According to V.I. Gilyarovsky, the inn for Muscovites was the "first thing" that replaced the stock exchange, the dining room, the place for meetings and revelry. Inns were originally called hotels with restaurants, which arose on the basis of inns at post stations. You can read about the drinking culture in Moscow, the most famous taverns and their owners, what they treated Muscovites in taverns in this article ...
The first tavern appeared in 1547 (according to other sources, in 1552), when Tsar Ivan IV the Terrible opened a tavern for his subordinates on Balchug. During the reign of Alexei Mikhailovich, there were 3 taverns in Moscow, then 25. In the 18th century. the number of such establishments continued to grow.
During the reign of Catherine II, there were about 40 taverns and other establishments in Moscow. By 1872, their number had increased to 653. The saturation of taverns was not the same - in the Tver part of them there were 60, in Prechistenskaya 19, in other regions the number of these establishments fluctuated within the indicated limits.
At all times, Moscow has been the gastronomic capital of our state. Today, the most fashionable foreign chefs are on tour here, the capital markets abound with the most exquisite delicacies, and the choice of restaurants caters to every taste and budget. For centuries, Moscow has been setting the culinary fashion. Let us recall the most eminent Moscow taverns and the dishes served in them.
Tavern Testova
The "Big Patrikeevsky tavern" (later "Testov's Restaurant") was opened in 1868 by the Moscow merchant Ivan Yakovlevich Testov, and it was located in the Patrikeev's house (hence the name) in Okhotny Ryad.
Test pigs, which were served with porridge, were famous throughout the capital. Crayfish soup with pies, botvinia with white fish, Guryev porridge with fruit, and especially kulebyak with twelve fillings were also popular.
Photo of 1900. The Great Moscow Hotel. On the right is the corner of the house where the Testova Tavern was located
And here is what Vladimir Gilyarovsky wrote about drinks:
“Instantly a cold Smirnovka in ice lined up on the table, English bitter, Shustov brandy and Leve port No. 50 next to a bottle of picon. Trade was especially brisk since August, when landowners from all over Russia were taking children to study in Moscow in educational institutions and when the tradition was established - have lunch with the children at Testov's ...
Testov had a lot of gourmets who ordered portions of cold beluga, salmon or sturgeon with horseradish, balyk, caviar, fried pig, veal, botvinia with white fish and dry grated balyk, kulebyak stuffed in 12 tiers with burbot liver and bone marrow in black oil ham, pies, hazel grouse with partridge.
After the performance, the theater audience stood in line. Testov nailed the coat of arms and the inscription: "Supplier of the highest court" to his sign. Petersburg nobility, led by the grand dukes, specially came to Moscow to eat a test crayfish soup with pies. "
The slogan "Workers of all countries, unite!" decorated the monument to Karl Marx on Teatralnaya Square, located on the site of the former tavern of I.Ya. Testov. The grand opening of the monument took place on October 29, 1961, during the work of the XXII Congress of the CPSU in the presence of the highest party and Soviet leadership, congress delegates, guests from the Communist Parties of other countries.
To erect the monument, the last remnant of the Empire Theater Square was broken down - the corner house, which once housed the famous tavern "Big Patrikeevsky Tavern" by I.Ya. Testov.
Tavern "Hermitage"
On the site of the famous Hermitage tavern, which was located on Trubnaya Square, at the corner of Petrovsky Boulevard and Neglinnaya, during the NEP the "cafeteria-cafe MSPO No. 21" was located, and then the "House of the Peasant" with a hall for 450 seats, where cultural - educational activities for peasants who came to Moscow.
The Hermitage tavern has become famous all over the world for its dishes. The French chef Lucien Olivier, together with the Russian merchant Yakov Pegov, built a tavern, in front of the door of which the most expensive teams of horses stopped. The Frenchman invented the famous salad that immortalized his name.
The famous Hermitage tavern.
Olvier originally invented for his restaurant not a salad at all, but a dish called Game Mayonnaise. For him, fillets of hazel grouses and partridges were boiled, cut and laid out on a dish, mixed with cubes of jelly from poultry broth. Boiled crayfish tails and slices of tongue, sprinkled with Provencal sauce, were gracefully placed next to it. And in the center was a pile of potatoes with pickled gherkins, decorated with slices of hard-boiled eggs.
As conceived by the French chef, the central "slide" was intended not for food, but only for beauty, as an element of the dish's decor. But soon Olivier saw that many Russian ignoramuses served on the table "Game Mayonnaise" immediately mixed with a spoon like porridge, destroying the carefully thought-out design, then put it on their plates and eat this mixture with pleasure.
