New Havana, Cuba Restaurant Serves Soviet Russia Food, Traditions: Celebrates Link Between Communist Island and Soviet Union

On Friday, restaurateurs opened a private restaurant in Havana, Cuba with food and traditions from Soviet-era Russia.

The restaurant is named Nazdarovie after the Russian toast, The Associated Press reports. Instead of serving Cuban food like rice, beans or plantains, the restaurant serves Slavic food like blood-red borscht and stuffed Ukrainian vernyky dumplings. Even the mojitos have a Russian twist, as they are made with vodka instead of white rum.

The culture extends to the employees as well. The kitchen is stocked with "babushkas," who were born in Soviet Russia. Patrons of Nazdarovie are expected to speak to the waiters, who only speak in Russian, in the same tongue. Conveniently, the menu comes with a pronunciation guide and translations.

The restaurant was thought up by Gregory Biniowsky, a 45-year-old Canadian of Ukrainian ancestry who has lived in Cuba for the past 20 years. He opened the place with three Cubans.

"The idea with Nazdarovie is really to celebrate a unique social and cultural link that existed and to a certain degree still exists today between Cuba of 2014 and what was once the Soviet Union," he said.

Throughout the Cold War, Moscow was Havana's primary source of trade. According to AP, "hundreds of thousands of Cubans traveled to the Soviet bloc as diplomats, artists and students."

"For most of them it was the first time they ever left this island," Biniowsky said. "They have nostalgia about their time there, about the flavors they experienced for the first time."

The efforts have also been appreciated by those who came to Cuba from the Soviet Union. For example, Irina Butorina came to the country in 1984 from Kyrgyz Soviet Socialist Republic, now known as Kyrgyzstan.

"At first I used to cook a lot of Russian food here, but then a lot of things disappeared from the market -- cabbage, for example. ... so then I make Cuban food," she said. "But these people here have started this restaurant. It was their dream ... and our dream as well."
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