Victor belyaev. Former Kremlin chef Viktor Belyaev: entering the kitchen, Nixon violated the state border Kremlin chef Viktor Belyaev

Viktor Belyaev has been working in a special kitchen in the Kremlin for 14 years. “I'm not a politician, my job is to cook porridge,” he jokes. But everyone knows that food for everyone, and even more so for the top officials of the state, is a more than serious matter. And to be the main one who is responsible for this is not an easy mission. "All politics goes through the stomach," explains Belyaev. How does this happen?

"I want red soup"

Russian newspaper | Viktor Borisovich, you have a photo in your office where you and the ex-President of the United States Nixon ...

Victor Belyaev | This is 1987. He came here as a mediator before the start of negotiations between Reagan and Gorbachev, and I had to work with him for two weeks. For me then - I tell my children about this - the "iron curtain" opened. Because when foreign delegations came, we had special conversations: do not go through other doors, no comrades, no gentlemen - do not communicate! And with Nixon it turned out that after the first dinner he himself came to the kitchen: "Where is the chef?" They don't have the word "cook".

He was surprised by our variety of dishes and table decorations. The 37th President of the United States walked around with a glass of burgundy and asked the assistant to take pictures of all the dishes.

RG | Do you remember what was served then? How was he surprised?

Belyaev | Decorations on cold dishes. Here we were doing very serious work. If we, for example, prepared a platter of fish and meat, then the decoration of one dish should not repeat the decoration of another. This is now a lot of all kinds of products have appeared, but before what? Greens, vegetables, lemon.

I cooked dairy veal for Nixon, which he ate with pleasure. And in the evening I learned that, it turns out, he is an adherent of fish dishes. And he began to serve him fish. Two weeks of such communication for me, then a young man, really opened up a lot. I saw in Nixon an ordinary normal person who does not pretend.

RG | How old were you then?

Belyaev | 30. Nixon thought to see the big boss, and a young man appeared before him. He looked at me like that: "Wee chef?" The answer is: "Chef". And he said in French: "Great." And every evening, if there was dinner or lunch, he always came and thanked.

But the most amazing thing was on the last day before leaving. Nixon had come before this visit earlier - to Brezhnev. And so he wanted to visit the places where he had been before - he asked to be taken to Zavidovo. Then for some reason he wanted to go to the market. He says: "You have a collective farm market, we were there with Leonid Ilyich." They began to raise the archives, it turned out that it was the Cheremushkinsky market. We arrived there, and Nixon offered to take a walk, but not with the whole retinue, but two or three. Like, no one knows him, so as not to attract attention by the abundance of guards. He was so surprised when, after 10 minutes, of course, everyone recognized him, they began to give fruits, flowers ... However, the most striking scene took place at the end. When he was leaving the market, an old woman came up to him - a seed seller. She hands him two bags of seeds and says: "This is what I can thank you with. I have two sons who died during the Great Patriotic War. Make it so that there is no more war." Imagine, I now remember and worry, and Nixon was already aged at that time. When he returned, he was so agitated, he did not go to supper right away. I went out to the park, walked for a long time, calmed down.

RG | You have met many famous people and cooked for them.

Belyaev | Yes, we served a lot of people. Indira Gandhi, Margaret Thatcher, Helmut Kohl. The presidents of countries such as the United States, Canada, France, all foreign delegations who came on visits, stayed at the then Lenin Hills, today's Vorobyovs, in government mansions.

RG | And how did you prepare for such visits? How did you recognize the tastes of the guests?

Belyaev | Here, on the one hand, it is simple, on the other, it is difficult. Of course, the national flavor is definitely being clarified. Indira Gandhi ... As we always joked, they went to work for the Indians "under the gun." Because it is the most difficult delegation. For some, the cow is a sacred animal. Others ate only fish. If vegetarians, then vegetables were also divided into different categories. And if the European delegations were fed in the common room, then for the Indians they were prepared separately for each (!) Member of the delegation. And trays of food were delivered to everyone. If for one delegation, about 10-15 people, usually one cook cooked, then we sent two at once to the delegation of Indira Gandhi.

Naturally, they definitely communicated with the embassy, ​​with the chefs of this or that country, read literature, because it is impossible to master the whole cuisine quickly. But the guests, in general, were very fond of Russian cuisine. Therefore, when asked for their wishes, they said - they say, here you have a red soup ... Apparently, once you tasted borscht or heard about it.

RG | What do you remember about Indira Gandhi?

Belyaev | An amazing woman. When I first saw her, I was amazed at how small she was. Pretty. Raised. Good energy emanated from her! Good energy. And when she greeted, her grip was strong. She did yoga: she got up early in the morning, sat in the lotus position, stood on her head.

RG | What did Margaret Thatcher eat? She was probably on a diet?

Belyaev | I would not say. She really liked our pancakes. I respected Russian cuisine. I ate not much, but with pleasure.

RG | And Helmut Kohl?

Belyaev | Kolya has diabetes mellitus. Because, of course, he was on a strict diet. We talked to the doctors and tried to please him. But, to be honest, he was constantly breaking his diet.

Dad, cook kharcho

RG | Do you follow any nutritional rules yourself? When it's so close to the kitchen, it's hard to resist the temptations.

Belyaev | Unlike doctors, I do it (laughs). A technologist is a technologist. Therefore, in the family we never cook rich broths with a piece of large meat. Always vegetarian soups. Meatballs or meat cooked separately are acceptable in them. The only exception is kharcho. And they always say to me: "Daddy, cook kharcho."

RG | That is, you also cook at home?

Belyaev | According to the mood and at the request of friends. As for the side dishes, we have never overused flour: we always have a salad. He's a cold appetizer. I constantly "pressed" children with mayonnaise, because it is a very fatty food. And they obeyed, especially when they became big. Now Maxim is 25, Masha is 20, and, of course, my daughter is watching the figure.

RG | Did they follow your line?

Belyaev | Masha studies at the Faculty of Humanities at Patrice Lumumba University. Maxim graduated from the law school there. Master's degree - with honors. He speaks French with a diploma as a translator-assistant, and his second language is English. But somehow he turned around in life, then he came to me, we talked with him ... Now he liked the direction of catering, that is, off-site catering. I don't know if it's genes, or if it's really his calling.

Now he works as a system manager in one of the major companies. And legal education - it will come in handy everywhere.

RG | It seems that there is nothing difficult in your profession, is it not to make government decisions?

Belyaev | Here is the mentality: well, what is there to cook cabbage soup! Can be cooked in different ways. My mother always taught me, as according to the Bible: hurry up to do good. After all, the work of a cook is kind. They say that an evil person will never come to the stove. Try kneading the dough if you're not in the mood. It won't work!

RG | When did you realize that your mission is to cook?

Belyaev | Here life rather prompted, because we did not live well. I was born in Moscow, in Izmailovo, in a two-story barrack. The father was not there. I was raised by my mother and grandmother.

In the family, my mother has three in her arms, I am the eldest. I was interested in history, I wanted to enter the Historical Archives College in Izmailovo. First I applied there. But then my grandfather turned me off this path. He is a participant in the Great Patriotic War, ended the war in Berlin, returned without a leg. He came once, sat down with my stepfather and said: "Why will Vitka go to the historical archives? Then he will put on oversleeves, sit in the dust, with a pen, write something and get 80 rubles. Call him here!"

They called me. And next to us was a culinary school. Then, on the basis of it, an economic and technological technical school grew up, today the Izmailovsky College. It was then one of the best vocational schools. My grandfather rushed there. And on the doorstep he meets my future master, Valentina Petrovna Minaeva. She told him: "Grandpa, are you studying?" - "No," he says, "I have a grandson. Can I see?"

She took him through the classes, showed him replicas of dishes. And the grandfather was practical. He says to me: "Vit, you are a senior. Imagine - 26 rubles a scholarship. One week you will torment yourself on theory, and the second week on practice in the best restaurants in Moscow. And you are full, and your nose is in tobacco." The old people had such a worldview. Naturally, my mother intervened: "Yes, this is trade, public catering!" The grandfather replies: "A little bit of a big one is not stealing, but an honest carve-up." I then laughed: "Grandfather, I can't." "And don't. You will be fed there anyway." And he convinced me so that I went to this Valentina Petrovna and brought the documents.

RG | Have you been teased as a "culinary college student"?

Belyaev | I have never been shy about my profession. For some reason, the attitude to public catering is that there are some dashing people working there, who come only to steal something. And I think this profession is very beautiful. And he always enjoyed it. I have worked for over 14 years in a special kitchen in the Kremlin. And already for the second year he worked "in mansions" - in residences on the Lenin Hills.

Kremlin diet

RG | Where did the concept of the "Kremlin diet" come from? Is it true that the Kremlin adheres to it?

Belyaev | It's all about making money. Under Chazov, when there was the 4th Main Directorate, we heard about the "Kremlin pill" that was being developed for members of the Politburo and party leaders. It turned out that it was some kind of fortified drug, which then ceased to be in short supply, and they began to make money on the "Kremlin pill". I think she lost her healing properties.

And what about the Kremlin diet? I came to work in the Kremlin in 1978. He started with Brezhnev. I have been to Zavidovo twice. Our leaders in nutrition were extremely moderate. No gluttony, no black caviar dishes. Moreover, I have already found both Brezhnev and all the other members of the Politburo at a respectable age. Naturally, they were closely monitored by medicine. And there was discipline. They told Brezhnev to quit smoking - he quit.

RG | Do you, apparently, have traditions from those times?

Belyaev | And how! Once a week, RAM is required. The events that are taking place in the Kremlin, on the Old Square are scheduled two weeks in advance. Plus behind us is the Bolshoi Theater, the Electoral Commission.

RG | Let's say there is a reception in the Kremlin. Where, for example, do the waiters come from? Are they all yours or are you inviting from somewhere?

Belyaev | If the reception is, say, a person up to 200, we can do it on our own. But keeping 100 or 200 waiters on staff, of course, makes no sense. Naturally, we invite you. We have contracts with the best restaurants in Moscow, and we also invite college kids.

RG | Do not be afraid that a college student will make a mistake, because the techniques of the highest level ...

Belyaev | We are being given the fourth course - those who have already graduated. Together with them work masters of industrial training. We conduct trainings before every serious reception.

The package of documents for the thousandth appointment is a large folder. There is a menu, and the mode of arrival of people, the actions of each head waiter, who does what. It is scheduled in time, when they receive the dishes, when they put on their uniform, when they go to wash their hands, when the formation, when the reception begins, how to stand, how to meet guests, when to put on gloves, when it’s synchronized…. Then there is the procedure for serving guests, everything is clearly regulated in time: serving cold dishes, hot snacks, second courses, desserts.

RG | Do you personally compose the menu?

Belyaev | In the presidential administration, there is the General Directorate of Public Catering. There are technologists with whom we sit down and discuss. And then there is an agreement with the protocol of the president, study, samples.

RG | And if a person does something wrong: does he come out at the wrong time or breaks a tray of dishes?

Belyaev | After the reception is debriefing. People are people, this is the human factor.

RG | Where do you get the dishes from? Who decorates the tables? This year, for example, there was a reception in the Kremlin in honor of Rostropovich's jubilee. On TV, they showed how skillfully the table was decorated - toys were placed in front of each plate - Pinocchio ...

Belyaev | This technique was handled by the St. Petersburg company. At the request of Vishnevskaya and Rostropovich himself. I think this is normal. We pass on experience to them, they pass on to us.

As for the dishes, we have a large set of porcelain, glass, crystal and cutlery. A good base for tablecloths, skirts, and napkins. We select and agree on everything for each type of event. We also offer decoration and decoration.

Power Supply

RG | How do you select products? Earlier, during the time of tsarist Russia, the title of "supplier of the Imperial court" was given. Are there any suppliers for the Kremlin yard now? What is needed for a doctor's sausage, for example, from the Cherkizovsky Combine, to be served on the table to the first persons?

Belyaev | If we compare the market of tsarist and today's Russia, then in those days it was probably more perfect, but now it is still chaotic. After all, the main thing is quality. Many factories and workshops make sausages here, but their product does not differ in quality. Therefore, there are no special suppliers of the "court of His Majesty". Although we have partners with whom we have been working for many years and only for the reason that they do not change the quality.

All products that go to the table for the first persons are checked in the laboratory of the Federal Guard Service. We give a part of the batch of products, they check it, draw up an act and issue the result. And it happens, and wrapped. For one or another medical condition.

RG | How do the Kremlin inhabitants eat? I was told that when Vladimir Potanin worked in the Kremlin at one time, he never ate the local food, his own cooks brought him food. This is true?

Belyaev | I know Potanin, I saw him and greeted him. But I don’t know, I don’t remember about bringing him a separate meal.

RG | How do you feed today's Kremlinites? Do you study everyone's tastes or do you take into account the general opinion?

Belyaev | The head of state is fed by the Federal Security Service. They have their own kitchen, professional craftsmen. And we work with the administration and the administration of the president, the Federal Security Service and all the supporting services that are located in the Kremlin on the Old Square. Tastes ... Again, I can say that people are all one. Everyone loves delicious homemade food.

RG | Do you adjust knowing the characteristics and tastes of the leaders?

Belyaev | We adjust from the point of view of human health. If fried, stewed is contraindicated, naturally, we make steamed food. We have a custom-made system. There is a menu and it says what exactly the person wants. After all, what is the Kremlin? This is the same submarine. People are the same everywhere. Why did I say that feeding people is a difficult profession. Here we also need to include psychology. For example, an employee has been working in the Presidential Administration for 15 years. All the time he comes to the same dining room, to the same buffet. Believe me, even the menu itself can irritate him: well, here again butter, fresh vegetables ... Is it really impossible to write in some other way? I always say to my subordinates: "You stand on the other side of the rack." Firstly, the menu should be colorful, by March 8 - with flowers, by Victory Day - with a military theme. People have mental, stressful work. And, of course, they want to come and just relax in those 15-20 minutes that they allocate for lunch. See the smile of the waiter, eat a piece of meat or fish, a nice salad. And the person leaves in a completely different mood. That is why they say that all politics goes through the stomach.

What does the president eat?

RG | You say that the president is fed by a special service. But you still probably communicate with them and know that he loves to eat?

Belyaev | Yes, we talk, but I myself see at receptions: he has no special priorities. Boris Nikolaevich, for example, loved mutton on the bone. And everyone knew that. Maybe Vladimir Vladimirovich has a favorite dish, but he never singles it out.

RG | In general, I am surprised when the president has time to eat at high receptions.

Belyaev | Right. We need to submit everything, but he has already gone to the people - to say hello, take a picture, shake hands ... I think he comes home and there he already eats in a calm atmosphere.

RG | This month, by tradition, a big reception was given in the Kremlin on the occasion of Russia Day. They say there was something breathtaking. For example, on a hot day there was a slide of pure ice, and a man in an archer's uniform was serving ice vodka ...

Belyaev | This tradition is already the fourth year. The reception is being conducted by Evgeny Viktorovich Prigozhin. This is Concord, a St. Petersburg company. We met at the 300th anniversary of St. Petersburg. He has one of the strongest companies. And catering is very developed - catering. And on the Day of Russia they bring everything here. Nice cars, refrigerators. A tent city and tents are being broken up. It is conceived as follows: the cuisines of the regions of Russia are presented.

The reception is attended by 600 people, and therefore it was decided to hold it on the street, on Ivanovskaya Square.

RG | And here they are from St. Petersburg. Is Moscow not coping on its own?

Belyaev | What's wrong with the fact that there is a relationship, for example, between Mstislav Rostropovich and Yevgeny Prigozhin? And I have many friends in Moscow. They also call me and say: "Victor, can you organize a banquet or a birthday at my place?" It's the same here.

How can you hear? Welcome!

RG | Remember some unusual technique that you organized?

Belyaev | Every great trick is tricky. The reception on May 9 is very solemn, because it is sacred: the veterans are coming. And we take care of them, and we conduct training with waiters in a completely different way. I say: guys, you have to move the chair and give them a napkin. Do not move away from them. This is a special technique.

And there were so many events. I remember that I was still a simple cook, the chef calls me on December 28th. Says, they say, it is necessary to make a birthday tomorrow on Bolshaya Dorogomilovskaya. And now we need to go and discuss the menu with the hostess.

I'm coming. The door opens ... You know, it happens: when you see a well-known face, but you cannot remember right away, because you are stunned. We sat and talked ... And it was the famous actress Inna Makarova. We talked with her and then, on the second day, when I was cooking. And on the third, when there was a holiday. Then Sergei Gerasimov and his wife Tamara were still alive. Vyacheslav Tikhonov, Nonna Mordyukova, academician Petrovsky came ... Then Gerasimov asked: "Who cooked?" They answer him: a young man. "Call!" They put me at the table. It was so interesting to me: intellectual people, they sang ditties, and played the piano, and told anecdotes ... This is what is remembered.

Special rations

RG | Do you remember that earlier there were special rations in high structures?

Belyaev | We have an order table where we select a specific assortment. If people want, they order pastries, cakes. For Easter we bake muffins or so-called Easter cakes. And before it was individual: a pound of buckwheat, smoked sausage, a jar of black or red caviar ... We formed this. But now, of course, there is no such thing. Everything is a thing of the past.

Favorite dish

RG | What's your favourite dish?

Belyaev | Like Yuri Nikulin. We met with him once and he asks: "Victor, you are a cook. What is your favorite dish?" I say: “You know, in my childhood there was a store nearby. It was called Tsentrsoyuz. He replies:“ I remember such stores. So what? "." My grandmother gave me 60 kopecks. I went to the store and bought 10 cutlets. He fried and boiled noodles. "He looks at me like that:" You're not lying? "I say:" No. I love cutlets. "He half hugged me, and we began to laugh ... It turned out, and he loved cutlets with noodles.

And about cooking: I really love kharcho and tell everyone: eat lamb, this is the purest meat.

And about art

RG | I once had a case in Germany, on a business trip - during breakfast at a hotel table, I knocked over a coffee pot. The waiters reacted instantly, and in a minute no one would have believed that something had happened.

Belyaev | We also had a case. President Putin approached the buffet table at the Bolshoi Theater with Kuchma, the then President of Ukraine. And ... dropped the napkin. Despite her, Vladimir Vladimirovich mechanically begins to bend down, and the napkins are gone - one of the waiters raised them. He appreciated - looked like this ... This kind of work is an art.

Congratulations

On June 30, Viktor Borisovich Belyaev, the General Director of the Kremlevsky food processing plant, celebrates an anniversary. He turns 50. Rossiyskaya Gazeta congratulates him from the bottom of its heart and wishes him to continue to delight people with his art.

- The profession came to me unexpectedly. I graduated from the 8-year school on Pervomayskaya, in the working village of the Salut plant. We lived in a barrack. My father was replaced by my grandfather Pyotr Yegorovich, who returned from the front without a leg. When he found out that after the 8th grade I decided to enter the History and Archives College, my grandfather said: I don’t understand, you’ll sit in a dark room, all in ink and oversleeves, get 50 rubles, and what are you going to feed your family with? ..

One day he saw a sign on the door of a culinary school: Open House Day. He entered, and it had to happen: Valentina Petrovna Minaeva, my future master of industrial training, was walking towards him. She showed him everything, the grandfather came back and arranged a family council.

So I ended up at the school. A scholarship of 26 rubles, and only then 32 rubles - then it was money! Not to say that I liked everything right away, I didn’t want to be "give-and-bring" (once we cleaned boiled eggs in a restaurant for two weeks in a row). But I decided to study a profession, and then choose my own path.

- Did you start with the canteen?

