Autumn is not only a time of stunning golden-crimson landscapes, but also the harvest season, which means it’s time for gastronomic festivals for every taste. We found out where gourmets, lovers of delicacies and foodies should go in Russia to try unusual dishes from flounder, lingonberries and pumpkin, appreciate stroganina and take atmospheric photographs. Choose a destination or a local product and hurry towards gastronomic travel.
Arctic festival of food and culture Tundra, Naryan-Mar
In the administrative center of the Nenets Autonomous Okrug, the city of Naryan-Mar, the Tundra gastrofestival will be held on September 11. Arctic cuisine will be presented by nine northern regions of the country, from Murmansk and Karelia to Yakutia and Chukotka. The three main pillars of the food and culture festival are deer, fish and wild plants, and the main character is the tundra as a special world. She will reveal all her secrets to guests: from the already familiar stroganina and traditional dishes of different nations to the specialties of Krasnoyarsk, Arkhangelsk, Yamalo-Nenets and other northern cuisines.
Festival visitors will be able to try an exotic Chukchi delicacy – smoked whale fat. Participants from Murmansk will be surprised by a dish called yagelezh, which contains scallop, northern shrimp and White Sea mussel, and a moose burger with mushroom and lingonberry sauce. Representatives of the Komi Republic will delight you with potato cakes with salmon and a variety of shangi, and smoked lingonberry mulled wine will be brought from Arkhangelsk. For those with a sweet tooth, they will prepare original ice cream: with cloudberries, lingonberries, venison and “Shakhterskoye” – with activated carbon and salted caramel. As a souvenir, we advise our friends to grab sweet and beautiful reindeer moss chips in berry syrup from the food court.
The festival schedule includes culinary and creative master classes: from making pancakes from deer blood and a planing show to making “Northern Lights” perfume and a Nenets tambourine. The culmination of the holiday will be the setting of a Russian record for the mass preparation of Arctic venison burgers.
How to get there: by plane from Moscow to Naryan-Mar, travel time 2 hours 45 minutes.
Where to stay: Hotel “Pustozersk” – from 5,550 rubles per night.
Festival “Sea, flounder!”, Nakhodka
In Nakhodka in the south of the Primorsky Territory, on September 18, the festival of Far Eastern cuisine “Sea, flounder!” will take place. The fish beloved by the residents of the region will become the queen of a bright holiday for children and adults. Flounder will appear before participants and guests in a wide variety of forms: from a subject of scientific interest and an art object to the main component of a gastronomic experiment.
Visitors to the festival will be treated to a fair of seafood delicacies, tastings and gastronomic master classes from the best restaurateurs of the region. The chefs of Zuma, the largest restaurant of pan-Asian cuisine in the Far East, will prepare sandwiches with flounder and cucumber sauce, grilled fish with potato biscuits and smoked fillet salad with birch syrup. Guests will be able to cook and taste fish soup together with the chefs, as well as taste original dishes at the Sea World food court.
The entertainment program also has a lot of interesting things: thematic photo zones, a tour of the Dobroflot fish canning plant, the open art space “Bottom of the Sea”, an exhibition of maritime transport, competitions and a concert.
After the festival, go on a trip to the most beautiful beaches, bays and capes of Nakhodka. It will most likely be already cold to swim, but pleasure from the views and dozens of wonderful photos are guaranteed.
How to get there: by plane from Moscow to Vladivostok. From the airport you can take a bus or taxi to Nakhodka. Another option is to take the train at the train station. Travel time depending on transport – from 3.5 to 5 hours.
Where to stay: Hotel “Boomerang” – from 4,720 rubles per day, Hotel “Nadezhda” – from 3,400 rubles per day, “ Dialog Hotel” – from 3,500 rubles per night.
Festival “Turgenevsky Berezhok”, Orel
The literary and culinary festival “Turgenevsky Berezhok” will be held in Orel on September 18 for the fifth time. The multi-format festival combines five thematic sections: gastronomy, event tourism, education, crafts and culture. The program includes master classes on preparing royal fish soup according to an old recipe from the Oryol province from chef Ilya Lazerson and “Baking Russian Meadows” from Klen brand chef Evgeniy Pisarevsky, who will cook chicken with gooseberries and open pies with berries in a pizza oven.
Guests are also invited to take part in the “Cheese Quest” and “Turgenev Tea Party”, play games from the 19th century, such as towns and spillikins, and visit a costumed dog exhibition, which will feature breeds from Turgenev’s stories “ Notes of a Hunter”. A literary quiz has been announced, so it wouldn’t be a bad idea to re-read Ivan Sergeevich’s novels and stories before the trip. Another option to prepare is to come to Orel in advance and look into the local literary museums of Oryol writers: Ivan Turgenev, Ivan Bunin, Nikolai Leskov or Leonid Andreev.
How to get there:in 4 hours from Moscow by Lastochka, the journey by bus will take about 6 hours.
