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By SuperyachtNews 01 Oct 2017

Learning to Tango – sailing the new Wallycento at MYS

We take wally’s new wallycento tango out for a quick sail, and discover that quick is not all she has to offer….

While the pleasures of a large, comfortable cruising sailing superyacht are hard to deny, there can be few things as thrilling as coaxing a bit of speed out of a thoroughbred cruiser-racer. So it proves the day before the Monaco Yacht Show begins as we saunter off aboard the latest Wallycento for a trial sail. Granted, the wind is hardly playing fair, delivering a paltry 6 knots true. Today will not be about blasting across the bay to Beaulieu at full tilt, but rather experiencing what a finely balanced, carefully considered performance design can do when it counts – when those larger, heavier cruising boats are reaching for the throttles and furling their sails away for the day.

Our ride is Tango , a Mark Mills-designed new entry to the Wallycento fleet. This new, 30.48m yacht follows the same box rule ethos as her sisters, designed to give competitive racing while still offering the comforts of performance cruising for her owner and guests. As the fourth Wallycento she already has competition, and although delivered just 10 days before we trial her, next week she will be at the Voiles de St Tropez with 14 other Wallys, including those three Cento sisters – the 2012-launched Open Season , 2013’s Magic Carpet3 , and Galateia which arrived in 2015.

So how does this yacht differ from the others, and what corners of the box rule have the designers explored? And what of Mark Mills, a designer making his first forays into the world of Wally? How did Mills Design get involved in the first place? “I got a call from Luca Bassani, who had a client interested in doing a Cento,” Mills tells me as we wait for the jib to hoist. “The client had a number of major design offices on his shortlist and Luca wanted to throw a wildcard into the pot – he’d seen our 2014 world championship-winning 72-footer Alegre , which features a similar ramp deck design to Tango . It was really his intervention that got us on the table, and the client was willing to consider someone who didn’t have a track record in these boats yet but who looked like they were bringing something to the table. We had a lot of ideas that we thought were right, and the client was receptive to that.”

Among those ideas were an innovative mast raking system, the ramp deck design which gives ease of passage fore to aft and for moving sails and other equipment, a central engine room for weight distribution, and a deck layout borne from racing yacht design, but which fits perfectly with the minimalist styling typical of Wally. The design process was, in fact, a team effort, with Mills Design joining forces with Valenica-based specialists KND Sailing Performance and New Zealand structural specialists PURE Design & Engineering. “KND really bring the computer horsepower to allow us to trial things – we did I think 49 different hull shapes in velocity prediction programs (VPP) and computational fluid dynamics (CFD) software trying to narrow down the best solution and the best combination of features,” Mills explains. “There’s so many different areas of hull shape that are bringing different strengths to the design. The ability to package all the different bits of the hull in the final one that gets built is very powerful, and I think their involvement was key for that phase.”

Notable in that hull design is the aft end – Mills has eschewed the trend toward hard or soft aft chines, which typically improve performance off the wind, opting instead for a more rounded aft in order to preserve upwind performance. It shows as the jib flies up the stay from deck to fully set in just seven seconds – the tech team worked hard on the gear to maximise hoist speeds – and we settle into a gentle but fine-tuned beat, matching the true wind speed and occasionally exceeding it. As the log creeps toward seven knots boatspeed in just under six knots true wind, the feel of the helm is a delight. Two gearing settings mean she can react to fingertip touch, or give a little more leeway depending on how much movement and sensitivity you like in your helm. She is balanced, and easy to keep on track in these conditions, and clever mast-rake considerations mean she should not become a handful when the wind picks up either.

“Rudder angle is a really important upwind component towards optimum upwind performance and to do that you need to be able to rake the rig to adjust the centre of effort to influence how much rudder you then have to put in,” Mills explains. “In light airs you want more rake back to load up the rudders and give you some [rudder] angle, and as the breeze comes on you want to rake the rig forwards and reduce that to keep the rudder angle at 3-3.5 degrees.” Most boats this size end up stuck at a single rake setting because it’s hard to move the rig around. “We went in from the outset convinced that this was a key variable we needed to bring,” Mills continues, “and we worked all the way through to make sure we could deliver that.”

