Situation with veganism in Russia.

In my last article ''Hardships of being vegan in Russia'' I talked about difficulties of being vegan in Russia. And I was mostly telling about physical obstacles like lack of availability of different vegan and plant-based products. In this post I’m going to give a background about our society regarding ethical and plant-based living.

We all have to live in a non-vegan world. But for some countries it’s more common to be somewhat plant-based, while in others traditional diets are centered around animal products. If we speak about Russia, I’d say we have abound 10% of traditional vegan dishes, while a lot of meals are concentrated on dairy, and meat is a regular side dish. So avoiding dairy is particularly difficult, it finds its way into a lot of products, dairy section takes a huge space in any supermarket. We have such types of dairy products, that don’t even have name in English.

History of vegetarianism in Russia goes back to the 18th century with Leo Tolstoy being the leader of the movement. The vegetarian movement managed to get a lot of followers, open cafeterias all over the country and even edit its newspaper. But it was all destroyed after the October Revolution 1917. Vegetarian society was closed, a lot of people were repressed. Stalin didn’t favor such things in his regime. So the movement was frozen for more than 70 years. Only in the late 1990s, a few years after the Soviet Union’s dissolution, the movement got a little bit back on its feet, and now it’s developing slowly. So that a few vegan products have been available for around 5 years.

So in short, as I feel, our country is maybe 15-20 years behind the vegan movement in Western Countries. We have just one major Animal Rights Organization (called Vita). Most animal-protection movements focus on cats and dogs. And even for these 2 privileged species there isn't a normal law. Still a big problem with mass dog culls, dog hunters, lack of shelters and spaying/neutering. I would say, our situation with animals is better than in China, but not too much.

Most vegetarians in Russia are lacto-vegetarians centering their diets around dairy, especially cheese. And they are mostly inspired by Hare Krishna movements and Indianish/Vedic traditions. It’s sometimes annoying to browse through vegetarian recipe sites, ignoring hundreds of recipes with milk and cheese. Funny thing: they strictly avoid eggs, and you can often find recipes of “vegetarian eggs” – made from milk and cheese)) Haha, for me it’s so ridiculous, dairy industry isn’t much less cruel than egg industry, same torture, same baby-killing…

And these recipes take like a few hours to make! Funny people… And they also have detailed guidelines about how to choose “vegetarian cheese” – without an enzyme taken from a calf’s stomach (after killing, of course). Also funny – baby cow is killed anyway for the production of cheese they eat, doesn’t matter whether rennet is added to one particular cheese or not…

So our Russian vegetarianism comes as a form of religion – where milk is a “holy product”, and cow’s a holy precious animal, that was sent by angels to our earth…but nobody gives a damn about how this divine creature and her babies are treated, they’re just happy to consume the secretions and develop spiritually that way (yes, they’re really saying that you can’t develop spiritually without drinking cow’s juices!).

Although all of this is a little annoying, I’m still grateful that these people exist, because thanks to them we have a lot of vegetarian restaurants with vegan options, they developed vegan mayonnaise and wheat sausages. Without them the situation would be much worse.

And by the way, my way to veganism started by recognizing that if we’re drinking cow’s milk, then cow’s like a mother to us. So it’s unethical to make beef out of a creature that “gives” us her product, it’s disrespect. That’s how I first ditched beef, then all red meat, then chicken, fish. Now I think that taking cow’s milk is unethical as well, all those years of enslavement and killing their babies are in no way “respect” to a cow.

As for the veganism itself, that’s a tiny minority. Saint Petersburg is considered the best place for vegans in Russia, so far (even though it’s in the north, and it’s a cold city). Other cities are drastically behind. Just 2-3 years ago we got our first Russian company producing vegan cheeses (quite expensive, because it’s in the early stage of demand). Plant milks have been mostly imported from Europe and heavily priced (around 5 times more expensive than cow’s milk). Only a year ago I started seeing soya milk from local producers. In special veg shops, of course, not in regular supermarkets (I think this special time has another 10 years to come). Wanna vegan cakes, muffins, sweets and that kind of stuff? You’d be very lucky to find any being sold. But you can order them from private vegan bakers, who exist in most cities (that’s how I had a vegan cake on my wedding!).

Oh, I almost forgot about the Raw Food movement! It’s a little popular, more widely-spread than veganism, I know quite a few guys who follow such diet. We have several prominent Russian authors and health practitioners promoting that kind of stuff. Of course it’s purely for health reasons, for “cleansing” and being very special and get superpower)) Some of them don’t mind wearing leather or even fur. But thanks to these dudes we can get some raw sweets and smoothies.

Oh, and speaking about vegan situation in Russia, it’s worth mentioning about Orthodox Christianity (which was adopted in Rus in 988 from Byzantium). Many people here follow this type of Christianity, you can see many beautiful churches with golden domes in every city or town. And big part of the Christian tradition is something called Great Lent – type of religious fasting, which excludes animal products (leaving fish on some days). It takes place in different dates every year, but approximately middle May- middle April, around one month. Although a small percentage of people who call themselves Orthodox Christian actually observe the Lent, it’s still a golden time for vegans. Every café serves “Lent dishes”, frozen Lent meat alternatives suddenly appear in supermarkets, woooow. Lent mayonnaise! Near my house! And then after April it all disappears for another year :(( And the memory of this is to be treasured throughout all the difficult times! =)) Funny thing: when religious grannies ask whether I observe the Lent, I tell that I’m on eternal Lent :D ;))

That’s probably all I wanted to tell about veganism in Russia. There are difficulties, but there is also hope. :)

Next time I’ll tell about tricks, that help me stay veganish in Russia and be satisfied with my food.