- No. The first miracle happened: I was assigned to the Prague restaurant. Then it was an institution for the elite: turquoise, walnut, mirror halls, a winter garden, banquets of cosmonauts, diplomatic corps, patriarchy were held there - it was simply impossible to get there. And I got it. And just imagine, I had a high grade, fifth, and then - sixth and master chef. And I am a boy of sixteen, and there the cooks are thugs, they worked for this fifth grade of the decade ... I thought they would put me on banquets - no matter how it is. We put it on the blank, in the meat, and then in the fish shop. It's not like now - a clean fillet comes. Then there was the cutting of meat, butchering of poultry, we processed one ton of stellate sturgeon and sturgeon, tons of pike perch, because then in “Prague” there was still a chic convenience store. And it turned out that everything is for the best, because I went through all the steps, starting from the lowest one. Not the chef who can cut the stellate sturgeon, but the one who knows how to peel potatoes ...

Is this jellied fish disgusting?

- Then you entered the technical school, went to the army - when did the second miracle happen? And who helped?

- They always ask me: who? But it didn't work out for me. I first got to the Kremlin even before the army, in 1975 - we were sent there for service, and the chief noticed me there. And after the army, when I returned to "Prague", we went to banquets at the embassies. And when I again got to serve a banquet in the Kremlin, the chef called me and asked: do I want to work there?

I had a cookery teacher, Zinaida Vasilievna, she treated me very well, because for some reason I immediately began to cook deliciously salty and everything else. And her uncle was the director of the Kremlin's food group. And thanks to her, I ended up not in the cafeteria for the employees, but immediately in the special kitchen of the Kremlin. And then there were two tsarist kitchens: a special one - it fed members of the Politburo - and a special kitchen for members of the government. And I ended up in a special kitchen. Oh my god ... It was a separate and absolutely amazing production. When I entered there for the first time, I saw gas stoves from Goebbels' dacha, ten meters long, they were then converted to electric ones ... And I worked there for 14 years.

- That is, all or almost all of the first persons ate from your hands?

- The special kitchen was then fed by Alexei Nikolaevich Kosygin and the deputy chairmen, and every day there were small receptions, about ten people. We served both large and small parties. And even then, there were mansions on the Lenin Hills. And there I fed Fidel Castro, Margaret Thatcher, Indira Gandhi, Nixon, Kohl, Carter, Giscard D'Estaing - it's true, the list is long. It was terribly interesting. Firstly, such people, and secondly, we recognized foreign cuisines.

- And how could you please a person from another part of the world? After all, you knew nothing about these people, and the responsibility is unheard of.

- First came the advance brigade, protocolmen, doctors. And we were told who loves what. All living people, someone with chronic diseases ... But the representatives of the Arab countries differed sharply, because they did not eat our soups and our food, the ambassadorial cooks came, and we learned to cook the national food.

- How long did it take to study?

- You look twice - and everything worked out. Let's say the Chinese came. When they brought their trepangs, I shied away from them like the devil from incense. Such gelatinous, unpleasant-looking - but everything worked out, of course.

- So, not everyone liked Russian cuisine?

- No, everyone loved Russian cuisine. Such was the case with Indira Gandhi. She liked how I made the yolk noodles. She came into the kitchen and asked for a recipe. Then, a few months later, she flew to some forum, and I got into this shift. And she specially came and said: my family liked it so much, I cooked it myself, and it turned out just extraordinary. It was nice. Firstly, it looks beautiful, these noodles ...

- A woman, even if it is the Prime Minister of India, will never pass by beauty, but what about men?

- Yes you! In 1987, because of beauty, I had psychological stress when Nixon arrived. They call me and say: you will serve. And he was not already then president, he was supposed to fly as a mediator at the meeting between Reagan and Gorbachev in Reykjavik. It is not clear what to cook. Well, I decided to do something neutral. I ordered milk veal, stuffed with carrots, onions - and in the oven. And then they say: the plane is delayed for four hours. I think: what to do with veal? There were no ovens then. And in the old days, as they did: if the bottom is on fire, they put a pot of water, steam comes from below, here's the oven for you. So I put the veal on a small light, covered it with foil, and in four hours I got it just fabulous. And I also needed a snack. A note should be made here. There has always been a large table in the mansions, with a 12-meter heraldic tablecloth on it. And according to the rules, we put out at least fifteen snacks. That is, in addition to the ready-made gastronomic slicing, something of its own must have been present. And I had to fantasize. And it was necessary to decorate in such a way that if, for example, a fish platter was decorated with a fence made of fresh cucumber, this fence could no longer be put on a meat platter, there had to be its own pattern everywhere. So, it was necessary to make a rose from a tomato, a bell from a carrot ... And we worked miracles.

Finally Nixon arrives. He enters the dining room, with the translator. I'm getting ready to serve veal, an hour has passed, and the waiters are gone. Just awful. Finally appear. And the time is the first hour of the night. I say: what happened? They answer: but he does not eat. What is it? And he drank a glass of burgundy, walks and takes pictures of everything. And he says: you can't eat such beauty ... Well, of course, American cuisine is meager, they don't do anything like that, this is our tradition. Then he sat down. The waiters say: I haven't touched the pattern on any dish. I ate a piece of veal. Well, you can go home. I took off my uniform and went up to the kitchen to get sandwiches for the drivers, they were sitting hungry. I come, and there is Nixon. Stands and asks: where is the boss? And I was young, thin, curly ... And so he smiled, shook hands, patted on the shoulder and said: Manifik! Everything is delicious.

- Were there any capricious guests?

- There were, and a lot. South Koreans, Romanian delegation. Do you know what the Romanians did? A man sits holding a glass of red wine and suddenly begins to slowly pour wine onto the tablecloth. And then he says: oh, I made Red Square for you ...

- You also fed Vladimir Putin ...

- Yes, I have an unforgettable memory. On the 60th anniversary of the Victory in 2005, there was a festive reception in the Kremlin. A parade passed, and the heads of state went to the State Kremlin Palace for a banquet. The orchestra was playing, everything was unusually beautiful, Putin comes out for a welcoming speech. And suddenly there was some confusion at the table of the President of the United States. It turned out that Bush asked for non-alcoholic wine, but we were not told. The President of Russia makes a toast, but the distinguished American guest has an empty glass. We must pay tribute, we were not taken aback, called the nearest restaurant, found such a wine, and the car flew to the Kremlin. The situation was unpleasant for Bush, of course, and we asked the head waiter to wrap the bottle in a napkin and slowly open it, showing that we were serving wine - a whole performance ... On Putin's last toasts, a man rushes in with a bottle of this wine, and under our exhalation they poured a drink to the American guest. Have time! But, believe me, it cost everyone the nerves.