The construction of the boat fell to performance specialist Persico Marine, who are no strangers to high-tech composite boat building – their portfolio includes America’s Cup yachts, maxis, Volvo Ocean Race boats, TP52s and others at the highest echelons of racing. Building a yacht that is destined not only for regattas but also for cruising was something of a challenge, but that didn’t stop the yard taking a technical approach. “This is the first project that we say is a proper sailing yacht and not only a racing machine,” enthuses Persico CEO Marcello Persico. “It was a challenge for us not only to bring experience of racing type projects but also to work with interior systems.” This is borne out by the staggering numbers involved – Persico says that the yard spent 100,000 hours on the composite construction and assembly, a further 30,000 hours for the interiors construction and outfitting, and 15,000 hours on the systems installation. The net result is impressive though – the composite structures total eight tons, and the interiors and outfitting weight comes to just 2.5 tons.

Not that the interior has suffered – while sleek and clean, and hardly sumptuous, Tango  has a grace and style that is quite stunning thanks to her interior design team at legendary design house Pininfarina. “This boat really has all the best features of Pininfarina, because first of all it’s absolutely innovative, it’s very modern, contemporary, but projected into the future,” says Paolo Pininfarina, chairman of the Pininfarina group. “It is essential, it is fluid, it is dynamic and it is seamless – the surfaces are seamless, so it has both Wally and Pininfarina DNA in it. It is elegant too – elegance is difficult to define but it is sort of sensuality, minimalism, functionality, and safety also. If surfaces are fluid and seamless then the boat is safe and it’s good for both cruising and racing. The boat is fantastic,” he adds, “and it’s the result of fantastic teamwork.”

There’s little doubt that the combined team – Wally, Persico Marine, Mills Design, MYT and all the other companies who have played their part – have created something quite special. She may look and give the feel of a racer, but Tango is more than just a speed machine. “You can see from the result that the boat has been really thought through to be better,” says Luca Bassani. “But still it’s a Wally, which means it’s a cruiser-racer not a racing machine. When you look at the boat from the outside you believe that it’s just a racing machine, but it’s not. It’s a boat that can give you good results and win races, but also good comfort for cruising, and this is a typical Mediterranean cruising boat. It’s the kind of boat Wally has developed for 20 years,” Bassani concludes. “It’s a cruising boat that can be fast and easy to sail.”

Photos: Wally / Gilles Martin-Raget and Toni Meneguzzo

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Wallycento 30m Tango

Wally Yachts, led by their irrepressible founder Luca Bassani, have long been at the forefront of graceful, sleek, minimalist yachts and their latest, the 30-meter sloop Tango is quite possibly one of their finest creations, and that’s saying something. Tango is a collaborative effort between the design team at Wally Yachts and the Ireland based naval architect firm Mills Design led by its founder Mark Mills. Mills Design was responsible for the naval architecture of the yacht while Wally Yachts collaborated on the exterior styling. For the interior, they brought in the renown Italian architecture and interior design company Pininfarina. The result is a stunning, innovative, high-performance cruiser racer that is sure to turn heads wherever she sails.

The design brief called for a yacht that would perform well in the light winds of a Mediterranean summer and with that in mind Mills and his team started off by engineering the structure before they decided on anything else. “The freedom to design a new Wallycento box-ruled superyacht for a client and his team who encouraged innovative thinking from the outset allowed us to create a new and beautiful solution to the many competing demands made of all racing sailboats,” Mills said. By engineering the structure first, they were able to tilt the design toward maximum performance rather than maximum comfort.

Once the structure was fully engineered the design team were then able to start creating an interior space, and they began by grouping the systems along the centerline of the yacht. The engine, the heaviest of all systems is located further forward than is normal and is positioned just aft of the keel, while the other heavy facilities like the heads and galley are also located on the centerline. This concentrates weight where it’s most needed, and it also reduces plumbing and cabling, too often overlooked items that can quickly add weight and rob a yacht of its performance.

Tango was also designed to be slightly bow down so as to minimize the amount of drag created by the wide aft sections. Mills mused that it’s infinitely easier to adjust ballast to get the weight aft when needed than it is to move weight forward in light winds. Keeping the weight forward and the bow down lifts the beamy aft sections slightly out of the water which in turn reduces drag, an important factor when seeking the best light air performance.