From what he saw, he was horrified. But the next day, an inventive Frenchman, as a sign of contempt, demonstratively mixed all the ingredients, sprinkling them with mayonnaise. Lucien Olivier proved to be right in the creative consideration of Russian taste - the success of the new dish was tremendous!
The dishes of the restaurant, where the chef from France served in the kitchen, was prepared to the highest level, responding to the most quirky taste of gourmets.
Later, passing into the hands of a commercial partnership, already without Olivier, the Hermitage became even more luxurious. In the complex with the restaurant, numbered baths, a hotel opened, an evergreen garden smelled fragrant, a magnificent orchestra played in the choirs of the White Column Hall.
A banquet was held in the Hermitage hall on the occasion of the centenary of the birth of Alexander Sergeevich Pushkin. All living classics of Russia then gathered within its walls.
In 1879, Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev was honored in the Hermitage, and in 1890 - Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky, and these events became the property of not only Moscow, but all of Russia. The history of the old "Hermitage" was cut short in 1917, when the slogan "Let's renounce the old world!" was put into practice.
Restaurant "Saratov"
Sretenka.
The inn "Saratov" was located on Sretenka, in different years it belonged to the merchants Dubrovin and Sevastyanov. Gilyarovsky writes that landowners from all over Russia, who brought their children to school in Moscow, considered it their duty to dine with their children in "Saratov" near Dubrovin.
Tavern "Yar"
The inn "Yar" was located on Rozhdestvenka in the house of Shavan, opened by the Frenchman Tranky Yar. This tavern was especially famous for its gypsy singing. All Moscow bohemia gathered to listen to the gypsy choir of Ilya Sokolov.
"Restaurant with lunch and dinner tables, all sorts of grape wines and liqueurs, desserts, coffee and tea, at very reasonable prices " - wrote the newspaper "Moskovskie vedomosti" in 1826.
The restaurant building has been rebuilt several times. In July 1896, "Yar" was acquired by a former waiter, a native of the peasants of the Yaroslavl province, Alexei Akimovich Sudakov.
Alexey Akimovich Sudakov (pictured in the center) began his work in 1875 in a tavern of the lowest category. Then he opened his own tavern. Then another, better one. And so step by step until the purchase of "Yar"
In 1910, on his behalf, the architect Adolf Erichson built a new building in the Art Nouveau style, with large faceted domes, arched windows and monumental metal lamps along the facade.
The restaurant has become very popular among the Russian elite. Among the visitors to "Yar" were Savva Morozov, Fyodor Plevako, Anton Chekhov, Alexander Kuprin, Maxim Gorky, Fyodor Chaliapin, Leonid Andreev, Konstantin Balmont, as well as Grigory Rasputin
Inside, the Big and Small Halls, the imperial box and offices were arranged, one of which was named "Pushkin" in memory of the poet who wrote about "Yar" on Kuznetsk:
"Who does not remember the famous Yar with his soup a Ia lortue from a veal head, which was in no way inferior to the taste of a real tortoiseshell; with his beefsteak, with truffles, with his fried partridges en Perigord, in which again there were more truffles than meat; with his chickens in the month of January, with fresh beans, with his young black grouse grouse, steam bream and, finally, with his sterlet matlot? " - mentioned in the magazine "Moskvityanin" in 1858.
Gurin's tavern
In 1876, the merchant Karzinkin bought Gurin's tavern, located at the very beginning of Tverskaya Street, on the corner of Voskresenskaya Square, broke it down, built a huge house and made up the "Association of the Big Moscow Hotel", decorated it with luxurious halls and a hotel with a hundred magnificent rooms. In 1878 the first half of the hotel was opened.
“In the Bolshoi Moskovsky chandeliers shine, string music spills, and here he, throwing a fur coat over the hands of the doormen, wiping his mustache wet from the snow with a handkerchief, as usual, cheerfully enters the heated crowded hall on the red carpet, into a the bustle of lackeys and all covering the lecherous-languid, then the dashing-stormy string waves”, - wrote I. Bunin.
The hotel was destroyed in the 1930s. and built in its place the hotel "Moscow" according to the project of architects L. Savelyev and O. Stapran, modified later by the academician of architecture A.V. Shchusev.
Due to the advantages of architecture and interior interiors of "Moscow", it has always been one of the most prestigious Moscow hotels. At various times, the hotel was visited by the first cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin, Nobel laureate Frederic Joliot-Curie, actors Sophia Loren, Marcello Mastroianni, Robert de Niro and many others.
Egorov's tavern and Voronin's pancake house
The historical appearance of Okhotny Ryad has changed dramatically. In previous years, Okhotny Ryad was built up on one side with old houses, and on the other - with a long one-story building under one roof.
Of all the buildings, only two houses were residential: the house where the Continental hotel, and the tavern of the Old Believer S.S. Egorova, famous for his pancakes (on Okhotny Ryad, no. 4).
S. Yegorov's tavern was famous for its excellent Russian cuisine, a variety of teas. A special room decorated in Chinese style was set aside for tea drinking. The inn was famous for serving tea "with alimon" and "with a towel".
If the visitor expressed a desire to drink tea "with alimon", he was served two glasses of tea with sugar and lemon. If he demanded tea "with a towel", he was given a tea cup, a teapot with boiling water and another small one for making tea, as well as a towel that the visitor hung around his neck.
After he drained the first kettle with boiling water, wiping his forehead and neck with a towel, he was served a second, third, etc. Some seasoned merchants, tea lovers, drank several kettles at one sitting, and the towel became wet with sweat.
On the first floor of Yegorov's tavern there was a Voronin pancake, which was very popular due to its special ("Voronin") pancakes. Egorov's tavern once belonged to Voronin, and therefore the sign showed a crow holding a pancake in its beak.
Smoking was forbidden in Yegorov's tavern, fasting days were strictly observed, and every Saturday the owner gave alms. This tavern was described by I.A. Bunin in the story "Clean Monday".
In 1902 the inn was taken over by the owner's son-in-law, S.S. Utin-Egorov, who turned the old tavern into a first-class restaurant.
The writer Ivan Shmelev recalled how, before the family went to Vorobyovy Gory, they sent “ take a note to Egorov, which is supposed to be for a walk: cheese, sausages with tongue, balychka, caviar, fresh cucumbers, marmalade, lemon ... "
"Monetny", "At Arsentievich", "Golubyatnya" and other famous taverns in Moscow
The back doors of the shops in Okhotny Ryad opened onto a huge courtyard - Monetny, as it was called from ancient times. On it there were one-story meat, live fish and egg shops, and in the middle there was a two-story "Coin" tavern. Later the territory of the former Mint was occupied by the Moscow hotel.
Kolomna on Neglinnoye was also well-known establishments in Moscow. The tavern "U Arsentich" (Mikhail Arsentievich Arsenyev) was famous for ham and white fish, was located in Bolshoy Cherkassky lane on the site of no. 15; now there is a restaurant "U Arsentich".
In the Basmanny district there was a tavern "Razgulay" (a tavern appeared here at the end of the 17th century, and a "state-owned drinking house called on Razgulyai" was opened in 1757 and existed until the 1860s).
There were famous taverns "At Lopashov", "At Bubnov", "At Yegor Kapkov", "Dovecote" (at the corner of Ostozhenka and 1st Zachatyevsky). In the "Dovecote" V. Shustov, then I.E. Krasovsky from the 1860s. until 1914, fans of pigeons and cockfights gathered.
Ostozhenka Street, Barricades, in the background the Dovecote tavern
The inns were in the interests of the groups - there was a tavern of "writers from Nikolskaya", a tavern of Shcherbakov, loved by actors, and others. The Kolokol tavern on Sretenka was a favorite meeting place for painters who worked in churches.
Tavern (now a restaurant) "Prague"
Existing since the 1870s. in 1896, the Prague cabins' tavern on Arbat Square was rebuilt into a fashionable restaurant. The new owner got down to business vigorously, turning the provincial tavern into a first-class restaurant for a “pure” public, primarily the intelligentsia.
He added on and expanded the building, and in 1914 he built something like a summer garden on the roof, decorated numerous halls and offices with wall paintings, mirrors, stucco and bronze. The best gypsy ensembles and famous performers began to be invited to the restaurant.
Tavern "Prague" on the Old Arbat.
As the current owners of the company say, “ its favorable location was quickly appreciated by the enterprising merchant Semyon Tararykin, who realized that the building overlooking the two central streets could bring considerable income "; as a result, "Prague" has become "one of the centers of the cultural life of Moscow."
Naturally, the cabbies somehow stopped visiting him. After 1917, "Prague" was, of course, nationalized, for some time its sign was removed: what restaurants could be during the years of war communism! In the 1920s, the Higher Drama Courses were located here, as well as the bookstores "Bukinist", "Book Business" and "Slovo".
In one of the halls on the second floor a library worked for many years. In 1924, a public dining room of Mosselprom was opened here. Mayakovsky wrote about her:
Health is joy, the highest good,
In the Mosselprom canteen - the former "Prague".
It's fun, clean, light and comfortable there,
The dinners are delicious and the beer is dull!
