Resourceful Russians Learn to Make Own Home Products Amid Food Embargo

Many Russians have started to make their own food as foreign companies had to leave the Russian market due to restrictive measures, Austrian newspaper Die Presse wrote.

The boom especially concerns the cheese industry, with an increase in sales of special tools for making cheese and the growing popularity of cheese making courses.

Mozzarella and Ricotta cheese from Italy, Camembert from France, Feta from Greece — Russians have had to abandon these delicacies. Many European food companies left the Russian market due to trade restrictions imposed by Russia in response to the economic sanctions by the West.

However, many Russian sorts of cheese are not as tasty as the European ones. That is why some Russians prefer to make cheese at home and buy the so-called “cheese boxes” which include everything you need to prepare cheese, the article said.

"In one hour I can easily make a cheese that is fresher and better than the one I used to buy before the sanctions", Russian resident Tatiana Korshunova said, cited by the newspaper. Her husband, a financial consultant at a Moscow bank, said that many of his colleagues are making their own cheese as well.

Residents of big cities like Moscow and St. Petersburg feel mostly affected by the trade embargo as they had gotten used to buying everything they need at any time of the day. At the same time, such cities as Nizhny Novgorod, Kazan, Samara and Rostov-on-Don have also been affected by the lack of foreign delicacies.

Thus, Russian residents have started to buy special kits to make cheese.

Cheese making courses are also rapidly gaining popularity. Russians seem to have understood that they can count only on themselves and are attending the classes in order to learn this skill, head of "Cheese House" learning center Julia Lysikova said, cited by the newspaper.