The interior styling is quite unlike any seen on other yachts, even Wally Yachts which are known for having minimalist interior spaces. Pininfarina’s work is not confined to yachts, in fact, they have been responsible for some bespoke projects, both residential projects as well as commercial buildings. They certainly brought a fresh eye to the interior of Tango. The main feature of the interior is the spacious saloon which is characterized by the “suspended” companionway. The stairs were designed to look like waves, and they continue onto the bulkheads as shelves, the result of which is a dynamic environment meant to mimic the ocean surface. Toward the bow of the yacht is the owner’s stateroom where the flowing, curved pattern is continued. The owner’s stateroom includes two spacious beds and an ensuite bathroom. Just aft of the owner’s stateroom are two ensuite guest cabins. In all the yacht is able to sleep six guests plus crew. In keeping with the aim of having a performance yacht, the interior is constructed out of carbon fiber with a Nomex core which is very light and sporty. The design team has contrasted the carbon fiber with wood and leather for warmth and elegance.

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TANGO G Wally 80 by Wally Yachts

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TANGO G has 48 Photos

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If you have any questions about the TANGO G information page below please contact us .

S/Y TANGO G (ex TANGO) is a Wally 80 24m (78' 8") composite sailing yacht as launched in 2006 and designed by the famous yacht designer Bruce Farr. She offers head turning styling, fantastic sailing performance and all the creature comforts necessary to accommodate her guests in luxury.

The following information was compiled by Wally Yachts:

“Tango G is the flush deck, three-cabin version of the Wally80 design. The sail plan features the 3DL self-tacking jib to simplify handling for the family.

Tango G features only four winches, mounted aft the social cockpit, and dedicated to the halyards, the gennaker sheets and back up for the main sail and jib sheets. The lines of Farr Yacht Design offer big volumes without compromising performance: the large beam provides for wide social areas on deck enhancing cruising comforts. The uncluttered deck is a continuous vast teak plane, covering up also the coach roof. The hi-modulus carbon rig of the Wally 80 includes the Fifth Avenue boom and the swept back spreader mast.

The slim deckhouse is camouflaged leaving the profile of the yacht clean and neat, without sacrificing functionality. Tango G is wider at the waterline than the most of the existing 80-footers; this provides for more volume inside and a generally better stability, which makes her a very easy and friendly boat to sail for a limited crew in any weather condition.

The slim deck house of Tango G is characterised by the wide central skylight enhancing the Wally inside-outside living concept. The skylight extends from the companionway forward to the mast foot, giving plenty of natural light to the main saloon and corridor.

Tango G’s deck layout features three different social areas: the deckhouse that can be covered by cushions and converted into a large living space, like a second cockpit, the central social cockpit, and the aft sunbathing area. In this way, the whole deck is used for enjoying the open air.

The social cockpit of the Wally 80 has the size of a traditional 100-footer cockpit, thanks to the large volumes of this design: it features two folding tables that comfortably seat up to ten people when open.

The functional design of the cockpit tables perfectly integrates with the style of the yacht: the brushed aluminium structure includes a lengthwise handrail to enhance safety and practicality.

The tables are very light and secured to the deck by screws: they can be easily removed for the racing configuration.

The Wally design push button console of the helm station enables the helmsman to trim the sail. The technological coamings host the main jib Magic Trim hydraulic ram, and the blocks for halyards and sheets, that can be easily accessed by lifting up the combing, in the style of car booth.

The companionway gives access down below to the main salon. The titanium frame of the companionway functionally extends in the ceiling to serve as handrails. The carbon fiber companionway lifts up giving access to the engine room.

The salon of Tango G is flooded with natural light coming from the wide skylight. The salon features the two cherry wood ribbons running on the ceiling and bulkheads, creating two tables that extend to 2.5 meters (8’ 2”).

With the four folding chairs on place, the dining configuration provides for 10 comfortable places. Both tables include the technological accessories such as TV, lights, CD, DVD, navigation instruments.

As a result, the port side table when closed serves as the navigation desk with the instruments included in the aft bulkhead “ribbon”, while the starboard one serves as sofa table featuring the 20” LCD screen in the aft bulkhead “ribbon”.