Since the mid-30s, troubled times have come again for "Prague". The fact is that the quiet and cozy Arbat unexpectedly acquired the unofficial status of a "government" street, the "Georgian Military Road". He connected the Kremlin with Stalin's near Kuntsevo dacha.
They began to check and recheck all the tenants of houses whose windows looked out onto the street. Those who did not inspire confidence were forced to change or even leave Moscow. If guests came to the Arbat, or even had an acquaintance or a relative for one night, the owner was obliged, on pain of the most severe reprisals, up to eviction, to report this to his manager.
Every 50 meters all over the Arbat there were "stompers" around the clock. Only in 1954, after a thorough reconstruction, the Prague restaurant opened its doors again. In Soviet times, "Prague" became one of the largest and most prestigious restaurants in the capital. For Soviet people not spoiled by luxury, even a single visit to this restaurant was an unforgettable event for a lifetime.
In August 1997, the grand opening of the renovated "Prague" took place on Arbat Square. Today, the Prague menu is a real treat for gourmets, with a piglet, sterlet, sturgeon ...
About assortment in Moscow taverns
In taverns of the last century, they served tea, coffee and smoking tobacco, grape wines, rum, cognac, liqueurs, punch, bread vodka made at vodka factories, rum and vodka in the manner of French, honey, beer, liqueurs, liqueurs.
« Between the plates are several thin glasses and three crystal decanters with multi-colored vodka. All these items were placed on a small marble table, comfortably joined to a huge carved oak sideboard, spewing beams of glass and silver light.", - wrote Mikhail Bulgakov.
Sweet liqueurs appeared in Russia in the 17th century. It has become fashionable to keep a “bar” in houses, where drinks with different tastes were located - tinctures of anise, pepper, galangal, mountain ash, you cannot name them all. Someone calculated that Russia, in terms of the variety of liqueurs and liqueurs, has overtaken all the other countries taken together by ten times.
If wines have always been the pride of Italians or Frenchmen, then, in addition to vodka, in our national piggy bank there are many drinks made from a variety of fruits and berries - drinks where the degree is not the main thing, but just an auxiliary means for revealing taste. The liqueurs were called Russian liqueurs. They contain many extractives and sugar.
Usually berries are put in large bottles or jars, covered with a layer of sand on top and allowed to brew. After a while, the ready-made juice is mixed with vodka or alcohol, poured into beautiful bottles - the liqueur is ready. There is noticeably less sugar in tinctures, but the strength is higher, since the extraction occurs under the influence of alcohol.
For such an extraction to take place, the fruits or their parts are immediately poured with alcohol or vodka, and the role of sugar is rather in softening the taste. With the help of alcohol, those substances that are insoluble in water and many of them have biological activity are "pulled out" from plants. That is why tinctures have a more complex and richer composition, thanks to which they are widely used in folk and traditional medicine.
To make the tincture sweeter, fruit and berry juices or sugar syrup are mixed with it. This makes their composition related to liqueurs. But the liqueurs have almost completely disappeared from the shelves (liqueurs have replaced them), but there is a large selection of liqueurs. In addition, they are more versatile - some people like them sweeter, while others like them stronger.
Oksana Boychenko
The "Big Patrikeevsky tavern" (later "Testov's Restaurant") was opened in 1868 by the Moscow merchant Ivan Yakovlevich Testov, and it was located in the Patrikeev's house (hence the name) in Okhotny Ryad.
Test pigs, which were served with porridge, were known throughout the capital. Crayfish soup with pies, botvinia with white fish, Guryev porridge with fruit, and especially kulebyak with twelve fillings were also popular.
And here is what Vladimir Gilyarovsky wrote about the drinks: "Instantly a cold smirnovka in ice, English bitter, Shustov brandy and Leve port No. 50 next to a bottle of picon were lined up on the table."
Hermitage Restaurant
There was a restaurant "Hermitage", popularly "Hermitage Olivier", on Neglinnaya, 29. Gilyarovsky writes that the restaurant was opened by the Moscow merchant Yakov Pegov and the famous French chef Lucien Olivier, who became friends on their weakness for snuff. Yes, yes, this is the very Olivier to whom we owe our favorite New Year's salad. It was in the kitchen of this restaurant that this salad was born.
In the original version, fillets of hazel grouses and partridges were boiled for salad, mixed with jelly from broth and laid out on a dish. Then they added boiled crayfish tails and pieces of boiled tongue. All this was watered with Provencal sauce. In the center was laid out a slide of boiled potatoes with pickled gherkins. Garnished with slices of hard-boiled eggs.
