Гайдук Ирина/A painting by Irina Gaiduk

[med_cat]

Let's have some tea, shall we? ;)
~~~

Originally posted by levkonoe at Гайдук Ирина

Comments

[duathir]

This is quaint. It reminds me of Bide-A-Wee.

[med_cat]

Yes, I can see why :)

[acelightning]

I can't read Russian, and I don't know who the artist is, but there are a lot of fascinating details. First of all, the pitcher being used as a flower vase in the picture-within-the-picture is part of the same china set as the table setting! And it's nice to see the tea being served both Russian (in a glass, within a china holder) and English (in a teacup) style, with both cream and orange peel to add in as desired. And blini, with both butter and caviar - and, of course, a non-metal spoon for the caviar!

Although it's well past tea-time, the night grows chilly, and I wouldn't mind a nice hot cuppa (no cream, no sugar, no citrus - just tea), and a couple of buttered blini :-D

[med_cat]

:)

The artist is Irina Gaiduk, as it says in the entry's title.

And yes, I agree ;) I like my tea plain, too.

[acelightning]

Sorry, I don't read Cyrillic :-(

[med_cat]

...yes...that's why I put "A painting by Irina Gaiduk" in the entry's title--is it not showing on your page?

[benicek]

I remember reading Chekov back in the days before the internet and reading descriptions of people gathering around the samovar. I had no idea what a samovar was, so I looked it up in a dictionary. That helped a bit but the dictionary wasn't illustrated. For years I was left wondering what the hell a samovar looked like.

[med_cat]

Hee hee :)

Samovars have gone electric some decades ago, and you can even buy ones that are purely decorative, such as this Khokhloma-painted wooden one:

[benicek]

I was surprised to learn the purpose of the teapot on top, to hold concentrated tea which is then watered down. Seems a strange way to make it, to my British mind. Also in the Chekov stories they were putting cream in it, which again seemed a strange idea. When I visited (Soviet) Russia in 1989 they gave us plenty of tea, but no cream or milk for it.

[acelightning]

They use a very similar process in (American) Chinese restaurants, and also in Chinese schools and workplaces (where a constant supply of tea for the students/workers is expected). Brewing concentrated tea and then diluting it to taste with hot water produces more cups of tea from a given amount of leaves than brewing it fresh in small batches (or by the cup); it also allows a person to have a hot cup of tea without having to wait for it to cool off enough to drink.

(Dammit, now I want some tea!)

[tamsinwillougby]

This looks inviting! Makes you want to take a seat.

[med_cat]

It does, doesn't it? ;)