In Schnittke's USSR, the meal unfolds in three movements: *zakouski* (small savory and pickled appetizers to nibble), *pervoïe* (a liquid first course, soup or broth), then *vtoroïe* (a hearty second course, kasha or meat), rounded off with kompot or tea. But beneath this Soviet grid lies another cuisine: that of the Volga Germans, in Engels, where Schnittke was born. Crumb cakes, fermented cabbage, rye breads: exactly the composer's 'polystylism,' several traditions layered in a single day.

A common thread between his two worlds: the sour rye of kvas and Russian black bread, the fermented cabbage inherited from the Volga German colonists. A cuisine of sour and preserved-for-winter, born of scarcity as much as taste—like a quotation that returns transformed from one work to the next.