Restaurant "Saratov"
The inn "Saratov" was located on Sretenka, in different years it belonged to the merchants Dubrovin and Sevastyanov. Gilyarovsky writes that landowners from all over Russia, who brought their children to school in Moscow, considered it their duty to dine with their children in "Saratov" near Dubrovin.
Tavern "Yar"
The inn "Yar" was located on Rozhdestvenka in the house of Shavan, opened by the Frenchman Tranky Yar. This tavern was especially famous for its gypsy singing. All Moscow bohemia gathered to listen to the gypsy choir of Ilya Sokolov. "Ra restaurant with a lunch and dinner table, all sorts of grape wines and liqueurs, desserts, coffee and tea, at very reasonable prices "- wrote the newspaper" Moskovskie vedomosti "in 1826.
"Who does not remember the famous Yar with his soup a Ia lortue from a veal head, which was in no way inferior to the taste of a real turtle; with his beefsteak, with truffles, with his fried partridges en Perigord, which again contained more truffles than meat; chickens in the month of January, with fresh beans, with his young black grouse grouse, steam bream, and finally with his sterlet matlot? " - mentioned in the magazine "Moskvityanin" in 1858.
Lecture "FOOD" broadcast
At 19:00 we invite you to the online broadcast of the lecture "Food", which will be held at the Museum of Moscow. Maxim Fursov, head of the Archeology department of the Museum of Moscow, will talk about the gastronomic traditions of Muscovites in different years, as well as about what Russian cuisine represents before, after and without William Pokhlebkin.
Moscow of the 19th century was famous for its feasts - arranged both in homes and in places of public catering. This century saw the heyday of fashionable and expensive dining places - upscale restaurants and prestigious inns; however, there were also enough democratic institutions in Moscow.
Until the 18th century, Russian public catering was intended for poor people. The taverns and drinking houses were filled with common people. Peter I, seeing prestigious institutions of this kind in Europe, opened inns in Russia - places for wealthy gentlemen. Inns appeared in both St. Petersburg and Moscow. But, due to the lack of a culture of visiting restaurants on the part of the privileged class, these inns quickly turned into a kind of taverns. The name of the restaurant was discredited (well, that is temporary). At the end of the 18th century, gerbergs were opened for gentlemen, and from the beginning of the 19th century they began to be called restaurants.
Since about the beginning of the 19th century, catering establishments in Russia have been acquiring gloss and chic. Luxurious restaurants appear in Moscow, offering guests the finest dishes of foreign cuisine. Here you will find truffles, game of all kinds, desserts, and, of course, champagne brought from France!
Remembering the Yar restaurant - one of the most famous in Moscow - Alexander Sergeevich Pushkin wrote:
How long have I been hungry in anguish
Fasting involuntary to observe
And cold veal
Remember Yar's truffles?
Interestingly, in the 19th century, Moscow taverns also regained their prestige, becoming national restaurants with a Russian flavor. Inns "for the pure public" specialized in Russian dishes, and the portions served here were huge! Visitors could well have a lunch and a pile of pancakes, and a jellied pig, and then go to a restaurant - to eat Strasbourg pie ... Favorite drinks in inns were tea and vodka.
What were the most famous restaurants in Moscow? "National", "Metropol", cafe "Savoy", "Slavianski Bazar", "Empire", "England", "Strelna", "Lux-Hotel", "Zolotoy Yakor", "Prague", "Hermitage" and, of course, the great "Yar". For some restaurants, a special "specialization" was entrenched: for example, in the "Hermitage" on Tatiana's day the Moscow students roamed wildly, and in "Strelna" and "Yar" they were famous for gypsy singing.
Gastronomic establishments were a kind of visiting card of the capital. A Muscovite could not understand anything about politics, not understand the theatrical art, but he could easily navigate the abundance of restaurants and drinking establishments and could tell exactly where the best pies were served and where the most delicious pies were served.
In general, people came to taverns not only to dine. Here they made deals for many millions and discussed matters of state importance.
He replaced the stock exchange for merchants who made thousands of deals over a cup of tea, and a dining room for the lonely, and hours of rest in friendly conversation for all people, and a place for business dates, and revelry for everyone - from a millionaire to a tramp.
How did it all start?
In ancient times, hospitable visiting yards were set up along the roads in Russia. There you could have lunch, spend the night and find out the latest news.
