Delicious food is outside the law

Gastronomic tourism in Russia today is growing faster than other tourism sectors. According to statistics, almost 30 percent of the expenses for vacations is the money spent on food. The World Tourism Organization notes that over half of travellers choose destinations offering delicious food. At the same time, the Russian food tourism is still, as they say, “outside the law”. The support measures required by this tourism sector were discussed at a special round table “For Tasty and Healthy Food! Gastronomic Tourism in Russia: Trends, Problems, Prospects” that took place in the editorial office of the Komsomolskaya Pravda media group. The questions discussed include the influence of food brands on the social and economic development of the regions, the most popular gastronomic travel destinations in the country now, as well as the ways to develop gastronomy and the efficiency of the food festivals for the travel industry.

The Eurasian Community of Travel Industry Specialists (ECTIS) project manager Elena Sergeyeva thinks that gastronomy is one of the tools not only to attract tourists and keep them longer, but to inspire them to come again. After all, it’s a rare chance to taste all the most delicious food in the region during one trip.

“Gastronomic tourism is part of all types of tourism sectors, from sightseeing to coastal - sea and sun - tourism. Even when at the seaside, travellers can do without swimming, but they cannot do without food,” said Elena Sergeyeva, the ECTIS project manager.

Realizing this, many regions rely on the gastronomic tourism as a tool for their social and economic development, and a kind of struggle is going for the tourists’ money. Whether tourist will go to any location depends on what delicious food it offers. This is well understood in the Voronezh Region that lies just on the way between Moscow and the resorts of the Black Sea coast. Today, both the authorities of the Voronezh Region and businesses are doing their best to make Voronezh not just a transit city, but an interesting gastronomic attraction. Their focus is on their local products. At the city’s restaurants, travellers can enjoy delicious pike balyk (cured fillet of pike), beef cheeks, marbled lamb, and even black marshmallow. The Voronezh Region is known for its marbled beef that is finger-licking good, so it is planned to hold a festival here where it will be possible to taste this gourmet meal at very reasonable prices at the city’s restaurants. This can help attract tourists and they will stay longer in Voronezh.

“A gourmet trip is not just food, but the region’s economy, culture, heritage, and national identity. The gastronomic tourism in Russia is a new sector among other travel sectors. Today, it is developing most dynamically in our country, but at the same time, it does not exist legally. The gastro-tourism sector has no its own terminology, its thesaurus, we don’t understand what’s going on. Neighbouring regions often do not know what is happening next to them. Everyone rushed to look for their gastronomic identity, but their efforts often look sad. There is an advertisement of random products or those that are not typical of the place or ‘invented’ by modern authors of some story, and two neighbouring regions promote the same product that is not unique,” explained Elena Ishchenko, Deputy Head of the Russian Union of Tourist Industry’s Gastrotourism Committee.

An important step in the development of the gastronomic tourism in Russia should be the definition of identity and every region should make its clear food offers. Let’s look at Italy, a destination popular among lovers of good food. Italy offers pasta that is a traditional dish that can be tasted in all parts of the country. At the same time, a certain pasta is legally assigned to each region, it is clear that in Rome travellers choose to taste “pasta Carbonara”, and in Bologna, they enjoy “pasta al ragù” called “Bolognese” in Russia.

“Now is the time when it is very important to know your roots and understand what exactly the region is famous for. It is not easy to find the historical unique features, but those restaurants that find them become attractive and popular with tourists. For example, at the Rosa Khutor resort in the mountains of Sochi, a gastronomic festival will be held this year from August 1 to 6. We made a very simple move by offering set menus at our restaurants with the specialties made from local products, for example, rapans (sea snails) from the Black Sea. We offer such products that can be found in the mountains near our resort only, including mushrooms that were picked up by the chefs themselves in May-April when it is not a season for them in other parts of the country, or tsitsmat (a variety of water cress) that grows only three months a year,” said famous chef Mark Statsenko, a Rosa Khutor resort’s gastronomic ambassador.

Let’s take Sochi for example, or rather, its mountains and famous Krasnaya Polyana. It is just an ideal place for the development of gastronomic tourism, you don’t need to attract tourists, they are already there. It remains, as they say, to “improve and enhance”.

