Tea-Drinking Trinity

In the late 1920s the photojournalist Boris Ignatovich worked as photo editor for the daily newspaper Bednota (“Poverty”), a publication aimed at the Soviet Union’s population of newly literate peasants. This newspaper takes center stage in Ignatovich’s iconic photograph from 1928, “Drinking Tea in the Village of Ramenskoye,” one of a series of documentary photographs from the village of Ramenskoye, a workers’ settlement on the outskirts of Moscow.

Although Ignatovich was attracted to industry – like other Soviet photographers, he celebrated factories and machines and labor – he was also interested in leisure, as this image clearly shows. The meaningful pursuit of leisure – collective leisure, in particular – was an important facet of the young Soviet government’s attempt to acculturate workers and peasants. (Alexander Rodchenko’s famous Worker’s Club, designed for the Soviet exhibit at the 1925 International Exposition of Decorative Arts and Modern Industry, included a reading room for the workers’ edification.) And because literacy was an important goal, the Communist Party distributed official “organs” like Bednota both to educate the public and to propagandize.

Another explicit goal of the Soviet government was to overcome vulgar behavior (вульгарность) and the so-called “remnants of the old way of life” (пережитки старого быта). One way to do so was to turn the dives the peasants liked to frequent into more wholesome gathering places, where tea was served instead of alcohol, and where reading material was available. A cheerful décor and tasty snacks replaced unsavory atmosphere and greasy food. It was believed that this kind of ambience would raise the cultural level of the workers and peasants, and then slovenliness would give way to cleanliness, vulgarity to civilized speech.

Ignatovich’s portrait of tea drinkers can be seen as a kind of Trinity for the new Soviet way of life. As in Andrei Rublev’s famous icon, the three men are seated around a plain table. Rublev’s angels express the three hypostases of God; Ignatovich transmits a strong sense of his figures’ interaction, as the peasant in the center shares the news of the day with his comrades. The mood is uplifting, thanks to the café’s cheerful, patterned wallpaper, curtains, and bucolic painted scene of a peasant in a farmyard. On the table we see tea, baranki (bagels), and a shared plate with what looks like sausage or smoked fish.

It’s clear from this image that the government’s campaign to change people’s ways was still a work in progress. The men gathered here have obviously not cleaned up for their meal; their hands are grimy, their padded coats filthy and torn. Notably, they are drinking their tea from deep saucers, even though glasses have been provided. This wasn’t just an unsophisticated habit: pouring tea into saucers cooled it down quickly. (More refined establishments offered glasses with podstakanchiki [cup holders] to ensure that fingers didn’t burn.) The teapots reflect the traditional Russian way of serving tea. The small ones hold strong, brewed tea (заварка), while the large pot holds hot water. This method allows each drinker to pour his tea to the desired strength. The chains on the teapot lids keep them from getting lost.

Those of us looking at Ignatovich’s photograph today can get a good sense of the atmosphere of the times and glimpse Russian tea-drinking habits of the past. But the most important message for the photographer’s contemporaries was the delight in comradely leisure and, most essentially, in reading.

Hazelnut Rusks • Сухарики

Rusks are Russia’s answer to biscotti – crisp, twice-baked cookies that are perfect for dunking in tea. Feel free to substitute other nuts, such as almonds or walnuts, for the hazelnuts.

2 eggs

¾ cup sugar

1 cup all-purpose flour

1¼ cups hazelnuts, skins removed

Beat the eggs and the sugar until light and fluffy. Coarsely chop the hazelnuts and dredge them with the flour. Stir the nuts and any loose flour into the egg mixture.

Preheat the oven to 300º F. Grease an 8-inch loaf pan. Pour the batter into the pan and bake for 50 minutes.

Turn the loaf out of the pan and wrap it in a moist dishtowel. Let stand for 4 hours, then cut into slices about 1/3 inch thick.

Preheat the oven to 250 degrees F. Place the slices on a cookie sheet and bake until lightly browned and crisp, about 2 hours, turning halfway through to brown evenly.

Makes 2 dozen.

Adapted from A Taste of Russia