Once Viktor Borisovich Belyaev decided to try his hand at another country and left with his family to Syria. Where there: there was not enough black bread, kefir, herring, and the climate left much to be desired. I didn't like standing in the kitchen in 50-degree heat. And he returned home. This time he found himself at Stalin's nearby dacha - there they built something like a guest house for Gorbachev: a 3-storey building with an office, a library, a restaurant and rooms for 8-10 guests. And Belyaev was sent there as the director of the food group. While he was equipping an empty building, in which there were not even curtains, and receiving delegations who, like a museum, went to Stalin's dacha, protests began against privileges. Gorbachev never even came there. And the "nearest dacha" was closed.

Then Gorbachev was replaced by Yeltsin, and Borodin appeared, who began to collect old personnel. So Viktor Belyaev returned to the Kremlin. The Kremlevsky food processing plant holding was created, which he headed for 8 years. However, in 2008, after a heart attack, he left for free bread: 32 years of work in the main kitchen of the country made themselves felt. Although it seems that the president of the Russian Culinary Association has no less work.

Victor Belyaev and Richard Nixon.

Belyaev occupies two topics twenty-four hours a day. The first is the quality of the products on our table, the second is the Russian cuisine.

As for Russian cuisine, here he turns from a cook into an artist. And he stubbornly insists: Russian cuisine is a national treasure, the same as ancient Russian painting, architecture and songs. And what happened to her today? The trouble.

- Find today a restaurant with good Russian cuisine, where you can taste real jellied meat. Don't look! ..

So I gave a master class in the Far East. A Japanese man was working behind the wall. I had 9 dishes, and I cooked them for two days, and he had one - and he also cooked it for two days: sushi with tuna. The Japanese have fish and rice, and I have turkey with mousse, borshch with spicy croutons, which no one has ever heard of, a pike perch dish, cottage cheese butchers, and then they asked to add a filling soup. This is, after all, if boiling broth takes three hours, no less. And the daily cabbage soup is generally cooked for a day, cabbage is stewed for five hours. You see, Mediterranean cuisine, for example, is light, there I threw these shrimps in a frying pan, took their favorite dandelion - arugula, and that's it, the dish is ready. The same thing happens with any fish. But we cannot eat such food, because we don’t need a lot of fish protein, but we need meat protein, milk casein: we have a different climate, and the body requires a different food.

Pies or pancakes are a whole science. Refueling soups - too, and they take a long time. Meat takes a long time. They have pancakes on the water, and we have pancakes on the dough. The dough only needs to be lowered three times and before baking, pour boiling milk so that it is spongy. The fact that we left our kitchen is a big mistake. It definitely needs to be corrected.

As for the quality of the products that we have to eat, Viktor Belyaev and I talked about this as if we were a sick child.

- Where did the good bread go? All went to freeze. And why? Because the good flour has disappeared. Where did you go? As a cook, I see that the flour is not of the same quality, and our bread grows moldy due to a violation of the flour-making technology. At the Kremlevsky Combine, I refused frozen dough to the last. My pastry chefs came at half past six, put the dough, at ten o'clock the buffets began to work, and you have no idea what the smell was. And already at 11 o'clock all the baked goods were bought up clean. Well, I don't understand why they switched to foreign technologies for making bread!

The same can be said for milk. We lived in a workers' village in Izmailovo, it was the edge of the city. I went to school, and at the door there was a small can of milk, a jar of sour cream and sometimes a piece of butter. We were visited by a village woman who had three cows. And the glass could not be washed, it was milk.

- Do you believe that it can be returned?

- Do not return, but fix! The name of the country changed, and everyone became involved in politics. But you won't be full of politics. In no case should people be weaned from the land, from labor. See what happened. Everyone rushed to institutes, especially commercial ones, where they teach nothing. Result: good specialists have disappeared, including agronomists and livestock breeders. There are no pastures. The state sector was destroyed, but the farming sector was not created. And every year there is a decline in milk yield and in everything. There is a steady process of falling, only milk powder, moreover, imported, helps out. And practically all production is based on it. That is, we have almost no real cottage cheese, butter, sour cream.

- What happened to the potatoes?

- The same thing, but this is our second bread. In commodity research, we studied about 50 varieties of potatoes. We saw all this, there were practical exercises, they cooked it for us, fried it, explained where what grows. And today in Russia there are mainly imports, and what is most surprising - from China, and there is only one starch in it. And next to it is odorless Chinese garlic. And you know, for example, that potatoes must be calibrated, because large and small fruits cannot be stored together. The small one rots quickly, and the large one presses on the middle one, etc. Potatoes love black soil, but the Chinese do not have it - there is continuous chemistry in potatoes. Not only that: it is frozen and then fried in the worst oil. And such filth is served in the most expensive restaurants! This is what we did: the best varieties were gone, production stopped, storage rules were violated.

- I have a question about a picture in a store - from the last century ...

- Exactly. There used to be a picture in stores with a cow, where the names of the parts of the carcass were written. The picture has disappeared, since there is practically no meat on the bone now. It is believed that this is inconvenient, unprofitable, and it is no longer possible to find specialist cutters. Nowadays the menu of many restaurants includes ribeye and marbled meat. And everyone says: there is no marbled meat in Russia. Why so? It wasn't invented yesterday, and we had it. I remember when meat came from the Mikoyan factory, knowledgeable cooks immediately laid a thin edge in fatty fibers, because it was the softest and tastiest meat. That is, there were such breeds of cows. We have forgotten all ours.

- There is, for example, a Spanish national delicacy - jamon ...

- And there was our great forgotten brand: Tambov gammon. We invited experts and the President of the World Association of Culinary Experts to the first congress of culinary specialists in Yekaterinburg. Now in Russia a good Tambov ham is made at one plant. And I ordered ten legs there. We cut this ham as it should and invited the guests to try it. They ate everything and ask what is it? I answer: a Russian brand. And people say: this is better than ham ...

There is a special secret: it is soaked in a saline solution, then boiled, and then smoked. The method is unusual, but quite affordable. Why, one wonders, is it impossible to renew it? Why? Why buy this totally unaffordable jamon? Pork is very profitable, you need lightweight structures with a thermal perimeter. All this is not difficult to do. After all, we know how to do everything, and once there were legends about our cuisine and about our products ...

Finally, Viktor Borisovich told me two wonderful stories - about Kosygin and about Margaret Thatcher.

- Alexei Nikolaevich Kosygin remained in my memory as one of the most worthy people. I don’t presume to talk about him as a politician, but in everyday life he was a very modest person. The menu consisted of ordinary light soups, favorite buckwheat and cheese cakes. And he had one rule: either himself, or through assistants after the meal, he thanked all the employees. His personal chef told me such an incident. An American businessman came to see Kosygin, and the chef decided to surprise the American. And he made great canapes of black caviar in the form of dominoes. Real dominoes, like playing chips. The work was done just for jewelry. The American was surprised, but the chef received a reprimand from Kosygin for being overkill.

