A Russian supermarket is an adventure in itself. In order to enter the space you might have to wait for a couple of minutes at the entrance until the white-haired babushki there finish their chat. Then, as soon as you open the deli's doors, you can hear oldschool tunes--either Russian music from the 80s or some Boney M hits. "Daddy Cool" is what I heard today when I went shopping at Bazaar, one of the several Russian supermarkets in Brighton, Boston.
Black caviar, classic Baltika 3 and kefir stared back at me from the supermarket aisles. Customers also stared back at me in search of signs to reveal whether I was American or Russian. Here, every product, let alone a human, could be a conversation starter. If the Polish cheese, the Czech beer and the Ukrainian flour were all worth paying tons of attention to, so was I.
The cultural immersion wouldn't have been complete without a shelf devoted to authentic Russian cosmetic and pharmacetical products. Just above that shelf were hanging birch branches used for visits to the Russian public banya.
In that Sunday morning, I could buy tree branches to go to the sauna with but I couldn't purchase my Baltika 3 beer. In accordance with state laws, the lady at the cashier said, they couldn't offer beer before 12 p.m. "Massachusetts is very conservative," she said to chase away the surprise in my eyes, and took the beer behind the counter.
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