious too! I’m glad you enjoyed the pictures.
Thanks for stopping by!
Wow! I agree, never thought Russian food could look this appetizing, and infused vodka sounds awesome too!
Thanks for reading!
The vodka was awesome. Strong, but awesome!! It was spicy, fragrant, and fruity! A great drink
It’s true, we never do hear anything about Russian cuisine, just their vodka. Thanks for enlightening me and sharing some of your experience through those wonderful photographs.
Thanks for reading! Glad you like the pics