The versatility of the salon characterises the interior design of the Wally 80. This system provides the opportunity to modify the layout according to various situations and requirements. The area features two symmetric arrangements and is either a large living space or a large dining area, or half and half as in a traditional layout.

TANGO G Specifications

The forward owner’s stateroom is bright and airy and features a full beam king size bed. The large volumes of the hull design provide for the two identical guest cabins with double berths, no bunks.

The galley is to the starboard side aft the salon, and is equipped with the electrical stove on gimbals, two fridges and two freezers.”

Yacht Accommodation

Sail yacht TANGO G offers comfortable accomodation in one owner cabin with full beam king size bed and two identical twin cabins

Amenities and Extras

We do have available further amenity, owner and price information for the 23.99m (78' 8") yacht TANGO G, so please enquire for more information.

TANGO G Disclaimer:

The luxury yacht TANGO G displayed on this page is merely informational and she is not necessarily available for yacht charter or for sale, nor is she represented or marketed in anyway by CharterWorld. This web page and the superyacht information contained herein is not contractual. All yacht specifications and informations are displayed in good faith but CharterWorld does not warrant or assume any legal liability or responsibility for the current accuracy, completeness, validity, or usefulness of any superyacht information and/or images displayed. All boat information is subject to change without prior notice and may not be current.

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With a sleek design and impressive performance, the Wally Tango Sailing Yacht is a worthy addition to the Wallycento fleet of racing cruisers. Measuring 100 feet in length, the Tango's form was developed in collaboration with Italian shipbuilders Persico Marine and Ireland-based naval architect Mark Mills, using a carbon fiber and Nomex sandwich material for the hull to keep weight down and improve its speed. In addition to its light 47.5-ton weight, the Tango also saw its engine room and service areas moved to the middle of the ship to optimize the center of gravity and improve the sailing experience. The exterior isn't the only area in which it's different, however, as the spacious cabin sports a futuristic design courtesy of Pininfarina. The vessel will make its debut at the Monaco Yacht Show before competing in its first race, an event in Saint-Tropez where it will face off against the other three Wallycentos.

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so that musical…

Hello everybody… guess where I am right now? Yes, I’m home already, and Yes, that means I didn’t actually post anything for the last two weeks of my program. But don’t worry, the posts will still come. I have lots more to talk about, including:

• the musical I was in (that’s what this post is for)
• my trip to St. Petersburg
• wrapping up classes
• saying goodbye to literally everyone

…just be prepared to wait a little between posts.

So, the musical. As you may remember, I was talked into participating in a musical by my friend Ksenia, the director of USTU’s vocal studio. I say “talked into,” because I actually wasn’t as enthusiastic about saying “yes” to this project as I usually am. Because I am not an actress, and I am certainly no good substitute for Stevie Wonder.

Oh yes, that’s right, the musical was based on original translations of Stevie Wonder songs into Russian.

Rehearsals started in February, as Ksenia arranged vocals. 90% of rehearsals at this time were the background vocalists learning weird harmonies and trying to sing them tightly and together.

Then, at some point, we introduced acting to the mix. That went… interestingly.

As we drew near to the time of the show, everything got crazy. We realized just how unprepared we were, the director started to actually despair that Gerar and I would  ever act like the besotten young couple we were supposed to be, and the musical director started to wonder if she shouldn’t have spent more time teaching us to sway our hips convincingly while singing backup. But, in the end, of course, everything went off just fine…

Fine enough, in fact, that the rector (who had been unavailable for the university’s  first ever musical … something about a basketball tournament in St. Petersburg…) requested a repeat. And because he’s the rector, we complied.

I was gone in St. Petersburg for the whole week between the two performances, meaning I missed the rehearsals in between, but stress? What’s that? I was super chill about the second performance, and I enjoyed it a lot more than the first. This is partly because the temperature in the hall was about 70 degrees F as opposed to the 85 it had been during the first run (and if you’ve ever performed in a fleece Snuggie under stage lights in an 85 degree room, you know exactly how uncomfortable the first performance was).

I’ve attached here a few pictures of me from the second performance, but if you want to browse more, check this link .

We ended up getting good press, and overall, I’d say a success for the American in the far north, and an even bigger success for my costars who had actual classes/exams going on the whole time.