Where to stay: hotel “Enchanted Wanderer” – from 5,160 rubles per day, “Atlantis” – from 3,650 rubles per day. & ;nbsp;
Pichayevskaya Pumpkin Festival, Tambov region
The largest pumpkins in the Tambov region are grown in the Pichaevsky district. In honor of the completion of autumn work, in the ancient village of Pichaevo, a hundred kilometers from Tambov, a gastrofestival dedicated to the main local product – the steep-sided beauty pumpkin – will be held on September 24. Under the motto “Autumn without pumpkin is like winter without tangerines,” pumpkin porridge will be prepared from the fragrant fruits in front of all honest people. They will also be treated to a variety of homemade preparations from orange and green-striped pumpkins: soups, pilaf, pancakes, pies, jam, candied fruits and cakes.
The festival program includes a competition for the best pumpkin hat and costume, culinary master classes, original photo zones with seasonal vegetables, installations and sculptures. Folklore groups will entertain guests, and at the natural products fair you can buy delicious gifts and souvenirs.
It’s convenient to combine a trip to the pumpkin festival with a tour of a small village: don’t miss the Holy Trinity Church in the Russian-Byzantine style and the original sculpture “Pine Woman” (“Pich-ava”) – the embodiment of the local legend about tragic love of the Mordovian prince and his beautiful wife.
How to get there: by company train the travel time from Moscow will be 8 hours or by plane in just over an hour.
Where to stay:There are many hotels in Tambov. Choose accommodation in the center to have time to stroll along the embankment, explore the eclectic estate of the merchant Aseev with a beautiful park and walk along the pedestrian Communal Street, which has preserved the atmosphere of the 19th century. Suitable options include Hotel Teatralnaya – from 4,000 rubles per day, Hotel Slavyanskaya – from 3,400 rubles per day, or Belgraviya Hotel – from 3,650 rubles per day.
VolgastroFest, Volga region
The gastronomic VolgastroFest is taking place in the Volga region for the second year in a row; it lasts from September 1 to 30. Organizers say they created it to highlight local products and farmers. Among the goals of the festival is to support artisans and develop the gastronomic culture of the region by introducing residents and guests to local cuisine.
Over the course of a month, restaurateurs from 16 Volga cities, from Tver and Nizhny Novgorod to Astrakhan, will prepare sets of three to five dishes using local seasonal products: vegetables, meat and fish, as well as grain crops. The cost of sets starts from 1000 rubles, the average price is 1400 rubles, the most expensive one will cost 3000 rubles, it is offered by the Saratov bar “It’s not the wine.” In total, 75 restaurants will take part in the festival; they will prepare appetizers, first and second courses, desserts and drinks. In the menu – Kalmyk bull tartare with pike caviar and Borodino bread mousse, zucchini soup with smoked Gorodets cottage cheese, homemade dumplings with pike perch, catfish and creamy cucumber mousse, and for dessert – cheesecake from Kostroma porcini mushrooms and Volga Pearl cheese truffle ”
One weekend is not enough to make a voyage and try all the sets, so take a full vacation and slowly go to taste the Volga from its source to its mouth. At the same time, you will admire Levitan’s landscapes and feel the atmosphere of the Volga cities.
How to get there: from Moscow you can fly to Astrakhan, Samara, Nizhny Novgorod.
Where to stay:Hotel Astrakhanskaya in Astrakhan – from 4,500 rubles per day, Hotel Furor in Samara – from 2,900 rubles per day, Azimut Hotel Nizhny Novgorod – from 4,540 rubles per day.
Festival “Lingonberry FEST”, Khanty-Mansiysk
In the vicinity of Khanty-Mansiysk, on the territory of the farm “Yurts of the Chaynikovs”, the Ugra berry festival “Lingonberry FEST” will be held on September 24.
You can already apply for participation in the competition for making homemade pies and jam from northern berries, take part in online photo and video competitions and the creative challenge “Berry Poetry”.
On the final day of the festival, they promise a rich offline program: fun ethnostarts, educational lectures and exciting quests, tasting of fish soup, pies and sweets made from cranberries, cloudberries, blueberries and other local berries. Guests will be shown the northern berry plantations of the Ugra Technopark and demonstrated their capabilities: in front of the visitors, 1.5 kg of cranberries will be harvested from one square meter. Participants will also be able to collect taiga riches, and then join gatherings by the fireplace with songs performed by the Ugra storyteller Maria Volodina. Ethnic motifs will be heard throughout the day—representatives of the region’s indigenous peoples will perform at the festival. In addition to berries, the fair will sell aromatic teas and handicrafts from masters.
We recommend combining acquaintance with the amazing gifts of northern nature with a walk around Khanty-Mansiysk.
How to get there: it takes 3 hours to fly from Moscow by plane.
Where to stay: Misne Hotel – from 9,000 rubles per night, Tarey Hotel – from 6,400 rubles per day, ” Guest House Gamma” – from 4,100 rubles per day.
Gastro travel is always a good idea. Choose a direction and go try new things, take funny photos and buy delicious gifts for friends and family.