And Margaret Thatcher never stayed at the residence on the Lenin Hills and always lived only at the embassy. One morning she drove into the mansion and asked for a cup of tea. And one of the British employees advised her to try round pancakes with cottage cheese from a Russian chef for breakfast. At that time, I worked there to serve the delegation. I made butchers with cottage cheese for breakfast. The waiter came, and I put as many as five executioners on the platter for her. Imagine my amazement when the waiter said that Mrs Thatcher had eaten all the pancakes. The chef doesn't need the best gratitude. And suddenly the door opens, and Thatcher appears on the threshold of the kitchen - with a magnificent hairdo, in a strict suit and with a magnificent smile on his face. I stand in front of her as if in hypnosis, and this makes her smile even wider. She took off her glove, held out her hand to me and said in broken Russian: Thank you very much, sir. At that moment I was the happiest person on earth ...

Yes, I almost forgot. I asked Belyaev what he likes to eat. After all, the Kremlin chef. Perhaps, like Catherine II, he prefers boiled beef and dried reindeer tongue sauce? It turns out that such a question was once asked by Yuri Vladimirovich Nikulin. And he answered: cutlets with noodles. And Nikulin said: it can't be, me too!

Cooking is a job that is in demand and is often very, very well paid; what is much more important, on duty, cooks have to create for such people, whom ordinary mortals are often afraid to approach. Viktor Borisovich Belyaev has worked as a chef in the Kremlin for over 30 years, providing tasty and healthy food for the highest ranks of the Russian land. Belyaev is well aware of how receptions are arranged in the Kremlin and can tell a lot of interesting things about the gastronomic preferences of the mighty of this world.

Many are sincerely convinced that meals in the Kremlin are held in the style of a feast from "Ivan Vasilyevich Changes His Profession" - endless tables, expensive dishes, huge portions, barrels of overseas caviar ... In fact, there is not much truth in this.

Yes, quite large-scale receptions are often held in the Kremlin - for 1000-2000 people; Of course, there are also expensive dishes at these receptions. Often, however, they are served on the table and dishes are quite trivial - like the well-known herring under a fur coat or jellied meat. Local chefs also do not shy away from more complex recipes - like second courses of meat, fish or crab.

Organizing the New Year is not an easy task even for a family circle, where no more than a dozen people usually gather at the table; to receive more than 1000 guests is a task that is several orders of magnitude more serious. Of course, the Kremlin chefs do not postpone everything until the last day, and on December 30 they do not run to the supermarket to shop - in fact, the preparation process begins in September. For three months, the team manages to think over the menu in detail, work out the process of changing dishes (literally with a stopwatch in hand) and attend to other aspects of the protocol.

A menu for large-scale receptions is a rather unusual task. If a turkey or chicken "does not go" at home, you can always put it in the refrigerator and finish it after the holiday; if, after taking, 500 kilograms of fish remains unclaimed, there will be much more problems. That is why the main emphasis is placed not on large dishes (a la "meter-long pig with an apple in his mouth"), but on relatively small, individual-level snacks.

According to Viktor Belyaev, he did not have to endure any special whims from state leaders. Of course, there have always been subtleties; so, alcohol was contraindicated for Brezhnev in the second half of the 70s. Instead of brandy at receptions, the secretary general drank a special broth of wild rose with lemon juice - outwardly almost indistinguishable from brandy.

Our current rulers have no health problems yet, and no one forbids them to drink. Belyaev says that Vladimir Vladimirovich prefers good wines - mostly American, French, Chilean and South African. Wine in the Kremlin is generally relevant now - the days of whiskey and vodka are gradually receding into the past. The president (like the prime minister, by the way) prefers classic cuisine; during his career, he had the opportunity to travel around the world and get acquainted with a variety of national dishes.

Belyaev also cooked for foreign rulers - it just so happened that they were (and still are) in the Kremlin quite often. The guests were served mainly traditional Russian cuisine; many of the frequent guests of the Kremlin receptions even had their own favorites - for example, Fidel Castro had a weakness for tobacco chickens, Indira Gandhi loved Russian homemade noodles. Of course, at festive receptions there is too much time left for tasting the works of local chefs; however, this still does not mean that Kremlin chefs are allowed to be negligent in their work - who knows what a poorly fed politician is capable of?

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How did you decide to become a chef?

Sometimes they say to me: you probably loved to cook since childhood. Nothing like this. When I was finishing my 8-year school, everyone wanted to be astronauts. I was born in Izmailovo, a working-class village in Moscow, we had three children in our family, and my mother raised us alone. My grandfather, a front-line soldier, reached Berlin, lost his leg, was my father's place. I loved history, and am still fond of it, and submitted documents to the Historical Archives College. But then my grandfather told me: you will sit in a dark room, all in ink and oversleeves, receive 50 rubles, but how are you going to feed your family?

It was he who saw the announcement on the doors of the culinary school, went to the Open Day, met my future master of industrial training. And then at the family council he said: now is a good scholarship (first 26 rubles, and then 32, and that was money then) and you will get a profession.

Where did you start working?

I studied very well and got the fifth grade as one of the two students on the course, so I was assigned to the restaurant "Prague". There I first cleaned the eggs for two weeks. Of course, it was very boring, but now I can clean them with one hand, one movement. Then they were transferred to the meat and fish shops, cut the blanks, went through all the stages in the work, starting with the lowest. I found the old masters. They taught me how to sculpt pies, cut greens with two knives, peel herring in one fell swoop, hands without a knife.

Once we were sent to serve a banquet in the Kremlin, and the chief noticed me there. Then I went to the army, then I returned to "Prague" again. We went to banquets at the embassies. And when I got back to the Kremlin for service, the chef called me and offered me a job. Passed the inspection of the 9th department of the KGB and started in 1977.

Sometimes we were sent to mansions on Vorobyovy Gory. These are the residences of the leaders of foreign states when they come to us on official visits. The first person I cooked for was the general secretary of the Lao Communist Party. And my mentor was Stalin's personal chef, then he was already 79 years old. Then there were many heads of state. I served the ex-President of America Richard Nixon, Margaret Thatcher, Indira Gandhi, Fidel Castro, Helmut Kohl, French President Giscard D'Estaing, representatives of friendly socialist countries, scientists and artists.

Some of them are remembered for special preferences?

