The Russian and Soviet table is ordered by moments rather than courses: zakuski (small bites and preserves that open and accompany the meal), pervoye ("the first," a soup-served steaming hot), vtoroye ("the second," a hearty dish), and then the long ritual of chai at the samovar, where one lingers, talks, and sweetens the tea with a spoonful of jam. It is a structure of waiting and sharing, made to last — like the long takes of Tarkovsky.

Two gestures define this cuisine: the spoonful of smetana (fermented sour cream) added at the last moment to soup or pelmeni, and the black tea drunk scalding hot in a glass slipped into its carved metal holder, the podstakannik — the quintessential everyday Soviet object.