And, most importantly, I came out of it with a few more friends and a lot more memories.

things I wish I’d known: may

May is over, and I have set a new record for bad blogging habits! I have a lot of posts in mind, including that one I’ve been promising about the musical I’m in, so hopefully you’ll be seeing those trickle out in the days to come. However, I will warn you: I have 10 days left in Ukhta, and I don’t plan on spending any time in front of the computer that I could be spending elsewhere.

So without further ado, this month, I wish I’d known…

• that May does not exist. Everything you plan to do in May may not actually happen. You will get to the end of the month and not remember it at all.
• that there are exactly three weeks when it is pleasant to be outside, because about that long after the snow melts/mud evaporates, the mosquitoes come out. Take advantage of these three weeks.
• how dastardly bloodthirsty Russian mosquitoes are. My. Goodness. Douse yourself in bugspray before you leave the house.
• that Russian pharmacists don’t know what hydrocortisone is, so bring your own, for those places you didn’t douse in bugspray.
• that your musical isn’t over until the rector says it’s over. (i.e. you think you only have one performance, but don’t count on it — remember about Russians and planning things in advance?)
• that fill-in-the-blank questions with multiple choice on the final exam doesn’t mean your students will be any less stressed or any more successful. Therefore have only short answers and oral testing…?
• that you may not actually want to leave town in May, so plan your travel for those weird fall/winter months when you had no work and no friends and no sunlight.
• that it’s 100% possible to sleep through white nights if your curtains are decent. All curtains in Ukhta are decent. Never fear.
• that a watch is super necessary up here, because telling time by daylight literally doesn’t work at all.
• that everything ends really quickly. Do laundry in advance.

things I wish I’d known: april

This month went even faster than last month… is that possible? But I can’t deny the passage of time, because somehow all the snow is melted, and the ground is starting to warm up, and there’s  grass in some places, and  dandelions in others (never thought I’d be so happy to see dandelions), and also the sky doesn’t get all the way dark till ~11pm, and also it starts getting light again at ~1am (what is this place). Every day feels a little bit warmer, a little bit longer, a little bit closer to the end, a little bit further away from the beginning.

All that drama aside, here’s what I learned this month, that I wish I’d known earlier:

• that it  does get warm in Ukhta, and I  should  bring clothing appropriate to sunny and 60s.
• that there  are nice grassy fields in Ukhta, and I  should bring clothing appropriate to frolicking/grass-sitting.
• that reading an email is not the same thing as replying to it, no matter how it seems at the time (apologies to everyone who has been victim of this).
• how absurdly hot it is in Russian trains, especially on the top bunk in platzkart. Get the bottom bunk.
• that some schools do still carry on the hiring process into May, so not having applications finished in February is not a reason to stress out.
• that the ice here turns to mud when it melts, which then turns into sand when it dries, creating a South-Africa-like effect of dust blowing everywhere.
• that I won’t want to travel the last month of my grant, so I should get all that out of the way in the first semester, before I put down roots here.
• how seriously Russians take the idea of walking around barefoot/in socks as a potential cause of illness (even if this walking takes place exclusively indoors). This is a fact that can be used to comic effect, unless I am in fact sick, in which case they will tell me it’s  because  I walked barefoot, even though it’s probably because I was sharing hot recycled air with fifty people and zero circulation on a train for 11 hours.
• that potatoes can, in fact, go (very) bad in the space of 10 days, even in a dark cool cupboard… and this is, in fact, the source of that fish smell I keep smelling.
• that it’s really embarrassing when my friends are playing keep-it-up and I’m incapable of keeping-it-up, so I should probably take gym class more seriously (this is a “wish I’d known 15 years ago” thing, sorry if it’s not too relevant to any of you).

on the rails again

This week, Vickie and I went to Ukhta State Technical University’s “filial” (partner university? satellite campus?) in Usinsk. This is pronounced Oo-sin-sk (only two syllables, but separated for easier reading). Usinsk is… tiny. Like, we walked from the center to the edge in about 20 minutes. We drove around the entire city (all four streets) in about 30 minutes. But it’s also quite cute, and there’s a nice forest. There’s also a nice 600-student, single-building university, which is the actual reason we went: to teach! (It’s almost like that’s our job or something.)

But first, I want to talk about the  going … the train.