The first tavern appeared in Moscow in 1547 (according to another version, in 1552) on Balchug. By order of Ivan IV, the guardsmen were required to visit a drinking establishment at least once a week. Food was not served there, but alcohol could be eaten with impunity. At the same time, the sale of vodka throughout the city was prohibited. It was impossible to make strong drinks at home. It is not surprising that the tavern business brought a huge income to the state. And if in 1626 there were only 25 taverns in the city, then in 1775 there were already 151. And 10 years later, scribes counted in Moscow 302 churches, 1 theater and 359 taverns.
When taverns ceased to be the lot of the guardsmen, peasants and townspeople flocked to them, and in the middle of the 17th century representatives of any class could be found in drinking establishments. And one of the main taverns - "Under the Cannon" - stood right on.
In 1745, the first tavern was opened in Moscow. It was designed for wealthy gentlemen, and the doors of this institution were closed for women. Peter I spied this idea in Europe, but due to the lack of culture of visiting restaurants, taverns were not very different from taverns.
Gloss and chic in Moscow catering appeared only at the beginning of the 19th century. At the same time, luxurious restaurants opened with a delicious menu of foreign dishes. And the taverns received a specialization in Russian cuisine.
Still, a tavern and a tavern are somehow different?
The main difference is that in taverns they mostly ate, and in taverns they drank.
Most often, inns (from the German verb "traktieren" - "to treat") were opened on the basis of inns. Moreover, the owners were foreigners. The common people used to visit taverns - low-class inns with cheap simple food and drink. Wealthy townspeople chose more luxurious taverns with an "orchestrion" - a mechanical organ that imitated the playing of an entire orchestra.
At the same time, taverns were intended for poor people: the clergy and boyars drank at home. And sometimes pubs were hidden under the signs "Hairdresser" or "Bakery". In Moscow, they fought against the excise-free sale of vodka, and the owners of drinking establishments did not want to share their income with the state. And when teahouses opened in the mid-1880s, they also sold vodka from under the floor.
In the 19th century, many taverns turned into restaurants. At first glance, there were few differences: the emphasis on foreign cuisine and live music. But over time, the boundaries began to blur, and even connoisseurs could not always say exactly where they were - in a tavern or in a restaurant.
Where were the oldest inns?
There were a huge number of taverns in Moscow! Not surprisingly, in 1887, 19,000 people were employed in this fishery. And there were celebrities here.
The most famous were Gurin's Bolshoi Moscow Tavern on Voskresenskaya Square (in its place is the Moskva Hotel) and the Trinity Tavern on.
And even the Petersburg nobility came to Testov's first-class tavern. He was famous for his crayfish soup with pies and kulebyaka stuffed in 12 tiers. The inn rightfully bore the title of "Supplier of the highest court". Now there is a monument in its place.
The tavern of the Old Believer Yegorov in Okhotny Ryad was famous for its excellent cuisine and a variety of varieties of tea. A Chinese-style room was allocated for tea drinking, and tea was served "with alimon" and "with a towel." If in the first one it is easy to guess tea with sugar and lemon, then tea "with a towel" was a kind of ritual. The guest was served a tea cup, a kettle with boiling water, a kettle with tea leaves and a towel. The visitor hung a towel around his neck, and after he drained the first kettle of boiling water, he wiped his forehead and neck with it. The next kettle was served to the guest, and soon the towel became wet through and through.
And on the first floor of Yegorov's tavern, Voronin's pancake house worked. They definitely went here for Shrovetide. The tavern could be recognized by the sign with a crow holding a pancake in its beak. But he changed beyond recognition, and nothing remained of Yegorov's tavern.
But the building of the Hermitage tavern has survived. Now there is the theater "School of Contemporary Play". He became famous for his dishes, because it was here that the French chef Lucien Olivier invented the world-famous salad. Also in the hall of the "Hermitage" there was a banquet on the occasion of the centenary of the birth of Alexander Pushkin, Ivan Turgenev and Fyodor Dostoevsky were honored.
In general, taverns also played the role of business clubs. For example, "Eagle" on Sukharevskaya Square at the end of the 19th century was a place for business meetings of antiquaries and jewelers, "Bread Exchange" in Gavrikov Lane was a gathering place for wholesalers-millers, Abrosimov's tavern on Malaya was a second-hand book market, and in the Kolokol tavern on Sretenka church painters gathered. In fact, representatives of each profession had their own taverns.
But there were also inns of interest. For example, from the 1860s to 1914, lovers of pigeons and cockfights gathered in the "Golubyatn" on Ostozhenka. And the Borgesta tavern was a meeting place for lovers of nightingale singing.
And sometimes taverns turned into concert halls. There were even those who liked to listen to the orchestrion - “to drink tea under the car”.
