Borscht () is a sour soup, made with meat stock, vegetables and seasonings, common in Eastern Europe and Northern Asia. In English, the word "borscht" is most often associated with the soup's variant of Ukrainian origin, made with red beetroots as one of the main ingredients, which give the dish its distinctive red color. The same name, however, is also used for a wide selection of sour-tasting soups without beetroots, such as sorrel-based green borscht, rye-based white borscht, and cabbage borscht.

Borscht derives from an ancient soup originally cooked from pickled stems, leaves and umbels of common hogweed (Heracleum sphondylium), an herbaceous plant growing in damp meadows, which lent the dish its Slavic name. With time, it evolved into a diverse array of tart soups, among which the Ukrainian beet-based red borscht has become the most popular. It is typically made by combining meat or bone stock with sautéed vegetables, which – as well as beetroots – usually include cabbage, carrots, onions, potatoes, and tomatoes. Depending on the recipe, borscht may include meat or fish, or be purely vegetarian; it may be served either hot or cold, and it may range from a hearty one-pot meal to a clear broth or a smooth drink. It is often served with smetana or sour cream, hard-boiled eggs or potatoes, but there exists an ample choice of more involved garnishes and side dishes, such as  or , that can be served with the soup.

Its popularity has spread throughout Eastern Europe and – by way of migration away from the Russian Empire – to other continents. In North America, borscht is often linked with either Jews or Mennonites, the groups who first brought it there from Europe. Several ethnic groups claim borscht, in its various local implementations, as their own national dish consumed as part of ritual meals within Eastern Orthodox, Greek Catholic, Roman Catholic, and Jewish religious traditions.

Etymology

The name ultimately derives from the word  ( or //), which is common to East Slavic languages, such as Ukrainian and Russian. Together with cognates in other Slavic languages, it comes from Proto-Slavic *bŭrščǐ 'hogweed' and ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *bhr̥stis 'point, stubble'. Common hogweed () was the soup's principal ingredient before it was replaced with other vegetables, notably beetroot in the Ukrainian version.

Sometimes, borscht can be found as barszcz (a Polish word for borscht) or borshch (transliteration of Cyrillic "борщ"), although these are still foreign words in English and not natively used.

The English spelling borscht comes from Yiddish  (), as the dish was first popularized in North America by Yiddish-speaking Ashkenazi Jews from Eastern Europe.

Ingredients and preparation
Traditional Ukrainian borscht is typically made from meat or bone stock, sautéed vegetables, and beet sour (i.e., fermented beetroot juice). Depending on the recipe, some of these components may be omitted or substituted.

The stock is typically made by boiling meat, bones, or both. Beef, pork or a combination of both are most commonly used, with brisket, ribs, shank and chuck considered to give the most flavorful results, especially if cooked on a high flame. Marrow bones are considered best for the bone stock. Meat stock is usually cooked for about two hours, whereas bone stock takes four to six hours to prepare. Meat and bones are usually removed afterwards and the meat is only added back into the soup about 10–15 minutes before the borscht is done. Some recipes call for smoked meats, resulting in a distinctively smoky borscht, while others use poultry or mutton stock. Fasting varieties are typically made with fish stock to avoid the use of meat, while purely vegetarian recipes often substitute forest mushroom broth for the stock.

The vegetables most commonly added to borscht are beetroots, white cabbage, carrots, parsley root, potatoes, onions and tomatoes. Some recipes may also call for beans, tart apples, turnip, swede, celeriac, zucchini or bell peppers. Parsnip may be used as a substitute for parsley root, and tomato paste is often used as well as or instead of fresh tomatoes. Vegetables are usually julienned, except for potatoes and zucchini, which are diced. The beetroots may be partially baked before being sprinkled with vinegar or lemon juice to preserve the color and braised separately from other vegetables.

Onions, carrots, parsley root, turnip and other root vegetables are sautéed (traditionally in animal fat, especially lard or butter) and then mixed with tomatoes or tomato paste. Dry beans are boiled separately. Potatoes and cabbage are boiled in the stock for about 15 minutes before the precooked vegetables are added.

The traditional technique of preparing the soup is to precook the vegetables – by sautéing, braising, boiling or baking – separately from the meat and only then to combine them with the stock. This distinctive feature of borscht derives from the practice of slow cooking in the Russian oven (traditional masonry stove, used for both cooking and heating), wherein the differences in cooking times of individual ingredients had to be taken into account in order to ensure that all components reach doneness at the same time. The importance of this method is reflected in the Russian language, where a variant in which all vegetables are added raw directly into the stock is referred to by the diminutive form  rather than .

The soup is typically flavored with a wide selection of herbs, spices and condiments. Salt, black pepper, garlic, bay leaves and dill are among the most commonly used. Other aromatics often added to borscht include allspice, celery stalks, parsley, marjoram, hot peppers, saffron, horseradish, ginger and prunes. Some recipes require flour or roux to further thicken the borscht. A common opinion is that a good borscht should be thick enough for a spoon to stand upright in it.

Beet sour

The dominant tastes in borscht are sweet and sour. This combination is traditionally obtained by adding beet sour. The sour is made by covering sliced beetroots with lukewarm preboiled water and allowing bacteria to ferment some of the sugars present in beetroots into dextran (which gives the liquid a slightly viscous consistency), mannitol, acetic acid and lactic acid. Stale rye bread is often added to hasten the process, but usually omitted in Jewish recipes, as chametz (leavened bread) would make the sour unfit for Passover meals. Sugar, salt and lemon juice may also be added to balance the flavor. After about 2–5 days (or 2–3 weeks without the bread), the deep red, sweet and sour liquid may be strained and is ready to use. It is added to borscht shortly before the soup is done, as prolonged boiling would cause the tart flavor to dissipate.

The beet sour is known in Slavic languages as kvas (literally 'sour, acid'; compare kvass) and in Yiddish as  (from a Slavic word originally referring to any brine obtained by steeping salted meat or vegetables in water; compare Russian  'pickle juice', Polish  'broth'). Apart from its employment in borscht, it may also be added to prepared horseradish or used as pot roast marinade.

As the traditional method of making borscht with beet sour often requires planning at least several days ahead, many recipes for quicker borscht replace the beet sour with fresh beetroot juice, while the sour taste is imparted by other ingredients. Vinegar, tomato products, lemon juice or citric acid may be used, as well as dry red wine, dill pickle juice, murături juice, sauerkraut juice, tart apples, Mirabelle plums, apricots,  or a fermented rye flour and water mixture.

Variations

Ukrainian

As the home country of beetroot borscht, Ukraine boasts great diversity of the soup's regional variants, with virtually every oblast' having its own recipe. Differences between particular varieties may regard the type of stock used (meat, bone, or both), the kind of meat (beef, pork, poultry, etc.), the choice of vegetables and the method of cutting and cooking them. For example, although the typical recipe calls for beef and pork, the Kyiv variant uses mutton or lamb as well as beef, while in the Poltava region, the stock for borscht is cooked on poultry meat, that is, chicken, duck or goose. The use of zucchini, beans and apples is characteristic of the Chernihiv borscht; in this variant, beetroots are sautéed in vegetable oil rather than lard, and the sour taste comes solely from tomatoes and tart apples. The Lviv borscht is based on bone stock and is served with chunks of Vienna sausages.

Russian

Many regional recipes for borscht have also developed in Russian cuisine. Examples include the Moscow borscht, served with pieces of sausages, such as doktorskaya kolbasa (similar to Bologna sausage in consistency), smoked sausages or saucisses - sausages, similar to cervelats or Vienna sausages. It is possible, the association of sausage borscht with Moscow is tied to Anastas Mikoyan and Soviet industrial production of sausages.

Other unique Russian variants include a Siberian style borscht, characterized by meatballs; Pskov borscht with dried smelt from the local lakes; monastic Lenten borscht with marinated kelp instead of cabbage and the Russian Navy borscht (), the defining characteristic of which is that the vegetables are cut into square or diamond-shaped chunks rather than julienned. Some Russian cooks add mayonnaise in place of either sour cream or vinegar or both as industry-grade Provence style mayonnaise is rich with vinegar itself.

Polish

As well as the thick borschts described above, Polish cuisine offers a ruby-colored beetroot bouillon known as , or clear red borscht. It is made by combining strained meat-and-vegetable stock with wild mushroom broth and beet sour. In some versions, smoked meat may be used for the stock and the tartness may be obtained or enhanced by adding lemon juice, dill pickle brine, or dry red wine. It may be served either in a soup bowl or – especially at dinner parties – as a hot beverage in a twin-handled cup, with a croquette or a filled pastry on the side. Unlike other types of borscht, it is not whitened with sour cream.

, or Christmas Eve borscht, is a variant of the clear borscht that is traditionally served during the Polish Christmas Eve supper. In this version, meat stock is either omitted or replaced with fish broth, usually made by boiling the heads cut off from fish used in other Christmas Eve dishes. The mushrooms used for cooking the mushroom broth are reserved for  (small filled dumplings), which are then served with the borscht.

Jewish
Ashkenazi Jews living in Eastern Europe adopted beetroot borscht from their Slavic neighbors and adapted it to their taste and religious requirements. As combining meat with milk is proscribed by kosher dietary laws, Jews have developed two variants of the soup: meat () and dairy (). The meat variant is typically made from beef brisket (pork is never used) and cabbage, while the dairy one is vegetarian, blended with sour cream or a mixture of milk and egg yolks. Both variants typically contain beetroots and onions, and are flavored with beet sour, vinegar or citric acid for tartness and beet sugar for sweetness. Galician Jews traditionally liked their borscht particularly sweet. Jewish borscht may be served either hot or cold, typically with a hot boiled potato on the side. In prewar Eastern Europe it was traditionally put up to ferment around Purim so that it would be ready four weeks later for the Passover holiday.

Cold borscht

In the summertime, cold borscht is a popular alternative to the aforementioned variants, which are normally served hot. It consists of beet sour or beet juice blended with sour cream, buttermilk, soured milk, kefir or yogurt. The mixture has a distinctive pink or magenta color. It is served refrigerated, typically over finely chopped beetroot, cucumbers, radishes and green onion, together with halves of a hard-boiled egg and sprinkled with fresh dill. Chopped veal, ham, or crawfish tails may be added as well.

This soup was known in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, which comprised the territories of modern-day Belarus and Lithuania, and it is still part of the culinary traditions of these and neighboring nations. In Belarusian, it is known as Chaladnik and in Lithuanian as Šaltibarščiai. The Soviet "Encyclopedia of Housekeeping" has an article on borscht including a "cold borscht" recipe as borshch kholodniiy.

"Coated" dressed herring salad resembles cold borsht as well, despite not being a soup. The similarity includes a strong color from using beets, a similar choice of vegetables, and the decorative addition of boiled eggs.

Namesakes without beets
Although borscht is mostly used to describe a beet-based soup, there are soups in some culinary traditions with the same or similar names, but with sometimes wide variations in ingredients and preparation methods. In such soups, beetroots are not used or merely optional. The principal common trait among such borschts is a tart flavor from sour-tasting ingredients. According to A Gift to Young Housewives, a book from the 19th century, "borscht" may or may not include beets (depending from recipe to recipe in the book).

In Polish cuisine, white borscht (, also known as  or , 'sour soup') is made from a fermented mixture of rye flour or oatmeal and water. It is typically flavored with garlic and marjoram, and served over eggs and boiled fresh sausage; the water in which the sausage was boiled is often used instead of meat stock.

In the Carpathian Mountains of southern Poland, variants of borscht are also made in which the tart taste comes from dairy products, such as whey or buttermilk. Although the deep red color of beetroot borscht may remind those unfamiliar with Polish cuisine of blood, the kind of borscht that does contain animal (usually poultry) blood mixed with vinegar is dark brownish-gray in color and aptly called "gray borscht" (), which is a regional name of the Polish blood soup better known as .

Green borscht (), a light soup made from leaf vegetables, is an example common in Ukrainian and Russian cuisines. The naturally tart-tasting sorrel is most commonly used, but spinach, chard, nettle, garden orache and occasionally dandelion, goutweed or ramsons, may be added as well, especially after the spring season for sorrel has passed. Like beetroot borscht, it is based on meat or vegetable broth and is typically served with boiled potatoes and hard-boiled eggs, sprinkled with dill. There is also a variety of Ukrainian green borscht which includes both sorrel and beetroots.

In Romanian and Moldovan cuisines, a mixture of wheat bran or cornmeal with water that has been left to ferment, similar to, but less cloudy than that used in Polish white borscht, is called . It is used to impart a sour taste to a variety of tangy Romanian soups, known as either also  or . Variants include  (with meatballs),  (with tripe),  (with fish) and  (with beetroots).

The Armenian, Azerbaijani and Georgian version of borscht is a hot soup made with beef stock, green peppers and other vegetables, which may or may not include beetroots, and flavored with chopped red chili and fresh cilantro. In ethnic Mennonite cuisine, borscht refers to a whole range of seasonal vegetable soups based on beef or chicken stock – from spring borscht made with spinach, sorrel and chard to summer borscht with cabbage, tomatoes, maize and squash to fall and winter borscht with cabbage, beets and potatoes.

In Chinese cuisine, a soup known as , or "Russian soup", is based on red cabbage and tomatoes, and lacks beetroots altogether; also known as "Chinese borscht", it originated in Harbin, close to the Russian border in northeast China, and has spread as far as Hong Kong. In Shanghai's Haipai cuisine, tomatoes are the main ingredient; beef and its broth, onions and cabbages are also added; while flour, rather than sour cream, is used for thickening.

Garnishes and sides

The diversity of borscht styles is matched by the wide choice of garnishes and side dishes with which various kinds of borscht may be served.

Most often, borscht is served with sour cream, the East European version of which, known as , is runnier than its American counterpart. The sour cream may be served in a separate pitcher for the diners to add the desired amount themselves or the borscht may come already "whitened", that is, blended with sour cream. Sometimes the cream is thickened with flour before being added to the soup. Yogurt and a mixture of milk and yolks are possible substitutes.

Chopped herbs are often sprinkled on the surface of the soup; dill is most common, but parsley, chives or scallion are often added as well. Individual helpings may be spiced up with minced hot peppers or garlic. Many kinds of borscht are served over halves or quarters of hard-boiled chicken or quail eggs. Navy beans, broad beans or string beans are also a common addition.

Meat, removed from the stock on which the borscht was based, may be cut into smaller chunks and either added back into the soup or served on the side with horseradish or mustard. Bacon and sausages are also commonly used as borscht garnishes. Borscht based on bone stock may be served Old Polish style, with marrow from the bones.

Some kinds of the soup, such as Poltava borscht, may be served with , or thick noodles of wheat or buckwheat flour. Siberian borscht is eaten with boiled meatballs () of minced beef and onion. In Poland and parts of western Ukraine, borscht is typically ladled over , or bite-sized ear-shaped dumplings made from pasta dough wrapped around mushroom, buckwheat or meat filling. Mushroom-filled  are particularly associated with Polish Christmas Eve borscht.

Borscht, like any other soup in East Slavic cuisines, is seldom eaten by itself, but rather accompanied by a side dish. At a minimum, spoonfuls of borscht are alternated with bites of a slice of bread. Buckwheat groats or boiled potatoes, often topped with pork cracklings, are other simple possibilities, but a range of more involved sides exists as well.

In Ukraine, borscht is often accompanied with , or savory, puffy yeast-raised rolls glazed with oil and crushed garlic. In Russian cuisine, borscht may be served with any of assorted side dishes based on , or the East European variant of farmer cheese, such as ,  or .  are baked round cheese-filled tarts;  are small pancakes wherein the cheese is mixed into the batter; and a  is a casserole of buckwheat groats baked with cheese.

, or baked dumplings with fillings as for , are another common side for both thick and clear variants of borscht. Polish clear borscht may be also served with a croquette or . A typical Polish croquette () is made by wrapping a  (thin pancake) around a filling and coating it in breadcrumbs before refrying;  (literally, 'little ) are variously shaped filled hand-held pastries of yeast-raised or flaky dough. An even more exquisite way to serve borscht is with a coulibiac, or a large loaf-shaped pie. Possible fillings for croquettes,  and coulibiacs include mushrooms, sauerkraut and minced meat.

History

Precursors

Borscht derives from a soup originally made by the Slavs from common hogweed (, also known as cow parsnip), which lent the dish its Slavic name. Growing commonly in damp meadows throughout the north temperate zone, hogweed was used not only as fodder (as its English names suggest), but also for human consumption – from Eastern Europe to Siberia, to northwestern North America.

The Slavs collected hogweed in May and used its roots for stewing with meat,. As for the stems, leaves, and umbels; these would be chopped, covered with water and left in a warm place to ferment. After a few days, lactic and alcoholic fermentation produced a mixture described as "something between beer and sauerkraut". This fermented product was then used for cooking a soup.

The said soup—with aforementioned fermented hogweed concoction used—was characterized by a mouth-puckering amount of sourness in its taste, while its smell was described as pungent As the Polish ethnographer  wrote in 1830, "Poles have been always partial to tart dishes, which are somewhat peculiar to their homeland and vital to their health." Simon Syrenius (), a 17th-century Polish botanist, described "our Polish hogweed" as a vegetable that was well known throughout Poland, Ruthenia, Lithuania and Samogitia (that is, most of the northern part of Eastern Europe), typically used for cooking a "tasty and graceful soup" with capon stock, eggs, sour cream and millet. More interested in the plant's medicinal properties than its culinary use, he also recommended pickled hogweed juice as a cure for fever or hangover.

One of the earliest possible mentions of borscht as a soup is found in the diary of German merchant Martin Gruneweg, who visited Kyiv in 1584. After Gruneweg reached river Borshchahivka in Kyiv's vicinity on 17 October 1584, he wrote down a local legend saying that the river was so named because there was a borscht market. However, he doubted the story noting that: "Ruthenians buy borscht rarely or never, because everyone cooks their own at home as it's their staple food and drink".

Another early written reference to the Slavic hogweed soup can be found in  (Domestic Order), a 16th-century Russian compendium of moral rules and homemaking advice. It recommends growing the plant "by the fence, around the whole garden, where the nettle grows", to cook a soup of it in springtime and reminds the reader to, "for the Lord's sake, share it with those in need".

Hogweed borscht was mostly a poor man's food. The soup's humble beginnings are still reflected in Polish fixed expressions, where "cheap like borscht" is the equivalent of "dirt cheap" (also attested as a calque in Yiddish and Canadian English), whereas adding "two mushrooms into borscht" is synonymous with excess. For the professors of the University of Kraków, who led a monastic way of life in the 17th century, hogweed borscht was a fasting dish which they ate regularly from Lent till Rogation days. It was uncommon on the royal table, although according to the 16th-century Polish botanist Marcin of Urzędów – citing , a court physician to the Jagiellonian kings of Hungary – the Polish-born King Vladislaus II used to have a Polish hogweed-based dish prepared for him at his court in Buda.

Diversification
With time, other ingredients were added to the soup, eventually replacing hogweed altogether, and the names  or  became generic terms for any sour-tasting soup. In 19th-century rural Poland, this term included soups made from barberries, currants, gooseberries, cranberries, celery or plums.

When describing the uses of common hogweed, John Gerard, a 17th-century English botanist, observed that "the people of [Poland] and Lithuania [used] to make [a] drink with the decoction of this herb and leaven or some other thing made of meal, which is used instead of beer and other ordinary drink." It may suggest that hogweed soup was on some occasions combined with a fermented mixture of water and barley flour, oatmeal or rye flour. Such soured, gelatinous flour-and-water mixture, originally known as kissel (from the Proto-Slavic root *kyslŭ, 'sour') had been already mentioned in The Tale of Bygone Years, a 12th-century chronicle of Kievan Rus', and continued to be a staple of Ukrainian and Russian cooking until the middle of the 19th century. In Poland, a soup based on diluted kissel became known as either  (from Middle High German  'sour') or  and later – to distinguish it from the red beetroot borscht – as  'white borscht'.

The earliest known Polish recipes for borscht, written by chefs catering to Polish magnates (aristocrats), are from the late 17th century. , head chef to Prince , included several borscht recipes in his  (A Collection of Dishes), the first cookbook published originally in Polish, in 1682. They include such sour soups as lemon borscht and "royal borscht", the latter made from assorted dried, smoked or fresh fish and fermented rye bran. A manuscript recipe collection from the  family court, dating back to ca. 1686, contains an instruction for making hogweed borscht mixed with poppy seeds or ground almonds. As this was a Lenten dish, it was garnished, in a  fashion typical of Baroque cuisine, with mock eggs made from finely chopped pike that was partly dyed with saffron and formed into oval balls. An alternative recipe for the almond borscht replaced pickled hogweed with vinegar.

Borscht also evolved into a variety of sour soups to the east of Poland. Examples include onion borscht, a recipe for which was included in a 1905 Russian cookbook, and sorrel-based green borscht, which is still a popular summer soup in Ukraine and Russia. A Gift to Young Housewives by Elena Molokhovets, the best-selling Russian cookbook of the 19th century, first published in 1861, contains nine recipes for borscht, some of which are based on kvass, a traditional Slavic fermented beverage made from rye bread. Kvass-based variants were also known in Ukraine at that time; some of them were types of green borscht, while others were similar to the Russian .

Before the advent of beet-based borscht, cabbage borscht was of particular importance. Made from either fresh cabbage or sauerkraut, it could be indistinguishable from the Russian . Indeed, the mid-19th-century Explanatory Dictionary of the Living Great Russian Language defines  as "a kind of " with beet sour added for tartness. The significance of cabbage as an essential ingredient of borscht is manifest in the Ukrainian proverb, "without bread, it's no lunch; without cabbage, it's no borscht."

Novel ingredients: beets, tomatoes and potatoes

Beet (), a plant native to the Mediterranean Basin, was already grown in antiquity. Only the leaves were of culinary use, as the tapered, tough, whitish and bitter-tasting root was considered unfit for human consumption. It is likely that beet greens were used in variants of green borscht long before the invention of the beetroot-based red borscht. Beet varieties with round, red, sweet taproots, known as beetroots, were not reliably reported until the 12th century and did not spread to Eastern Europe before the 16th century.

, a Polish Renaissance poet and moralist, included the earliest known Polish recipe for pickled beetroots in his 1568 book, Life of an Honest Man. It would later evolve into , or , a beet-and-horseradish relish popular in Polish and Jewish cuisines.  also recommended the "very tasty brine" left over from beetroot pickling, which was an early version of beet sour. The sour found some applications in Polish folk medicine as a cure for hangover and – mixed with honey – as a sore throat remedy.

It may never be known who first thought of using beet sour to flavor borscht, which also gave the soup its now-familiar red color. One of the earliest mentions of borscht with pickled beets comes from Russian ethnographer Andrey Meyer, who wrote in his 1781 book that people in Ukraine make fermented red beets with Acanthus, which they in turn use to cook their borscht. The book "Description of the Kharkiv Governorate" of 1785, which describes the food culture of the Ukrainians, says that borscht was the most consumed food, cooked from beets and cabbage with various other herbal spices and millet, on sour kvass; it was always made with pork lard or beef lard, on holidays with lamb or poultry, and sometimes with game. 's Polish-German dictionary published in 1806 was the first to define  as a tart soup made from pickled beetroots.

The fact that certain 19th-century Russian and Polish cookbooks, such as Handbook of the Experienced Russian Housewife (1842) by  and The Lithuanian Cook (1854) by , refer to beetroot-based borscht as "Little Russian borscht" (where "Little Russian" is a term used at the time for ethnic Ukrainians under imperial Russian rule) suggests that this innovation took place in what is now Ukraine, whose soils and climate are particularly well suited to beet cultivation. Ukrainian legends, probably of 19th-century origin, attribute the invention of beetroot borscht either to Zaporozhian Cossacks, serving in the Polish army, on their way to break the siege of Vienna in 1683, or to Don Cossacks, serving in the Russian army, while laying siege to Azov in 1695.

Spanish conquistadors brought potatoes and tomatoes from the Americas to Europe in the 16th century, but these vegetables only became commonly grown and consumed in Eastern Europe in the 19th century. Eventually, both became staples of peasant diet and essential ingredients of Ukrainian and Russian borscht. Potatoes replaced turnips in borscht recipes, and tomatoes – fresh, canned or paste – took over from beet sour as the source of tartness. The turnip is rarely found in modern recipes, and even then, together with potatoes. In Ukraine, beet sour and tomatoes were both used for some time until the latter ultimately prevailed during the last third of the 19th century.

Haute cuisine
Russian and Polish aristocrats used to employ celebrated French chefs, who later presented their dishes as foreign curios back in France. One of the first French chefs to do so was , who worked briefly for Emperor Alexander I in 1819. In his take on borscht, the original Russian soup served only as inspiration for an extravagant  dish with an air of eastern exoticism. Apart from vegetables and beet sour, his recipe calls for a roast chicken, a fried chicken, a duck, a piece of veal, an oxtail, a marrow bone, one pound of bacon, and six large sausages, and suggests serving with beef quenelles, deviled eggs and croûtons.

, 's apprentice, who was mostly fascinated by the soup's vivid ruby-red color, simplified his master's recipe, while also securing the place of  ("borscht soup") in French cuisine.  and , both of whom had been employed at Polish aristocratic courts, presented borscht to the French public as a Polish soup; their cookbook, , published in 1856, contains a borscht recipe under the descriptive name,  ("Polish-style beet-juice soup"), which had been changed to  by the third edition in 1868. In 1867, beetroot borscht was served, along with herrings, sturgeon, coulibiac, Pozharsky cutlets and vinaigrette salad, at a Russian-themed dinner at the International Exposition in Paris, strengthening its international association with Russian culture.

Global spread

Over the course of the 19th and 20th centuries, borscht's popularity spread beyond its Slavic homeland, largely due to such factors as territorial expansion of the Russian Empire, Russia's growing political clout and cultural stature, and waves of emigration out of the country. As Russia grew to cover most of northern and central Eurasia, borscht was introduced to the cuisines of various peoples inhabiting the territories both within and adjacent to the empire, from Finland to the Caucasus and Iran, to Central Asia and China, to Alaska (Russian America).

Borscht's westward expansion was less successful; Germans used to scoff at the soup along with other East European fare. What helped the spread of borscht, however, was the popularization by various haute cuisine chefs who had their own dishes to present to West Europe.

Mass migration from the Russian Empire to North America – initially mostly by members of persecuted religious minorities – was instrumental in bringing borscht across the Atlantic. Jews from the Pale of Settlement, an area that stretched along the western edges of the Russian Empire and included much of present-day Ukraine, brought with them Ukrainian variety of borscht with beetroot.
 The earliest waves of migration, however, occurred at a time when cabbage-based borscht was still the dominant variant of the soup in at least parts of Russia. The Mennonites, who began arriving in Canada and the United States from Russia's Volga region in the 1870s, still eschew beetroots in their borscht; instead, Mennonite varieties include  (with cabbage or sauerkraut) and  (sorrel-based "summer borscht"). According to the  Jewish Encyclopedia published in 1906, cabbage-based kraut borscht was also more popular than the beet-based variant in American Jewish cuisine at the time. Subsequent Jewish immigration helped popularize the red borscht in America.

In the 1930s, when most American hotels refused to accept Jewish guests due to widespread anti-Semitism, New York Jews began flocking to Jewish-owned resorts in the Catskill Mountains for their summer vacations. The area grew into a major center of Jewish entertainment, with restaurants offering all-you-can-eat Ashkenazi Jewish fare, including copious amounts of borscht. Grossinger's, one of the largest resorts, served borscht throughout the day, every day of the year. The region became known, initially in derision, as the "Borscht Belt", reinforcing the popular association between borscht and American Jewish culture. As most visitors arrived in the summertime, the borscht was typically served cold. Marc Gold was one of its largest suppliers, producing 1,750 short tons (1,590 tonnes) a year in his business's heyday. Gold's borscht consists of puréed beetroots seasoned with sugar, salt and citric acid; it is usually blended with sour cream and served as a refreshing beverage, more aptly described as a "beet smoothie". Such kind of "purplish, watery broth" is, according to Nikolai Burlakoff, author of The World of Russian Borsch, "associated in America with borsch, in general, and Jewish borsch in particular."

Borscht in the USSR
In the Soviet Union, borscht was one of the most popular everyday dishes. It was described by James Meek, a British correspondent in Kyiv and Moscow, as "the common denominator of the Soviet kitchen, the dish that tied together ... the high table of the Kremlin and the meanest canteen in the boondocks of the Urals, ... the beetroot soup that pumped like the main artery through the kitchens of the east Slav lands". Among Soviet leaders, the Ukrainian-born Leonid Brezhnev was especially partial to borscht, which his wife continued to personally cook for him even after they had moved into the Kremlin.

The soup has even played a role in the Soviet space program. In March 1961, as part of a communications equipment test, a pre-recorded recipe for borscht was broadcast from the Korabl-Sputnik 4 spacecraft. The craft, carrying animals and a mannequin, had been launched into low Earth orbit in preparation for crewed space flights. Actual borscht eventually made its way into outer space as space food for Soviet and, later, Russian cosmonauts. Originally, a puréed version of borscht was supplied in tubes.

All ingredients for the space borscht (which include beef, beetroots, cabbage, potatoes, carrots, onions, parsley root, and tomato paste) were cooked separately, then combined one by one in strictly controlled order, sterilized, packed into tubes, sealed airtight and autoclaved. In the 1970s, the tubes were replaced with packages of rehydratable freeze-dried borscht with regular-size bits of cooked vegetables.

However, with urbanization and mass construction of Khrushchyovka type housing, borscht would be affected; there would be no comfortable place to make own days-long dishes with "kvass" and sour foods, in a tiny apartment. At this rate, the idea of making its beet sour lost its initial appeal, making borscht in USSR mainly about beets, not about sourness.

Such a typical Soviet-era book as Entsyclopedia Domashnego Hozyaistva (literally "Encyclopedia of Housekeeping") has an article on borscht. The article suggests to make a soup with beets, other vegetables, and a tartness source ("tomato puree") as a "borscht" in general, but its "no-nation" primary recipe of meat borscht says "uksus po vkusu (Cyrillic: уксус по вкусу)", e.g. only to add vinegar upon tasting the resulting soup. Simply put, the borscht's sourness became an option, not a requirement, for a "generic" Soviet borscht, effectively parting ways with older concepts of making sour soups (ones both with or without beets).
 However, the same article mentions the sour variant of the beet soup: it lists separate "Ukrainian borscht" and "Cold borscht" recipes. The "Ukrainian borscht" one properly instructs to make the sour soup with beets by saying "sbryznut' uksusom (Cyrillic: сбрызнуть уксусом)", e.g. instructs to sprinkle it with some vinegar.
 A beet infusion for borscht is also mentioned in the said article. It involves soaking a beet with boiled water and then adding some vinegar. Again, this makeshift-like substitute for beet sour is listed in the aforementioned Soviet encyclopedia as a way to color borscht, not to sour it.

Era of Stagnation also would affect making borscht from time to time to the next level of simplification: the aforementioned canned tomato products, "paste" or "puree" would be a "deficit" item, a thing not available regularly in one's nearby convenience stores. On the other hand, due to urbanization, people wouldn't resort to making own batches of, say, pickled tomates. As result, many modern recipes of beet soups labeled as "borscht" list neither a tartness source (lack tomatoes, pickles, etc.) nor a sourness source (lack vinegar, lemon acid powder, let alone beet sour kvass).

In culture

As a ritual dish
Borscht is often associated with its role in religious traditions of various denominations (Eastern Orthodox, Greek and Roman Catholic, and Jewish) that are common in Eastern Europe. In East Slavic countries, "memorial borscht" is served as the first course at a post-funeral wake. According to a traditional belief, the soul of the departed either feeds on or is carried up to heaven by puffs of steam rising from bowls of borscht and other hot dishes, such as blini, porridge, boiled potatoes or freshly baked bread. In the region of Polesye, straddling the Belarusian-Ukrainian border, the same steaming-hot dishes, including borscht, are given as an offering to the souls of deceased ancestors during the annual semi-pagan remembrance ceremony known as  or Forefathers' Night.

In Poland and Ukraine, borscht is usually one of the dishes served at a Christmas Eve dinner. Celebrated after the first star has appeared in the sky on December 24 (Roman Catholic) or January 6 (Greek Catholic), it is a meal which is at the same time festive and fasting, a multicourse affair (traditionally, with twelve distinct dishes) that excludes ingredients of land-animal origin. Christmas Eve borscht is, therefore, either vegetarian or based on fish stock and is not typically mixed with sour cream. In Ukraine, the soup contains vegetables that are sautéed in vegetable oil rather than lard, as well as beans and mushrooms. It may be also thickened with wheat flour dry-roasted in a pan instead of the usual roux. The Polish version of Christmas Eve borscht is a clear ruby-red broth. Both Ukrainian and Polish variants are often served with .

While Christmas in Poland is traditionally linked to red borscht, Lent – the fasting period that leads up to Easter – is associated with a meatless version of white borscht, or . Youths used to celebrate Holy Saturday, the last day of the fast, with a mock "funeral" of the white borscht, in which a pot of the soup was either buried in the ground or broken, sometimes – to the crowd's amusement – while being carried by an unsuspecting boy on his head. On the next day, the white borscht would reappear on the Easter table, but this time, in its more coveted, meat-based guise with sausage, bacon and eggs.

In Eastern European Ashkenazi Jewish tradition, vegetarian borscht served with sour cream and boiled potatoes on the side, known as , is considered an essential dish during the Passover period. As the holiday is observed in spring (March or April), the preparation of Passover borscht used to provide an opportunity to use up the beet sour left over from pickled beetroots that had been consumed during winter, remaining potatoes that had been stored throughout the winter and sour cream that was readily available in the new calving season. Cold borscht blended with sour cream is also popular on Shavuot (Feast of Weeks), a holiday customarily associated with dairy foods, observed in late May or early June. Seudah Shlishit, or the third meal of the Shabbat, often includes borscht as well.

In 2022, the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) announced that it had placed borscht on the List of Intangible Cultural Heritage in Need of Urgent Safeguarding due to the risk that Russia's invasion posed to the soup's status as an element of Ukraine's cultural heritage. The new status means Ukraine could now apply for special funds to finance projects promoting and protecting the dish.

As an ethnic dish
In its currently most popular, beet-based version, borscht most likely originated in what is now Ukraine. Borscht's role as a staple of everyday Ukrainian diet is reflected in the Ukrainian saying, "borscht and porridge are our food" (compare the equivalent Russian saying, where borscht is replaced with ). The hearty soup in which the beetroot is just one of sundry vegetables, as opposed to the typically Polish clear beet broth, is still known in Poland as "Ukrainian borscht".

Borscht is associated with and claimed by several ethnic groups, especially Ukrainians, Russians, Poles, Lithuanians and Ashkenazi Jews, as their own national or ethnic dish and cultural icon. Such claims are not necessarily mutually exclusive, as the soup's history predates the emergence in Eastern Europe of modern nation states with their ever-shifting borders. Borscht, in the words of Burlakoff, "is perfectly suited to a global culture." He describes it as "a global phenomenon", in which "local variants are so numerous and diverse that it is hard sometimes for a non-specialist to grasp that any single example of it is something that is part of a unified tradition." In his view, borscht "is an almost perfect example of ... 'glocalization' – a phenomenon that is global in distribution but reflective of local needs and ways in its variants and adaptation; ... a highly localized product that became globalized, and in the process adapted to conditions other than the original ones."

However, according to Irina Perianova, a Russian linguist and anthropologist, "people tend to be very proprietal about their food and proud of it." Perianova offers competing Russian and Ukrainian views on the origin and ingredients of borscht as an example of "a common connection between culinary and territorial claims", which results in the culinary area turning into "a battlefield generating and proliferating all kinds of myths." In 2020 Ukraine began the process to have borscht recognised as an element of the country's intangible cultural heritage, an initiative supported by chefs and food writers such as Marianna Dushar.

In the Soviet Union, government-sponsored cookbooks, such as The Book of Tasty and Healthy Food curated by Anastas Mikoyan, Cookery and Directory of Recipes and Culinary Production, promoted a unified Soviet cuisine with standardized and nutritionally "rational" versions of traditional dishes. The same cooking techniques and recipes were taught in culinary vocational schools throughout the country, establishing a common cooking style in Soviet cafés and restaurants. Though inspired by the cuisines of the country's various ethnic groups, many recipes were presented as part of an overall Soviet heritage, disassociated from their individual geographic origins.

By many people both inside and outside the Soviet Union, borscht was increasingly seen not as an ethnic Ukrainian soup, but as a Soviet or – metonymically – Russian dish. This approach was criticized by William Pokhlebkin, a preeminent Russian food writer, who unequivocally described beet-based borscht  as one of the "dishes of Ukrainian cookery" which "have entered the menu of international cuisine". "One could understand", he wrote, "and forgive foreigners for calling borscht or  Russian national dishes, but when it turns out that they gleaned the information from Soviet cookbooks or from restaurant menus, one is embarrassed for our authors and chefs, who popularize the national cuisines of our peoples [that is, the ethnic groups of the Soviet Union] with such ignorance."

According to Meek: Pokhlebkin and the Soviet Union are dead, yet Borshchland lives on. Recipes, like birds, ignore political boundaries. ... The faint outline of the Tsarist-Soviet imperium still glimmers in the collective steam off bowls of beetroot and cabbage in meat stock, and the soft sound of dollops of sour cream slipping into soup, from the Black Sea to the Sea of Japan and, in emigration, from Brooklyn to Berlin.

See also
 List of soups
 Three grand soups in Japanese culture
 Cabbage soup - kapusniak/kapustnica variants of cabbage soup are made sour
 Comfort food

Notes

References

Sources

Secondary

Other languages

  Pages unnumbered.

Primary or self-published

Reference works

Ukrainian cuisine
Slavic cuisine
Cold soups
Vegetable dishes
Armenian soups
Ashkenazi Jewish cuisine
Azerbaijani soups
Belarusian cuisine
Lithuanian cuisine
Polish soups
Russian soups
Romanian cuisine
Soviet cuisine
Ukrainian soups
National dishes
National symbols of Ukraine
Ukrainian traditions
Ukrainian inventions
Christmas food
National symbols of Russia
National symbols of Poland
National symbols of Lithuania
Intangible Cultural Heritage of Ukraine

Borscht


Robert E Armstrong (September 24, 1925 – August 21, 2008) was an American politician who served as mayor of Fort Wayne, Indiana, former councilman of Allen County, Indiana, and former athletic director of Snider High School.

Education
Mayor Bob Armstrong was a graduate of Fort Wayne's Central High School (closed 1971) where he played on the State Championship Basketball Team in 1943. He attended Indiana University where he received a B.S. in Education and Health, Physical Education and Recreation in 1949 and a M.S. in Administration in 1954. At Indiana, he was a member of the Sigma Nu fraternity and played and lettered on both the varsity basketball and football teams, and continued as a life member of the Indiana University Alumni Association as well as the Indiana University Varsity Club and I-Mens Association.

Armstrong also completed Post Graduate Coursework at Purdue University; Harvard Leadership Institutes; University of California; University of Saint Francis; Indiana-Purdue Universities; Indiana State University.

Military
From 1944–1945, Armstrong served in the United States Army Air Forces. He was training as a pilot to fight in World War II when the war ended, cutting his military service short. Bob was an active member of his local American Legion Post 47 throughout his life.

Political career
Mayor Armstrong defeated Democratic incumbent Mayor Ivan Lebamoff in 1975 in a tight 27,145 to 26,761 victory. Armstrong helped Fort Wayne become a sister city with Takaoka, Japan. A large focus of his tenure was improving the city's budget. According to a 2000 News-Sentinel article, "[Armstrong] took a 'pile of studies' on downtown revitalization that languished on shelves and put them to use."

Bob Armstrong had been a candidate for Fort Wayne City Council in the 1971 municipal election.

Since his time as Mayor, Bob Armstrong had held other elected positions throughout Fort Wayne and Allen County. Beginning in 1990, Bob represented the Second district on the Allen County Council.  He held this position for 12 years and served as President from 1996 to 1998.   In 2002, he and three other council members (including Bob's good friend Bill Schnizer) lost reelection to a slate of younger candidates.

Armstrong was elected as one of Indiana's thirteen Presidential Electors and he cast his vote for Ronald Reagan on December 15, 1980.

Republican involvement
Starting in 1958, Armstrong was elected to serve as a delegate to the State Republican Conventions. Armstrong also served on the Indiana State Education Committee for Ronald Reagan's re-election, and was a political analyst on WANE-TV in 1980 on behalf of Republican candidates Ronald Reagan (President), Robert Orr (Governor), Dan Quayle (Senator), and Dan Coats (Congressman).

Name confusion
Residents of Fort Wayne have continually confused former mayor Robert E. Armstrong with another local, Robert A. Armstrong. The Robert Armstrong name recognition allowed Robert A. Armstrong to win a spot in the 2002 Fort Wayne Community School Board election, despite having spent zero money campaigning and his absence of any related experience. Despite attempts of local newspapers The News-Sentinel and The Journal Gazette to inform the public of these differences, the confusion has persisted. In 2008, Robert A. Armstrong won nomination as a Republican candidate for an at-large position on the Allen County Council despite having not spent a single dollar on his campaign.

Education career
Armstrong served as athletic director and school administrator at Snider High School from 1964 to 1991, with the exception of the time he was mayor.  Before this he was an educator at Boswell High School in Boswell, Indiana, Washington Junior High School in Fort Wayne, and Central High School in Fort Wayne.

As Snider athletic director, Armstrong was a founding member of the Indiana Interscholastic Athletic Administrators Association and was president of the organization for the 1969–1970 school year.

At Snider, Armstrong was responsible for directing and managing all athletic programs, budget and personnel, as well as the physical plant, priority use and planning, certification and registration for athletes and officials.  He was additionally responsible for handling all public relations for Snider, and was a guidance counselor.

In 1992, the Robert E. Armstrong Scholarship was established at R. Nelson Snider High School. A scholarship is awarded each year to an outstanding scholar-athlete to further their college education. 17 Scholarships have been awarded to date, providing assistance to these students in the furtherance of their education.

Community involvement
Armstrong began the Fort Wayne tradition of neighborhood summer swim clubs with the establishment of Pocahontas Swimming & Tennis Club in 1959.  From 1959 to 1973, Armstrong managed and coached the swim teams at Pocahontas Swimming & Tennis Club and Lake Forest Swimming & Tennis Club.  Under his coaching, Pocahontas went undefeated for 7 years and Lake Forest went undefeated for 3 years.

Armstrong was a member of Trinity English Lutheran Church in Fort Wayne, where he served as a long time Deacon and usher.

As a member of the Allen County Board of Library Trustees, Armstrong was involved in the construction a new main branch library.  He resigned from this position in spring of 2008.  At the April 24, 2008, meeting, the Allen County Board of Library Trustees passed Resolution No. 2008-5, "Resolution Honoring Robert E. Armstrong for Distinguished Service to the Library and the Community."

Armstrong also was a member or participant in numerous other community organizations including: American Legion Post 47; Fort Wayne American Red Cross Board (recipient of the Volunteer Red Cross Recognition Award); Fort Wayne Historical Society; Fort Wayne Urban League; Fort Wayne Zoological Society (charter member);Fort Wayne Administrative Association (past president); Allen County Republican Luncheon Club; and several Chamber of Commerce committees.

Family
Bob Armstrong was married to wife, Nila on September 9, 1948. Nila was a kindergarten teacher in the Fort Wayne Community Schools and was actively involved in Bob's political endeavors.  Nila Armstrong died June 29, 2012, in Fort Wayne, Indiana. The couple had three sons, Daniel, Douglas, and David, five grandchildren, and six great-grandchildren.  Daniel (spouse Linda) is the "Robert A. Welch" Professor of Chemistry and Biochemistry at the University of Texas at Arlington and has three children (Lincoln, Ross and Colleen); Douglas (wife Peggy) has two daughters (Meghan and Elizabeth); and David works with the Indiana Department of Transportation overseeing Federal funding for Local Governmental Agencies.

See also
 List of mayors of Fort Wayne, Indiana
 Pocahontas Swim Club

References

Mayors of Fort Wayne, Indiana
Indiana Republicans
Indiana Hoosiers men's basketball players
Purdue University alumni
Indiana State University alumni
Harvard University alumni
1925 births
2008 deaths
20th-century American politicians
American men's basketball players
United States Army Air Forces pilots of World War II
Politicians from Fort Wayne, Indiana

Robert E. Armstrong


Proprietary House in Perth Amboy, New Jersey, United States, is the only proprietary governor's mansion of the original Thirteen Colonies still standing. Overseen by architect and builder John Edward Pryor, construction began in 1762 and was completed in 1764. The Georgian style "mansion" was first occupied by Chief Justice Frederick Smyth by rent and approval of "The Proprietors" on April 10, 1766, to 1773. In May 1773, the mansion was repaired and fitted to be the residence of the royal governor of New Jersey, and leased by the proprietors as such.

History
The home was occupied temporarily, 1774 to 1776, by the Royal Governor of New Jersey, William Franklin, the illegitimate son of Benjamin Franklin. In January 1776, he was ordered to be held under house arrest on order of the Provincial Congress of New Jersey and under guard of the Committee of Safety. In June, after the onset of hostilities between Great Britain and the fledgling nation, he was ordered arrested and taken to Princeton for trial and then imprisoned in Litchfield, Connecticut until his release in a prisoner exchange in 1778.

After the house was ravaged by a mysterious fire in the late eighteenth century a new owner, John Rattone, of Perth Amboy restored it. Rattone was an ambitious New Yorker who added a large wing and turned the property into The Brighton, a hotel of grand stature in its day. It briefly flourished as an elegant and popular hotel until the War of 1812 brought an end to tourism and the lifeblood of the hotel. Mathias Bruen, who bought the property at a sheriff's sale in 1817, became one of the wealthiest men in America while he lived here. His descendants made large contributions to America's social and political history.

In subsequent years, the original 11.5-acre site was subdivided, and the former Proprietary House was converted into a Presbyterian retirement home. It was adapted again as a hotel, but with modest accommodations.  Now owned by the State of New Jersey, a portion of the building is operated as a museum by the Proprietary House Association. The upper floors of the original building and the 1809 wing are occupied by professional offices.

The first floor and basement of the Proprietary House have been undergoing extensive repairs and restoration by the non-profit Proprietary House Association. The New Jersey Historic Trust and the Division of Parks and Forestry of the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection, along with private contributors, have greatly supported the effort to restore some of the former glory of the building.

Post-Revolution period
Either during and after the Revolution, the House suffered extensive damage. A fire gutted the interior. On February 29, 1792, an ad in the New Jersey Journal and Political Intelligence stated "to be sold ... eleven acres of land ... the property of the proprietors of East New Jersey... the remains of the house lately burned, will be nearly sufficient for a new building."

The property was not sold until John Rattoon, first official mayor of the then town of Perth Amboy. purchased it for $1,051 in 1794. Rattoon, a Perth Amboy merchant, had carefully concealed his work as an operator for the British secret service. He tore down the damaged rear portion of the upper story, put on a roof, and refurbished the interior.

The Brighton Hotel
In 1808 Rattoon sold the property to Richard M. Woodhull of New York City who converted it into a hotel called The Brighton. In addition to building a three-story wing, Woodhull added two stories to the main block. The smaller lintels of the third floor windows indicate the change. During the 1986 restoration, the attic chimneys revealed that the original roof had been only about eight feet lower than the present one. Woodhull replaced the huge front door, the outline of which is still distinguishable in the brick pattern. The massive brownstone steps were replaced with a two-story porch. A door leading to the second story of the porch replaced the Venetian window. Almost all of the present woodwork dates from the 1808–1809 period. It was then that the two handsome interior arches were constructed.  The New York Gazette of May 27, 1809, described the Brighton Hotel as a "Charming Place, magnificent by nature and elegant by art."

The Bruen House
The War of 1812 ruined the Brighton as a resort. In 1817, it was sold at sheriff's sale to Mathias Bruen, a Perth Amboy merchant who had become one of the wealthiest men in the nation. He resided there until his death in 1846.  The Bruen heirs renovated the property and renamed it as the Brighton. Depression and interruptions caused by the Mexican and Civil Wars doomed the project.

The Westminster
In 1883 the Bruen family conveyed the property to the Presbyterian Board of Relief for Disabled Ministers and the Wives and Orphans of Deceased Ministers, where it was used as a home for the families of deceased ministers.  After 20 years, the Presbytery returned the property to the Bruen family. In 1904, the family sold the property. Most of its eleven acres were divided into building lots, and Kearny Avenue was cut through.  The house experienced a series of owners. Over the years it changed from a comfortable apartment house with a public restaurant to a rooming house.

Restoration
In 1914 a group of Perth Amboy citizens founded the Westminster Historical Society to raise funds to purchase and restore the Proprietary House.  In the late 1930s, the house was measured and plans drawn by the Historical American Buildings Survey for a record of this significant property. The plans and photos are held by the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C.

Realizing that the importance of the property was as the Proprietary House and not as the Westminster, the Proprietary House Association was incorporated on September 7, 1966, to succeed the Westminster Historical Society.  The State was persuaded to purchase the property, and it was placed on both the State and National Registers of Historic Places.

Mainly with volunteer help, the association cleaned out years of accumulated debris and removed walls which had divided the great rooms. The first two floors were open to visitors in 1976.  Gradually, it became recognized that the Proprietary House is of state and national as well as local significance. However, the process of decay continually outpaced the process of restoration. Neither the association or the state were able to pay for historically accurate restoration.

In 1985 the Restoration Partnership of Boston, with William S. Pavlovsky as a principal, proposed a plan under which the Partnership would lease the house and 3.5 acres of surrounding land for 25 years. At its cost, the Partnership would restore and renovate the exterior, and finish the interior of the 1809 wing and the upper floors of the main block as offices. Income from the offices would reimburse the partnership. The plan was implemented in 1986. The ground and first floors of the original mansion are leased by the State to the Proprietary House Association, which is charged with raising funds for programming, interpretation, and historically accurate restoration.

In late 2011 a historically accurate re-restoration began. Through paint analysis, soon each room on the first floor and basement levels will depict a colorful timeline of its many past occupants. The color of the rooms can now be seen and experienced as they were through the eyes of those viewing them in their era. This museum is a hands-on introduction to the events and people that helped shape this nation's history.

Throughout these phases, the house/museum is always open for tours, events, and exhibits.

See also
Perth Amboy City Hall
List of colonial governors of New Jersey#Governors of New Jersey only (1738–1776)
Proprietary colony
Proprietary governor
National Register of Historic Places listings in Middlesex County, New Jersey
List of the oldest buildings in New Jersey

References

External links

The Proprietary House - Royal Governor's Mansion
Survey Photos, Drawings, Documentation

Houses on the National Register of Historic Places in New Jersey
New Jersey in the American Revolution
Colonial government in America
History of the Thirteen Colonies
Perth Amboy, New Jersey
Museums in Middlesex County, New Jersey
Historic house museums in New Jersey
Houses in Middlesex County, New Jersey
American Revolutionary War museums in New Jersey
National Register of Historic Places in Middlesex County, New Jersey
New Jersey Register of Historic Places
Houses completed in 1764
Georgian architecture in New Jersey
Former governors' mansions in the United States
Governor of New Jersey

Proprietary House


Ioannis Varvakis (; 1745–1825), also known as Ivan Andreevich Varvatsi (), was a Greek privateer, benefactor, and member of the Filiki Eteria.

Origins, early life
Ioannis was born on the Greek island of Psara, son to Andreas Leontis and Maria Moros. His mother later cloistered herself in a monastery on the island of Chios, where she died during the Chios Massacre in 1822. His real name was Ioannis Leontides (Greek: Ιωάννης Λεοντίδης); Varvakis was the nickname that he received during his childhood due to his imposing eyes, which were similar to the eyes of a bird of prey which lives on the island of Psara and is known as varvaki (βαρβάκι, "Eleonora's falcon").

Hero of the Orlov Revolt
Varvakis was a Greek Orthodox Christian who became a skilful sailor at the age of 17 and built a ship, the St. Andrew, which he later offered (with his crew) to the Russian forces during the Russo-Turkish War, 1768-1774. He spent his entire fortune to equip the ship and to arm it with cannons and showed extraordinary courage during the Battle of Chesma () in July 1770. His xebec was transformed into a fire ship, packed with combustibles, set on fire and steered into a large Turkish ship. But the war did not give independence to Greece, as the Ottoman sultan signed peace by the Treaty of Kuçuk Kainarji in 1774, which granted Russia the northern part of the Black Sea. On the other hand, this war created a mass exodus of Greeks to Russia.

At service of Catherine the Great

Without any money in his pocket, Ioannis Varvakis decided to seek an audience with Catherine II of Russia ("Catherine the Great"). He went to Saint Petersburg, where he met with Grigori Alexandrovich Potemkin, Russian general-field marshal, statesman, and favorite of Catherine II the Great, who arranged the audience with the Empress of Russia. Catherine II the Great was particularly generous giving Varvakis 1,000 golden roubles as a gift and an authorisation for unlimited and duty-free fishery in the Caspian Sea and the right to choose a place to settle in Russia. He also received an official patent signed by Catherine the Great, proving that Ivan Andreevich Varvatsi (his new Russian name) was named first lieutenant of the Russian Navy on 21 October 1772.

Varvakis in Astrakhan

From Saint Petersburg, he left for Astrakhan to develop a fishery, though he had no experience. In the northern Caspian Sea his fishery enterprise made him a millionaire. The boats of Varvakis caught sturgeon, white salmon and other valuable fish. Knowing the passion of Greeks for caviar, he tried to arrange exporting caviar to Europe. He invented a solution to preserve the freshness of the caviar eggs while being transported by ship. He produced timber boxes, which did not cause alterations in the precious eggs, were absolutely waterproof and thus were maintained in very good condition. Until then the caviar had been preserved in caves. Varvakis shipped caviar from Astrakhan to Greece by camel or by boat through the Volga river. In 1788, the business of Varvakis employed more than 3,000 workers.

In 1810-17, Ioannis Varvakis financed the delayed construction of the channel linking the Volga to its arm . The channel, which was initially built as "Astrakhansky" was renamed by the decree of December 31, 1817 as "Varvatsievski". After the Russian revolution, it was renamed to "The May 1st Channel".

Varvakis in Taganrog

In 1810, Varvakis was granted the title of hereditary nobleman with a family coat of arms by Alexander I of Russia, who also made him Court Counsel and decorated with a diamond Order of St. Anne awarded for exceptional services and the Order of St. Vladimir.

In 1812, he moved to the city of Taganrog, populated by Greek colonists who, like the Greeks of classical times, took refuge from poverty or tyranny in townships around the northern Black Sea and the Sea of Azov. In 1813, Ivan Varvatsi spent 600,000 rubles for construction of Greek Jerusalem Monastery () in Taganrog. When Alexander I died in Taganrog in 1825, the funeral service for the Russian Tsar was chanted in this monastery.

Varvatsi's mansion in Taganrog suffered extensive damage during Siege of Taganrog in Crimean War. The walls were filled with cannonballs and rifle bullets, and were left in that condition. The building was nicknamed "house with bullets"(дом с пулями).

Return to Greece
Ioannis Varvakis actively assisted the Greeks during the Greek Revolution, especially his home island of Psara. After the destruction of the island by the Turkish Fleet, he returned to Greece himself in 1824 to aid the refugees, and died on Zakynthos on January 10, 1825. Varvakis desired to promote education for the new Greek state, and in his will he left 1 million rubles for the building of a high school, which was named Varvakeio (Βαρβάκειον Λύκειον) in his honor. Varvakis also financed the building of Athens' closed market, the Varvakeios Agora.

Descendants
The descendance of Varvakis' noble name was continued through the female line. His first daughter, Maria Varvakis who was born in 1770, married Greek merchant Nikolay Ivanovich Komnino. Since he had no sons, and desirous of preserving his name for the future generations, Ioannis Varvakis addressed to his patron, Catherine the Great, a request to permit his daughter Maria have a double-barreled surname, that is the family name of Varvakis, her father, and that of her husband, Komnino. Catherine II granted his appeal, creating the noble family of Komnino-Varvatsi (Комнино-Варваци). All sons of Maria and Nikolay Komnino-Varvatsi (Ivan, Yegor, Mark, Kozma and Andrey) were granted noble titles by the Yekaterinoslav Government decree of April 25, 1821, paying tribute to achievements and contributions made by their grandfather, Ioannis Varvakis. Their descendants were later married into other Greek-Russian families, including the Sarandinaki family at Taganrog. Through the Sarandinaki family, Varvakis' descendants were also related to the Motsenigo (Mocenigo or Mochenigo) Greek-Russian family.

The graves of Maria and Nadezhda Komnino-Varvatsi are located at the Taganrog Old Cemetery near The All-Saints Church in Taganrog.

Legacy

In the 19th century, one of the streets in Taganrog was named after Varvatsi (Варвациевский переулок). In the 1920s it was renamed after poet Mikhail Lermontov.

In 2012 a monument dedicated to Varvakis was inaugurated in the city of Astrakhan.

Director Yannis Smaragdis directed a film (God Loves Caviar) dedicated to the life of Ioannis Varvakis and his invention for transportation of caviar eggs. German actor Sebastian Koch portrayed Ioannis Varvakis. The film, a co-production of Greece, Russia, and Spain was released in 2012. The film, however, contains significant historical inaccuracies, such as showing Emperor Paul I ruling at the time of Greek revolution in 1821. (In reality, he had been assassinated 20 years before these events).

In popular Culture

Film "The Pirate" 2012

References

Sources
Энциклопедия Таганрога. Таганрог: Антон, 1998. — 624 с. — .

1745 births
1825 deaths
People from Psara
Ottoman Greece
Nobility from the Russian Empire
Greek diaspora in Russia
Greek revolutionaries
Greek philanthropists
Greek people of the Greek War of Independence
Greek pirates
Members of the Filiki Eteria
Burials at the First Cemetery of Athens
19th-century pirates

Ioannis Varvakis


The Aymara kingdoms, Aymara lordships or lake kingdoms were a group of native polities that flourished towards the Late Intermediate Period, after the fall of the Tiwanaku Empire, whose societies were geographically located in the Qullaw. They were developed between 1150 and 1477, before the kingdoms disappeared due to the military conquest of the Inca Empire. But the current Aymara population is estimated at two million located in the countries of Bolivia, Peru, Chile and Argentina. They used the Aymara and Puquina languages.

Origin

During pre-colonial times these peoples were not known as Aymara, but were distinguished by the name of their own societies. The European chroniclers were the first to call these societies Aymara, but this name was not produced immediately because of the clear distinction between Aymara-speaking peoples.

Aymara people came from north Argentina, there were also Aymara descendant peoples in Lima, towards the end of the Wari Empire's heyday. A migration of Aymara peoples took place, one that contributed to the disarticulation of the imperial dominance of the region and, shortly after its disappearance, a number of Aymara-speaking, independent and rival kingdoms emerged. Some Aymara groups took advantage of the weakening of the Wari and settled on the central coast.

The Kingdoms and Lordships

There were 12 major Aymara Kingdoms:
 Canchis (Cusco)
 Canas (Cusco)
 Collas (Puno)
 Lupacas (Puno)
 Pacajes (La Paz)
 Carangas (Oruro)
 Soras (Oruro)
 Charcas (Chuquisaca)
 Quillacas (Potosí)
 Cara-caras (Potosí)
 Chuis (Sucre)
 Chichas (Potosí)

There were also the following Aymara lordships:
 Kallawaya (La Paz-Puno)
 Yamparas (Sucre)

These kingdoms named, Urcosuyu (Urco: male, fire) on the western side of Lake Titicaca and Umasuyu (Uma: female, water) on the eastern side, geographically dominated a large number of territories in areas of lower altitude, both in the valleys of the Pacific and in the Amazon basin; they had discontinuous territories between the colonies in low areas like islands in various parts of the same valley, sharing the valley with other ethnic groups that could be local as well as other peoples of the highlands - a geopolitical phenomenon that John Murra calls "vertical archipelagos" - and although during the reign of the Inca Empire they kept both their lands in Qullaw and their colonies in the inter-Andean valleys; This domain of territory was respected until the first years of the Spanish conquest when its territorial and political dismemberment began.

In all these societies, duality prevailed as a form of government - there were two leaders for each society. Most of these kingdoms buried their leaders in a mausoleum in the shape of a tower called a "chullpa"; the design of these towers was different in each of the societies.

The Incan conquest
There were intense rivalries between the Aymara kurakas of Chucuito, from the Lupaca Kingdom, and Hatunqulla, from the Colla Kingdom. These confrontations were known to the Incas and the Viracocha Inca was the first to try to take advantage of these rivalries, promising aid to both sides but secretly agreeing with the Lupacas of Chucuito. This treason was discovered by Cari, the Colla leader, who attacked the Lupacas near Paucarcolla before the Inca army arrived to help them. With this victory the Collas became the dominant kingdom in all of Qullaw, annexing land along the Pacific.

Later Pachacuti defeated the Collas. The kuraka of the Collas at that time was called Chuqui Capac, he was taken prisoner by the Incas after a long battle near Hatunqulla. At the time of the conquest of the Collas, its territory spanned from the Pacific coast, passing through the Qullaw plateau, to Mojeños mountains in the east. After the capture of Chuqui Capac, all the Collas were subdued by the Incas, some by force and others peacefully; the towns that were destroyed were populated by mitmakunas and the other Aymara kingdoms ended up accepting the dominion of Cusco as did the Lupacas, Pacajes, Azangaros and others. After the expansion of the Inca empire into the land of the Aymara kingdoms, the Incas named all Aymara kingdoms "Collas", without distinction, and their territory became part of Collasuyo.

References

Andean civilizations
Prehistory of Bolivia
Indigenous culture of the Americas
Aymara
Indigenous peoples of the Andes
History of Peru
Prehistory of Chile
Former countries
Former countries in South America
Former monarchies of South America

Aymara kingdoms