Last time Vickie and I took the train, you’ll remember , it was a 32-hour ride from Moscow to Ukhta, about 96 hours after entering the country. We had a nice (only mildly traumatic, and maximally sedated) experience in  kupe (4-person private cabin).

This time, we had a nice (still only mildly traumatic, although less sedated) experience in  platzkart (open, barracks-style car). We took the fast train there (10 hours) and the slow train back (12 hours).

The Good: Lots of time to sleep, no creepy guys in our immediate vicinity, no drunk people anywhere we could tell. …And, on the way back, our neighbor from the dormitory was just a few bunks down from us! The Bad: SO HOT. I can’t even describe it. Okay fine, it was only 80 degrees F, but there was literally no movement of air, and a whole lot of people… especially on the top bunk, breathing isn’t really a thing that happens. Also, we had one cabin-mate whose snore resembled the revv of a chainsaw. So the “lots of time to sleep” didn’t exactly translate into “sleep.” The Amusing: “Katie, the bathroom is so great!! It has  toilet paper. ” –Standards.

Once in the city, we got settled into our apartment-hotel. I have no pictures, sorry, but I can give you the Good, Bad, and Amusing of it…

The Good: Beds! Hot shower! Functional kitchen! The Bad: Have you ever seen  The Irony of Fate ? …yeah. The first night we spent about 30 minutes trying to find the right place, then about 15 trying to get the key to work in the door when we’d found it. Turns out we were still in the wrong building. I at that point was mildly feverish with a headache and sore throat, and Vickie also had a migraine, and we were carrying ~7kg of groceries, and basically we were a sight to be seen. The Amusing: Trying to leave a note for our roommates telling them they could help themselves to our pasta… while slightly delirious and with no good sense of Russian whatsoever.

We had classes with the university students…

The Good: My class on Wednesday had only eight students, so we could play games, and they could all have a chance to talk! The Bad: Only two of the eight  wanted to talk. Too bad for the others, because I didn’t take a 10-hour ride in a fiery furnace just to watch people stare silently at me for two hours. The Amusing:  At the English Club meeting on Tuesday, Vickie and I started (as usual) in English. This was met with much and vocal protest, and pleas to answer their questions in Russian. We, receiving affirmation from the authorities there, did so. We heard later that the students had complained that they “expected us to speak English with them, but we only spoke Russian the whole time!” Okay.

We also got to see some of the  dostoprimechatel’nosti  (tourist sights) of the town.

The Good: Nice weather,  flowers , an interesting tour guide (hi Olga!) The Bad: I was sick the whole time and carrying an enormous backpack for part of it, so I was kind of grumpy. The Amusing: Can we just talk about the mosquito monument?

Among the other  dostoprimechatel’nosti , we got to see the forest in Usinsk. The idea was, I think, to take a nice, brisk walk… which turned into more of a run/quick tramp for us. But we lived. And the forest is beautiful.

The Good: Beautiful nature, beautiful dog. The Bad: Vickie falling into the snow, my feet freezing. The Amusing: Yeah, that hole in the ice? Olga literally went swimming in it, then we walked for another 45 minutes.

All in all, good trip. But now I need to go take some NyQuil and catch up on sleep. (…And consider packing ice and an oxygen tank next time I take a Russian train.)

russian food, part three

This post isn’t actually about Russian food. It is, rather, about the food Katie eats in Russia.

Anticipatory apology to my parents/anyone who feels invested in my wellbeing. You may want to skip this post.

My day begins with breakfast, a maximum of 6 minutes after I roll out of bed in the morning. Yes, my metabolism is overactive.

Breakfast consists of a combination of cornflakes/granola and yogurt/milk. The four options afforded by this graph are way too overwhelming, so I usually have only one product of each category in my room at a time. Right now, though, I have cornflakes AND granola. This means I actually have to think in the mornings.

If my milk-product-of-the-week has gone bad unexpectedly (which happens, since the yogurt I buy has a 5-day lifespan, and the milk is only drinkable for 3 days before it becomes… well… edible), I eat bread with cheese or an apple instead.

At some point between breakfast and lunch, I eat an apple, a mandarin, or salted peanuts.