And some inns were notorious. It's not about the food, but about their regulars. For example, the Bubnovsky tavern was famous for its good menu. But in the basement the "Bubnovskaya Hole" worked, where merchants drunken in dark and dirty rooms from morning till night.
On the site of house No. 2 on Tsvetnoy Boulevard there was a three-storey house of Vnukov, where the Krym tavern worked on the first floor in the middle of the 19th century. The city "bottom" gathered there, and its cellars were eloquently called "Hell" and "Underworld".
There were also several taverns on Khitrovka. In the house of Rumyantsev - "The Messenger" and "Siberia", in the house of Yaroshenko - "Hard labor". These were unofficial names for "insiders." Each tavern was visited by a certain audience: beggars and tradesmen gathered in "Peresilny", pickpockets, thieves and buyers of stolen goods gathered in "Siberia", and thieves and fugitive convicts met in "Hard labor".
Was the service the same as now?
In the taverns, sex workers were served - Yaroslavl residents in snow-white shirts made of Dutch linen. They did not receive a salary and paid part of the tips to the owners themselves. Therefore, the sexually tried to please the guest and did not take offense at the exclamations of "Chelaek!"
In restaurants, visitors were no longer served by sex workers, but by waiters in tailcoats, snow-white shirts with ties. The guests addressed the waiters as "you". And the service was already practically the same as it is now.
Many have heard about the Moscow revelry, but what did it look like?
Wealthy merchants tried to outdo each other not only in the number of factories and shops, but also in the amount spent in taverns. On this occasion, the menu included dishes like “beluga soup cooked in French champagne”. But that was not enough!
Merchants bought up a Gypsy choir, smashed dishes and smashed furniture in order to then smartly pay for the repair costs. The restaurant "Yar" was especially "hit". The phrase "Go to the Yar" was almost synonymous with binge. And one of the favorite entertainments of the merchants was playing the "aquarium": instead of notes, they put one hundred ruble bills on the music stand and ordered the pianist's favorite melody. To the accompaniment of her sounds, a huge white piano was filled with champagne and fish were allowed there.
Was in "Yar" and the price list for those who like to hooliganism. For example, the pleasure of smearing the face of a waiter with mustard cost 120 rubles, and throwing a bottle into a Venetian mirror - 100 rubles. However, all the property of the restaurant was insured.
Another way to show off wealth is to have breakfast before the cranes. This could be done only in the "Slavianski Bazaar". There, dinner flowed smoothly into breakfast and was often accompanied by cognac. The drink was served in a crystal decanter with golden cranes. It cost a lot of money at that time - 50 rubles. The one who paid for the cognac took the decanter as well. "Cranes" were collected and shown to guests.
And in the "Hermitage" on Tatiana's day, Moscow students roamed wildly.
This year, everything was drunk, except for the Moskva River, and that was due to the fact that it was frozen ... It was so fun that one studios was bathed in a tank where sterlets swim from an excess of feelings ...
It began with an official ceremony in the assembly hall of Moscow State University. Professors, members of the administration, students and graduates from all over Russia gathered there. After the prayer service, report and speech of the rector, they sang "God Save the Tsar!" Then the unofficial part began.
The students went to taverns and pubs to have a glass or two. Lunch at the Hermitage was traditional.
By 6 o'clock in the evening, crowds of students singing songs to the Hermitage. The ordinary life of the streets freezes, and Moscow turns into the kingdom of students. Only blue caps are visible everywhere. Students strive for the Hermitage in fast, hectic streams.
Plants are taken out of the hall, everything that is dear, valuable, everything that can only be endured. Porcelain dishes are replaced by earthenware. The number of students is growing every minute ... Wine and snacks are disappearing. Vodka and beer appear. An unimaginable mess rises. Everyone is already drunk. Those who are not drunk want to show that they are drunk. Everyone is mad, intoxicating themselves with this madness ... Boundless freedom reigns.
Lunch was accompanied by toasts, speeches, and singing. Police officers were ordered not to detain students for political speech. The celebration ended with the performance of the old song "Come out to the Volga ...", student and revolutionary songs and the anthem of the student holiday "Tatiana".
Long live Tatiana, Tatiana, Tatiana.
All our brothers are drunk, all drunk, all drunk ...
On Tatyana's glorious day ...
- Who is to blame? Are we?
- No! Tatyana!
Long live Tatiana! ..
And it was possible to skip the whole fortune in one evening?
Yes. And most importantly: it happened unnoticed, because a credit system appeared in taverns back in the 17th century. Drinks could be borrowed, but the so-called "tavern's head" appeared on time and demanded payment.
And in common taverns and taverns, you could mortgage your things at interest. In exchange, the visitor received worse clothes. And after several such exchanges, the drunkard ended up in rags, in which it was a shame to come home.