Yes, for example, Richard Nixon was very fond of fish, as he was an avid fisherman. And once I even had a chance to teach Indira Gandhi to cook. The fact is that their delegation lived for two weeks and the dishes were not supposed to be repeated. And I had already cooked everything I could and remembered the village recipe: noodles on goose yolks. When she ate it, she came to my kitchen to thank me personally and asked me to teach me how to cook this dish. Then, a few months later, when she was again in Moscow, she specially came to me and told me that her family really liked how she cooked these noodles herself and gave me a figurine of a Buddhist deity as a token of gratitude. I still keep it.

And of the Russian leaders who were they fed?

Everyone, from Brezhnev to Putin.

Who has your favorite food? - Leonid Ilyich preferred the ear. And Vladimir Vladimirovich loves ice cream. - What do you like to cook? - I just love to cook when I'm in a bad or good mood. I often go to the market, buy food and feed my family. Personally, I prefer ice cream made from Borodino bread. This is an old Russian recipe. Despite the fact that this is a dessert, sometimes it is an addition to appetizers or hot dishes. And from hot dishes I love the classics: cutlets with pasta. I believe that we should return with our national Russian cuisine. - Who, in your opinion, is the best cook: a man or a woman? - I believe that the work of a cook in the kitchen, where heavy pots are always hot, is still for men. But this does not mean that a woman should not be a mistress. My wife is also a cook. We met when we worked at Prague. Women are very good at making confectionery: they decorate cakes beautifully, they have more subtle taste preferences. - What do you need to do to climb the career ladder? - It all depends on your desires and capabilities. Someone is quite comfortable with working in one place for many years and there is nothing wrong with that. For example, my classmate has been preparing soups for 20 years in one of the Moscow restaurants. And no matter how much I offered to arrange somewhere, he replied that he was happy in his place. I, probably, differ in leadership qualities, I can lead people. For 31 years he worked in the Kremlin from a cook to the general director of the Kremlin food factory. He constantly studied while working. First, a public catering college, then graduated from the Plekhanov Institute. When he became a director, he received a second higher education - economics. Recently graduated from the English School of Management. I am constantly learning and advising you. - How can one learn modern trends in the regions? - I am the president of the national culinary association. Since 1993 we have been permanent members of WACS - the World Association of Chef Communities. We are now in Moscow working on the creation of a national culinary academy. She will train students and improve the skills of already working chefs. A branch of the national culinary academy will be created in Samara.

In March, Yekaterinburg will host the First Congress of Russian Culinary Experts, at which a program will be adopted for the preservation of Russian cuisine - its cult recipes and age-old traditions. The event is hosted by the Interregional Association of Culinary Experts, which is run by Victor Belyaev. In the past, he is a Kremlin chef, for eight years - from 2000 to 2008 - he headed the Federal State Unitary Enterprise "Food Factory" Kremlin "of the Administrative Department of the President of the Russian Federation. In total, Belyaev worked in the Kremlin for 30 years, fed top officials from different countries and knows for sure: the level of responsibility does not depend on who has to be fed - workers, soldiers, students or leaders of states. For the kitchen should always be high.

- Why did you leave the Kremlin, Viktor Borisovich?

Heart attack. More than thirty years of work have left their mark. After the hospital and rehabilitation, I still went to work, “beat off” an appointment on the occasion of May 9 and left. And then I realized for myself that it was probably enough. There is experience gained behind the Kremlin wall. Sometimes these were tough lessons, perhaps unfair, but useful in relation to the profession, which allowed them to develop self-discipline.

- How did you get behind the Kremlin wall?

At the end of the 8th grade, I was faced with the question of choosing a profession. I was fond of history and decided to apply to the Historical Archives College not far from my house, in Izmailovo. But my fate was changed by my grandfather, a reasonable man who went through the whole war. He often visited the beer bar on 16th Parkovaya, not far from which the culinary school was located. And one day, putting aside a glass of beer and stories about the war, I went there - there was an open day at the school. And such a coincidence must happen - I immediately met my future mentor Valentina Petrovna Minaeva. She asks him: "Grandpa, did you come to enroll?" He explained to her that he had a grandson, who decided to spend his whole life in oversleeves. That was his idea of ​​working in archives. Valentina Petrovna took her grandfather to the culinary school, showed what and how. Excited, he returned home, poured himself some vodka and said to my mother: "Call Vitka here!" And he began to paint for me - and you will learn the craft, and you are full, and your nose is in tobacco. Mom with hostility: “How ?! Trade?! Theft?! In no case!" To which the grandfather gave out the historical phrase: “Nink, do not worry! From a little big - not theft, but carve-up. " I was an obedient guy, took the documents from the historical archives and submitted them to the culinary. He graduated with honors and was assigned to "Prague" - the main restaurant in Moscow. And then there was such a system: the best restaurants sent chefs, waiters, head waiter to the Kremlin to serve state receptions. So in 1975 I got to the event on the occasion of the 30th anniversary of the Victory. I remember entering the Trinity Gate of the Kremlin on trembling legs. And to get to the special kitchen, it was necessary to pass three checkpoints, where they looked at the passport and checked against the list. I walked past the Amusing Palace and the Palace of Congresses and saw a memorial plaque: "Vladimir Ilyich Lenin lived and worked in this building." My legs gave way completely. I got to the diplomatic annex at the Palace of Congresses, where they received foreign ambassadors. I was immediately assigned to make a banquet platter of fish. When I was still a boy, I did not hold the knife firmly, but then the requirements were very high. It was impossible to hack the fish somehow, it was necessary to cut it off exactly in one motion. And if you make a "step", then the technologists immediately rejected the dish. We began to take the dishes into the diplomatic room, and suddenly the entire Politburo enters, headed by Brezhnev. Here the sweat finally broke through me.

Over time, they looked at me closely, and from "Prague" I switched to the special kitchen of the Kremlin and the USSR Council of Ministers. I found cooks, pastry chefs who were working under Khrushchev. We had one old, old pastry chef who also worked in tsarist times. He was only invited to serious events. He taught me, for example, how to correctly make a "string" on a pie. In general, I was lucky to have mentors. Fate brought one of them together while working "on mansions" - this is a complex of residences on the then Lenin Hills, where government delegations from different countries stayed. There was a regular party congress, and the chef called me in the evening: "Our cook is ill, we have to go to the eleventh mansion." As I remember now, there was a delegation from Laos. And two cooks were always sent to the service. One veteran who could cook something from the old kitchen, and the second was younger. I go into the kitchen and say hello to a tall gray-haired elderly man. He introduced himself as Vitaly Alekseevich - the chef of the government rest house "Sosny". As it turned out, it was the personal chef of Alexei Nikolaevich Kosygin. And from 1945 to 1953 he served as a cook for Stalin.