For lunch, I sometimes eat at the school cafeteria, but more often I eat open-faced sandwiches and veggies. Some examples from the past week:

I don’t require a lot of variety in my diet, but what I do comes in the choice of bread (brown or white?) and vegetable (pepper or tomato? or fruit?? wow). I can also choose my cheese/meat, but I tend to only buy one package of meat and one of cheese at a time, for minimum food waste.

Then, between lunch and dinner, I eat another apple or a pirozhok, usually while walking from one class to another. When it’s cold out, this results in blue hands, but it’s worth it for a full stomach.

For dinner, it often happens that I am fed by well-meaning Russian friends (“Do you eat, ever? Here, have this 5-egg omelet”). This is awesome, even if sometimes it results in overstuffing. These meals do not always include the quantity of vegetable matter I myself would choose, but they fill me up and make me feel like a real human. For all the other days, there’s “rabbit food.” This is a dish that consists of lentils, barley, onion, and garlic, which I make every so often and can last me up to one week in the fridge, or two in the freezer. For fun, I add cut-up veggies, cheese, spices, and/or olive oil.

My rabbit food elicits various reactions that all carry the same tone of judgment… “That can’t taste good.” “Is that your dinner?” “Are you on a diet??” The answers: “Good enough.” “Yes, it is.” “ No, I’m not .” The reasoning behind this dish is simple. I eat in order to not be hungry, and to give my body the nutrients it needs. This meal fills me up, and it covers most of the major food groups (protein, carb, dairy, veggie, fat). Plus I only have to prepare it once a week. AND it travels nicely. Win-win-win-win. Highly recommend.

Then, before bed, I usually end up eating bread with butter, olive oil, or peanut butter, or a few slices of cheese.

So this is my average pattern. However, sometimes I feel inspired (read: have guests) and make actual food (this happens about once every 7-10 days). “Actual food” still usually comes in the form of a single dish, because I can’t quite get my head around planning separate parts to a meal. This could mean fried rice, potatoes with some onion-apple-pork stirfry splotched on top, or any of the following…

I AM a real person! I CAN cook! Sort of.

What I have been doing a lot of recently is baking. Russians love American baked goods… I mean, how would you feel if you encountered brownies for the first time at 56? Or even 23? I’ve gained myself a reputation as a baker, which is hilarious, since I hate making things precisely by recipes (as may be inferred by my choices of savory cooking pictured above). Anyone, especially my sister, could tell you that I have no special gift for pastry. Actually, that’s not entirely true: my special gift is that I am an accomplished googler with an advanced command of the English language. In Russia, that makes all the difference. Here, enjoy pictures…

Not pictured but also popular: pumpkin pie (x4), apple pie (x2), pumpkin chocolate chip bread, brownies (x3 with Snickers, x3 without), chocolate chip cookies (x2), snickerdoodles, honey-egg bread. I need to start remembering to photograph these things.

The takeaway: Mom, I’m getting through just fine, but I’m already excited about the cheeseburger and salad we’re going to have when I get home. T-58 days.

russian food, part two

I love talking about food, therefore we’re going to continue this series a while longer.

This time, I want to talk about Russian food culture. I don’t mean “cultural foods”… I mean the culture  around  foods. Let me begin by describing two typical family meals, one with my family in America, one with my tutor’s family here in Ukhta.

The first scene opens with Mom in the kitchen laying pieces of meat on some sort of plate, Katie putting silverware and napkins on the table, Kristen grabbing the salad dressing (not mayonnaise), and Dad walking to the table from his office. In a minute, the middle of the table is occupied by a large glass bowl of salad (60% romaine lettuce, 10% tomatoes, 10% raw mushrooms, 10% cucumbers, 10% fresh-grated cheddar, 0% mayonnaise ), a platter of italian-marinated grilled chicken breasts, and a basket of bread. Each plate has already been served a helping of rice, because a rice pot on the table is just uncomfortable. Each plate also has standing above it a glass full of cran-apple juice (Dad and Katie) or water (Mom and Kristen). We all sit down together, pray, and begin passing the food around. We discuss our day, the things we did, the people we saw. We eat, really slowly, pausing also to drink at various points in time. When we’ve finished, one of the servants (i.e. Kristen or Katie) takes the dishes to the sink, where they will be washed later. If Dad takes the dishes to the sink, he probably washes them right away. In an hour or two, people begin trickling back to the kitchen to dish themselves a bowl of ice cream, which might be eaten upstairs while working on the computer, downstairs while watching TV, or in the kitchen while staring at a wall. The lights dim, the curtain falls.