“In the mountains of Sochi, there are three types of cuisines that attract tourists. Naturally, the Caucasian cuisine with meat, especially, lamb as the most popular product. The Kuban gastronomy is interesting with its borshch (beet vegetable soup), dumplings (tilled with fruit) and pies. The Black Sea cuisine is delicious and popular with its mussels, garfish, rapans and etc. Surprisingly, Krasnaya Polyana is a village founded by the Greeks but Greek cuisine is practically not offered here,” said the organizer of gastronomic events Andrey Shishkin.

And tourists really lack interactive events. With an average 4-day rest in a mountain cluster, workshop sessions in cooking khachapuri (Georgian cheese-pie) or khinkali (meat dumplings) are in demand. A wonderful tradition of the Soviet era has also been forgotten - the Caucasian Evenings - when tourists can enjoy the delicious food of the region and also get acquainted with the local culture. Experts note that while food is the most affordable pleasure, additional experiences allow the people to have longer memories of their vacations. So, interesting gastronomic events are held in the country, for example, Fishtival is a gastro-festival held in Kaliningrad that is recognized as the best one in Russia. A special tourist route in the Pskov Region is among such events, it goes through several farms and gastronomic sites in the region, including its apple orchards; the only museum of the Seto people in Russia where pumpkin compote (stewed pumpkins) is served and warm cheese with cumin is made during workshop sessions; ostrich and snail farms, as well as a bread farm with its famous Pskov pies, gingerbread and traditional porridge.

“Gastronomic tourism plays an educational role, among other things, tourists go both for tasting food and for gaining new knowledge and experiences. Since 2012, we have been developing the production of organic products in Uglich and are the largest Russian producer. About four years ago, we noticed the interest not only from experts or journalists, but also from tourists. We have recently purchased the Uglich Cheese and Butter Factory. For many years, it hasn’t been in operation. During the modernization of the plant, a lot of interesting documents were found about the history of cheese production, for example, how the “Russian” and “Kostromskoy” cheeses were developed, what state standards were used to make these types of cheese and, for example, a video from the 1960s showing a 6-km milk pipeline to supply milk from the farm to the factory. As a result, a decision was made to open the Cheese Museum. We specially designed a kind of corridor with transparent windows so that people could see how cheese is produced in modern conditions and compare with how it was made in the last century,” told Sergey Nosov, the Agranta’s Director of the Department for Public Relations and Media.

It would seem that all these examples confirm that gastronomic tourism is growing in Russia. Indeed, it is growing, but rather in spite of, not thanks to. So far, this is mostly a private initiative.

“The lack of legislative certain basis for the gastronomic tourism does not allow the authorities to support the development of this tourism sector. There is no mention of this type of travelling in any official document in the country. Accordingly, it is very difficult for regional authorities to help develop this area. There are no concepts for the development of gastronomic tourism in the regions. Therefore, to understand how the authorities can help, it is necessary to establish the basis and set up public-private partnerships. So far, such a symbiosis is developing intuitively in the regions,” said Leonid Gelibterman, President of the International Enogastronomic Centre, Head of the Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration’s Centre for Gastrodiplomacy.

The participants in the round table “For Tasty and Healthy Food! Gastronomic Tourism in Russia: Trends, Problems, Prospects” believe that the national gastronomic map will support the development of “delicious food” travel destinations. Using the gastronomic map, each tourist can easily determine the must-visit restaurants during their trip. As an example, such a tool has already been developed at the Rosa Khutor resort.

“When I started working with Rosa Khutor a year ago, we realized that our guests coming to our resort as gastronomic tourists do not quite understand where they should go to taste some local specialties and enjoy local cuisine. Therefore, we made one important move called a “gastronomic map”. We created the right route for them for their gastro-trips and while relaxing on the seaside or in the mountains, they go through our gastro-attractions and get an idea where they can eat delicious food. And we are now actively developing this activity,” noted famous chef Mark Statsenko, the gastronomic ambassador of the Rosa Khutor resort.

And to understand exactly how you can eat during your vacation so that later it would not be ‘excruciatingly painful’, you need to create a national guide, a kind of a Russian “Michelin Guide” (Le Guide Michelin) that will be able to guarantee very tasty food.