The entrepreneurial spirit of our fellow countrymen has never been in doubt, and it has deep roots. However, evidence of this sometimes surfaces even far away from Kharkiv… In A. Vinogradov’s highly intriguing book *In Faraway Lands*, published in 1901, he describes a journey through Europe, the Middle East, Southeast Asia, and America. And here is an interesting note we find in the section on impressions of Istanbul from those times:

Straight from Selamlik, I headed to “Moscow.” Don’t be surprised, reader, to find this name—so dear to every Russian—in a distant foreign land. “Moscow,” in the Turkish capital, is the name of the only Russian tavern, run by two men from Kharkiv. Here, every compatriot can get tea, Russian vodka, beer, and even something resembling blini… After the unfamiliar atmosphere of the Turkish coffeehouses, I happily spent about an hour at “Moscow,” drinking several glasses of tea and listening, with understandable excitement, to the jukebox playing the mournful melodies of Russian folk songs…

And so, despite the four Russo-Turkish wars of the 19th century, the people of Kharkiv managed to open a restaurant in a rather foreign and hostile country, capitalizing on the sentiments of Russian travelers… serving vodka and something resembling pancakes to the accompaniment of “melancholic” folk songs… History is silent on where this tavern was located, how it came to be, and where it disappeared to. We will continue to search for the long-lost traces of our compatriots around the world.

You can download this entertaining book about traveling around the world here: