Russia: Datscha restaurant

With jars of pickles, photographs of Lenin and Seventies wallpaper, Ilja Kaplan and Georgij Solanik created a dacha, or Russian country condo, in their Prenzlauer Berg restaurant. There are now three Datchas in Berlin.

"Beer would not inspire me," says Ilja Kaplan. "it's vodka that receives the ideas flowing." a kind of ideas was the restaurant Datscha, impressed through the eponymous Russian country buildings and run with the aid of Ilja Kaplan at the side of Georgi Solanik. "In Russia you deliver every little thing you do not need to the datcha – cans, images, jars," explains Ilja Kaplan. "And we jar basically every little thing. there isn't any sparkling produce in Russia all the way through the wintry weather."

There are three Datscha eating places in Berlin – in Friedrichshain, Kreuzberg, and Prenzlauer Berg. right here, in the most recent addition to that family in the Helmholtz district, sits Ilja Kaplan, surrounded with the aid of wallpaper from the Seventies, golden birds, images of Lenin, and large glass jars full of pickled lemons. Ilja Kaplan first got here to Berlin in 1990. five years later, he opened his first restaurant, Gorki Park. "it be been a family company from the beginning.

we'd in no way have made it otherwise," he explains. the primary Datscha opened in 2007. His sister still manages the kitchens at the entire eating places. Ilja Kaplan's Datscha and Gorki Park restaurants are definitely impressed by using normal Russian delicacies, but they do not cease there – both present quite a number new creations with many vegetarian and regional components.

Russia: Datscha - stream your cursor or finger for the 360° view

The Russian right to relaxation

"We do not have vareniki with pink beet and plum filling in Russia," says Ilja Kaplan. Datscha is designed to be a spot to chill out, identical to in Russia. "Datchas have all the time been places for Russians to kick returned – private spaces where we may also be free, the place we will also be ourselves." Underlining that sentiment is the asserting written in Cyrillic on the grass-green bar: "each citizen has the correct to relaxation and enjoyment."

Ilja Kaplan has turned this excerpt from the Russian constitution into the motto of his Datscha eating places. but that motto is accompanied with the aid of another, one which contends that Russia isn't so distinctive from the rest of Europe – certainly it is a component of the collective European subculture. "Russia is not just bears, Russian dolls, caviar, and the balalaika – it is so plenty more than that. we've got bought contemporary cuisine, as an example." Of path, guests at Datscha can nonetheless get a taste of natural borscht, too.

author: Xenia Balzereit

DATSCHAStargarder Str. 2410437 Berlin-Prenzlauer Berg