“For ten years I was vegetarian. For two years I was a fruitarian. For two months, I lived on nothing but milk.” Sergey Yaroshinskiy pauses to roll his eyes at the irony. “And now, I’m selling stroganina.” He forks a slice of stroganina, a Russian version of beef Carpaccio dabbed with dollops of powerful mustard, and chews reflectively. “Ivan the Terrible used to eat it. Also Tolstoy,” he says, carefully positioning two shot glasses of icy vodka on the dining table. “In Russia, when it’s cold, you drink vodka. Nothing goes with it as well as stroganina.”
Born in Moscow, Sergey wandered through India for 10 years, looking for “the meaning of happiness” before settling down in Chennai to open Winter Palace a week ago. This charming restaurant, set at the Russian Cultural Centre in Alwarpet, is arguably the country’s first formal Russian restaurant. “The only other Russian restaurant is in Delhi, but it’s quite casual — our food is more fine-dining,” Sergey says, settling down at the Winter Palace’s verandah to discuss his intriguing transitions, from financial consultant to sadhu to restaurateur. An ‘Eat, Pray, Love’ journey? He looks baffled, then horrified at the reference to Elizabeth Gilbert’s 2006 schmaltzy memoir, which prompted a rash of voyages of ‘self discovery’. “No. No,” he says, adding, “I’ve learnt not to be moved by emotion. I believe in detachment. I was looking for answers.”
After studying at the Moscow Institute of Applied Mathematics, Sergey joined a financial consulting agency. “I quickly realised money and power don’t bring happiness,” he said, and “looking around, I also realized that there were people cleverer than me who didn’t have the answers.” He pauses as a waiter places a colourful array of dishes on the table. “Try salo first,” he says, pushing the plate of delicately sliced pork forward. “Ukrainians say, ‘There is no life without Salo’.” The meat is deliciously buttery, streaky with fat and seasoned with a healthy pinch of salt. It’s accompanied by an old fashioned Russian salad: grilled chicken, crunchy cucumber and peas, all held together by a light, silky mayonnaise.
“Growing up in Moscow, winters were harsh, lots of snow and no fresh vegetables. So we ate a lot of fermented foods, pickles and confitures at home.” As if on cue, the waiter returns with a tray of marinated, salted cabbage, cucumber and mushrooms, teamed with two more shots of vodka. “Cheers,” Sergey says, lifting his glass in salute, before going on to describe how life got increasingly challenging. “When USSR collapsed, those were hard times. Salaries did not come for 6 months. Food became expensive. By the 90s, the country changed so much, older people just didn’t know how to keep up: they couldn’t use a computer, or a fax machine, or speak English. The young, we could assimilate. Which is how I became a consultant in my 20s. By the time I was 30, however, I was disillusioned. I realised it was time to leave Russia.”
His friends were heading to India on holiday. “I took a one way ticket, and joined them.” After landing in Delhi, Sergey took the train to Orissa, then meandered through the rest of the country. “When my friends returned home, I went to Rishikesh.” His search for a teacher turned out to be far more convoluted than he expected. From Rishikesh, he was directed to Badrinath, where he learned Hindi. “It took three months to learn the grammar, two years for the pronunciation.” And is his Hindi good? He shrugs, “It’s better than my English.” He adds, by way of illustration, “I started reading the Bhagavath Gita in English, and finished in Hindi.”
As for life lessons? “I was living in the mountains, cut off from people, newspapers and often electricity. I learnt that to be happy, you just need to be happy.” So much for epiphanies. If that seems disappointingly simple, here’s the rider. “Don't believe in emotion,” he says, “Emotions trick you. They make you suffer. We blame the heart. But it's actually just emotion. The heart is naturally happy.”
This is as good a time as any for the next vodka. It’s accompanied by a flamboyant ‘Fish in fur,’ a gloriously pink, combination of mashed potatoes, carrots and beetroot, flecked with tuna. “By the time I moved to Gangotri, crowds of tourists would come to see me. I was the hippy white sadhu,” he chuckles, adding that he eventually felt a need to get away again. “So I moved to Uttarkashi, to an empty place 5000 metres above sea level and stayed there for three years.”
Then finally, he felt he was done. “I reached that place I was intending to go. I couldn't find a reason to stay anymore.” So he finally found his answer after ten years? Sergey nods absent mindedly, as his phone rings. After a short conversation in rapid Russian, he looks thoughtfully at the vodka. “So what was it?” “Hmm?” he asks, with infuriating calm. “Happiness. How do you find it?” He smiles, “You can’t.” There’s a long, heavy silence.
Fortunately, he offers to elaborate. “The truth is ‘Ananda’ isn’t happiness. You can't understand it unless you feel it. It’s like trying to explain the sun to a blind man.”
So much for life lessons. Sergey orders caviar to soften the blow. Winter Palace’s Russian Chef Sergey Nekrasoff clearly takes his role as a cultural ambassador seriously, and has made an effort to interpret his country’s food in Chennai, using mostly local ingredients, as authentically and faithfully as possible – despite the obvious challenges. His blinis, slathered in soft cream cheese, and topped with juicy salmon roe are appropriately exotic, yet faintly familiar.
It starts to rain. Another tray of vodkas arrives. Sergey sits back contently and watches his restaurant fill up. Perhaps this is it, that elusive answer to finding happiness: it’s just contentment.
