Russian cold & flu remedies
05.09.09
It’s inevitable. With the change of seasons, I’m bound to get sick. Especially as springtime looms with its temperature changes and pollen influx, I’ve got a bit of transitional stuffiness to get used to…
Which got me thinking about rich tradition of folk cold and flu remedies in Russia, for there are a whole host of suggestions for every sniffle.
So here are my five all-time favourite Russian cold and flu remedies – and what NOT to do if you actually want to rest, recuperate and eventually be nursed back to health!
- Vodka
- Vodka with pepper (do you notice a theme emerging here?)
- Sunflower oil and milk. In fact, one of the old women who held fort at the dormitories of the university (our don’t-mess-with-me granny) suggested gargling a cup of sunflower oil to my flatmate. She suggested that with each swirl and spit the throat infection would be caught up and sent down the sink in an oily trap. My flatmate, highly sceptical of this approach, instead preferred to…
- Visit a doctor (but honestly, why go there? You’ll only encounter more sick people!)
- Nemiroff Ukrainian chilli vodka in a hot cup of tea with honey and lemon juice. This was my preferred method – a failsafe way of injecting a little fire in your belly and throat.
The only problem with three of these five suggestions (I’m sure you can determine which ones), was that they were so darn conducive to multiple dosages in a social context (forget a spoon full of sugar to help the medicine go down – just shoot it back and chase it with some delicious snack gifts from the gods of grazing, otherwise known as zakuski). I would take my “medicine” then someone would suggest some more “for health” and then I would find myself going out to a cosy home-away-from-home nightclub, Dacha, until the wee hours…
As my Dutch courage (or pseudo-health) dissipated, I would realise with horror that I had only set back my road to recovery further.
For the record, it took a prescription of antibiotics and sobriety from a doctor in Berlin (who wasn’t afraid to bandy around the word “bronchitis” a few times in diagnosis) to fix what ailed me… but I much preferred the Russian approach!