And then the expression "get drunk to a pig squeal" appeared?
Yes and no. This expression means "to get drunk to the point of losing human form." And it appeared because pigs are not indifferent to alcohol-containing products. However, having tasted them, the piglets lose coordination, begin to wallow and squeal.
Have any of the legendary taverns survived?
At the beginning of the 20th century, many famous taverns turned into restaurants. For example, the merchant Tararykin rebuilt the Prague cabins' tavern, which had been working since the 1870s, into a first-class restaurant. In Soviet times, it turned into a Mosselprom canteen for some time, but in 1954 it opened the doors again.
After the revolution, the restaurant was also closed. Its owner was arrested. And in the 1950s, the Sovetskaya Hotel was opened in the building of a former restaurant on Leningradka. Later the gypsy theater "Romen" moved in there, and in 1998 the reconstruction of the restaurant began in order to revive the former glory of "Yar".
An exception to the rule is the Savoy restaurant in the hotel of the same name. The fountain, the pool in which the sterlet splashed, exquisite interiors - all this has been preserved even in Soviet times.
In general, after 1917, inns in Moscow began to gradually disappear. But they were replaced by new symbols of hospitality. For example, in the 1930s, the restaurant of the Central House of Writers (CDL) opened. The creative intelligentsia of Moscow spent many hours here, and poets were allowed to write poetry right on the walls.
Or maybe the memory of taverns and taverns remained in the names of Moscow streets?
Of course! Here are just a few:
- Volkhonka was named after the household of the Volkonsky princes, where the Volkhonka tavern was
- Ladozhskaya Street was named after the landlord Novoladozhskaya, in whose house a tavern "Laduga" worked
- Plyushchikha also recalls the eponymous tavern that stood here
- Razgulay Square got its name from the famous Razgulyay tavern, which appeared there at the end of the 17th century
- And on Eldoradovsky lane in the 19th century, it rested against the restaurant "Eldorado"
They say that...
... eminent guests in Testov's tavern were served by the owner himself. Once Emperor Nicholas dropped in here. And everything was so good that he could not resist and asked: "How did you guess what exactly I want?" To this Testov replied: "God prompted me." "You are an idiot! - exclaimed the emperor. - As if the Lord has nothing else to do, except for me to make a menu! " ...... once a gang of hungry "errand boys" from the neighboring shopping malls showed up at Testov's tavern. For the 20 rubles donated by the merchant in honor of the holiday, they ordered 20 servings of cutlets with peas. The brought mountain was diminished in one sitting, and only at the end they smelled a stale smell. The steward made sure that the cutlets "smelled" and ordered 20 fresh servings to be served. The boys swallowed it too.
Today the tavern is a low-grade establishment that has outlived its own. At least half of humanity thinks so. But it was not always so. In the old days the tavern was the best place to unwind from everyday boredom, and "roll" a mug of booze. Not to mention the fact that these establishments were home to tired wanderers.
What has changed in such a short period? Why is the tavern today just a relic of the times? And what were the taverns of the past?
What is an inn?
It is difficult to say exactly when the first appeared ready not only to shelter travelers, but also to feed them. However, it is known for sure that in ancient times they were already actively built throughout Greece and Rome.
As for their purpose, the tavern is, first of all, a tavern, designed for ordinary residents and visiting guests. It should be noted that the quality of food in such places was highly questionable, but its cost allowed guests to ignore this fact.
Over the years, the inn began to rebuild from an ordinary dining room into a hotel with a wide range of services. So, here it was possible not only to book a room for the night, but also to find out all the necessary information about the city or its environs.
Restaurants in Russia
As for our country, the first taverns in Moscow appeared in the middle of the 16th century. And it was Ivan the Terrible himself who established their construction, believing that the people really needed such an institution. But the first establishments were quite expensive, and therefore only wealthy people were their guests. As for the word "tavern" itself, it spread among the Russian people only in the 17th century.
Declining popularity of taverns
Today's inn is just a small shadow of what it used to be. And the fault lies with restaurants, which at the beginning of the 19th century almost completely replaced cheap canteens. And there is nothing surprising here, because the quality of food has become a decisive factor in this struggle.
That is why today there are restaurants in all cities, but taverns are already a rarity. Although in the Russian capital in the last decade, the fashion for these public places has revived. The network of taverns "Yolki-palki" is widely known, a tavern with an oriental flavor - "Tale of the East 1001 Nights" is gaining popularity. But they are trying to preserve the Russian spirit in the "Borsch & Salo" taverns. In short, traditions continue to live on.