The second scene opens with Katie entering a Russian apartment for the fiftieth time this calendar year, taking off her boots, greeting the cat, and beginning to regret wearing a sweater (because it’s 90 degrees in this apartment). Natasha, her tutor, is maybe finishing something in the kitchen, while Natasha’s mom is sitting at the computer playing Solitaire or Mahjong. Katie goes to the kitchen and asks if she can help, at which point she is given a bowl and told to give herself as much soup as she wants. Katie ladles some soup into the bowl and goes to the living room, where a little table has been set with paper-towel-placemats and silverware, along with a bowl of salad (60% cabbage, 10% bell pepper, 10% onion, 10% cucumber, 10% tomatoes, 0% mayonnaise, because they know Katie by now). Natasha comes soon, bringing her own soup. She offers Katie mayonnaise or (because she loves Katie) sour cream for the soup. She asks her mom if she wants anything, to which her mom says (for the fiftieth time this calendar year), “No I don’t want to, I just ate.” Natasha and Katie eat soup, during which time they talk and Natasha’s mom chides her for talking and not letting Katie eat. Then Natasha disappears into the kitchen and reappears with two plates of mashed potatoes and cutlets . After these have been eaten, Natasha takes the plates to the kitchen and reappears with cups, two kettles, and a tiny teapot. The tiny teapot is full of zavarka , which basically translates to “incredibly strong tea.” The kettles have, respectively,  kipiatok (boiled water) and  kholodnyy kipiatok (cold boiled water), for the watering down of the zavarka . Tea is consumed with chocolate, store-bought cupcakes that sometimes taste heavenly and other times taste like cardboard, or buttered bread with cheese . After tea, the cups and teapot are left on the table, because in an hour or two we’ll probably have second tea. Exit Stage Left. etc.

So, you’ll notice one thing right away: Russian mealtimes are very structured. One does not eat the hot food (usually called the  vtoroe , or “second”) before the soup, or tea before the  vtoroe . Meanwhile in America, all of the food is on the table at the same time, and you eat as you like. Maybe you want to finish your salad before you start your chicken. Maybe you want to eat one bite of each thing in a circle around your plate. Up to you.

The last difference I’ll note in mealtimes is the expectation here that you would not eat and talk at the same time. That’s probably very mannerly, in fact, now that I think about it. Guess Americans are rude after all.

Another difference in food culture here is that you  do not eat while you walk, unless it’s ice cream. That’s literally the only time it’s okay. For a perpetual eat-and-walk-er, this poses a problem. Not because I’m going to stop my strolls through the park with big crispy apple in hand, but I sometimes get embarrassed feel like I have to hide the apple behind my back when someone approaches me from the front. It’s part of a more leisurely culture, I think, where taking a 3pm tea break is not only normal, it’s expected, and it will probably be extravagant by American Starbucks-to-go standards. Yes, eating on the go can be a purely voluntary activity, especially when the weather is nice and you want to stand outside in the sun, but you don’t smoke, so you need something else to do. But many times I’ve eaten on the go, it’s been because I’m running from one class to another and have barely enough time to get there, let alone eat lunch. Or because I have roughly the metabolism of a butterfly.

The last difference I’ll note is in the conception of portions/types of food necessary to health. Here, I’d say 40% of your diet is easily potatoes. The other 60% is divided between bread + dairy + eggs + fruits + vegetables + meat. Beans and nuts don’t make much of an appearance, and honestly neither do many vegetables. Maybe I’m too much of a southerner to understand how potatoes with cabbage and onion constitute a veggie dish, but… I need crunchy things with bright colors! This is why I carry an apple with me everywhere, to the confusion of my friends. I think the American diet easily comprises a lot more raw vegetable matter, and a lot less starch/dairy than the Russian diet. And yet, somehow, Russians go to America and gain weight, and Americans go to Russia and lose weight. This doesn’t make any sense until you realize that humans are actually phototrophs. This is not a well-known scientific fact, but I’m working on some research right now.

Coming soon: what Katie actually eats!