He told me about his last day at work with Joseph Vissarionovich. His change at the dacha of the leader fell on the day he died. On the threshold of the house he was met by a young mistress sister Valya Istomina, who seemed to have a certain relationship with Stalin: "Vitaly, there is a car at the door, take your children, your wife and quickly leave." With this she saved him, because Beria destroyed most of the people from Stalin's servants. And Vitaly Alekseevich always went to the grave of Istomina once a month - he remembered with kindness. He was a cook from God. I never said "carrots" or "potatoes", but always "potatoes", "carrots". Taught me to chop greens with two knives. It seems like a trifle. But it turns out that roughly chopping parsley is wrong, because the greens must be crushed to such a state that the juice goes out of it, then the smell of essential oils will appear.

Probably, every master has some kind of weakness. For example, at that time I was afraid to approach the test. There is a rule: when you work with dough, the aura of your hands is transmitted to it. But I didn't know that then. I didn’t know that the dough should be approached in a good mood, otherwise the baking would not work. I didn’t know that bread felt in hands. And so Vitaly Alekseevich taught me: when you start kneading dough or even cooking, hum your soul songs. I remember looking at him like an eccentric. And he sang with might and main: "Oh, the viburnum is blooming!" You will be surprised, but I still don’t know the name of my mentor. I was interested in the FSO, but I haven’t found out yet. However, there is nothing surprising: the personal chefs of the first persons have always been classified.

- Was it hard to work "on mansions"?

The operating mode is unpredictable. The delegation could arrive late at night from the Bolshoi Theater and ask for dinner. Therefore, we could leave at 10 pm and at 2 am. There were different delegations. We went to the Indians to work “under the gun,” because they have more than a hundred nationalities there, and some don't eat eggs, some don't drink milk. If all delegations came to the dining room at the same time for breakfast, lunch and dinner, then the Indians separately carried food on trays to each room.

Once a delegation from Korea, which was unfriendly to us then, arrived, and, probably, they somehow wanted to betray their attitude towards the Soviet Union. What was the mansion dining room like? This is a banquet hall with 36 seats. On a large oval table there is a linen tablecloth, 12-meter high, snow-white. And in the middle are embroidered coats of arms of the union republics. It took an hour just to lay her down. Waiters and head waiter always carefully monitored the cleanliness of the tablecloth. If it was a small dot, it was covered with chalk. And Koreans liked to ask for a glass of red wine for breakfast or lunch, then someone "accidentally" spilled wine on a snow-white tablecloth: "Oh, I made Red Square here." Mocked ...

I remember Vitaly Alekseevich talking about a delegation from some Arab country - either Libya or Lebanon. They arrived at the next party congress, settled in a mansion, changed clothes on the way, washed their hands, sat down at the table, and suddenly everyone, as if on command, got up and left. And immediately a note of protest was sent to the Foreign Ministry. Scandal! The committee members came in large numbers. They began to sort it out, it turned out: the delegation was hurt that only red caviar was served on the table. The fact is that caviar is our national product, a symbol of hospitality, so it has always been displayed on the table in mansions. But it alternated: day - black, day - red. But on the arrival and departure of the delegation, we always put both one and the other, because in both cases, according to the protocol, our Minister of Foreign Affairs came. And this time, for some reason, they only put on the red one. And in order to ameliorate the conflict, next time each member of this Arab delegation was given a four-portion caviar dish with black caviar - and this is more than 200 grams. To each! The dinner ended, Vitaly Alekseevich drove to the house, sat down near the entrance, and he had his first heart attack.

And I happened to feed Indira Gandhi, Eric Honecker, Helmut Kohl, and Valerie Giscard d'Estaing. Once I was able to please even Margaret Thatcher, who, in general, never used our services, she was served by the chefs at the embassy. But somehow, on one of her visits, she went down to the dining room, when the whole delegation had already had breakfast. She was served a cup of tea, toast, jam, juice. And someone suddenly says to her: "Today, just wonderful pancakes - executioners!" She became interested: "What kind of executioners are they?" And they have already eaten everything. I had to quickly bungle them out of cottage cheese, bake and present six pieces to her. She ate all six. The next two days I went down to breakfast, and I already had the executioners ready for her. She came to the kitchen, thanked and, taking off her glove, personally shook my hand. As a keepsake from Thatcher, I have a small booklet with the program of her visit to Moscow. One of the points there was the laying of flowers at the Lenin Mausoleum. She crossed out this item, put three exclamation marks and signed.

But, of course, you cannot please everyone. Once the leader of Laos, Kayson Phomvihan, arrived, I still remember his name. The maids complained that he had a terrible stench in his bedroom. The guards were worried: maybe the mouse died there. When the dignitary left, they went to check and saw boxes with eggs under the bed. But the eggs were already rotten. It turns out that every morning he drank two or three of these eggs - a delicacy.

Of course, communicating with world leaders was an event. Before the arrival of each delegation, and especially from the capitalist countries, an operative was assembled, led by a KGB officer and explained: “No communication, no transmissions, no petitions. You are here to feed, water, clean. " We called the door from the kitchen to the dining room "the border of the Soviet Union." And only waiters and head waiter had the right to pass through it. They told us what was happening at the table. So from the head waiter, I learned about the reaction of the 37th President of the United States, Richard Nixon, to the dishes I cooked. It was the mid-80s. Nixon came to Moscow as a mediator in the negotiations between Gorbachev and Reagan on disarmament. I was very worried and thought for a long time what to cook. On the hot side I decided to serve veal stewed in milk. Due to bad weather, Nixon's plane was delayed, in my opinion, for four hours. Dinner was in jeopardy. But finally Nixon arrived, walked into the dining room, and forty minutes later the maitre d 'appeared: “You know, he hasn’t sat down at the table yet. They poured him Bordeaux, and he walks with his secretary Diana, takes pictures of the dishes and repeats in French: “Delightful! Delightful! " And I understand him perfectly. For example, the snack portion of that dinner consisted of about 15 courses. These are four types of fish snacks - salmon, stellate sturgeon, marinated pike perch, aspic. Then meat snacks - rolls, boiled pork, tenderloin in an egg. Three salads are a must, including natural vegetables. Everything was served on heraldic vessels, but the coat of arms itself could not be closed. It was decorated in a circle with lemon and herbs, and next to it they laid out the main product, also necessarily decorated. It was necessary not only to put the fish, but to dissolve the lemon, make a picket fence, a tomato rose, various spirals and bells, and the decoration of a fish and meat snack could not be repeated in any case. A special technologist controlled the whole thing.

Finally, Nixon began his supper, ate with gusto, trying not to disturb the fanciful patterns on the plates. The waiter brought the tea, and I started to get ready for home. Time - the first hour of the night, I went downstairs, where the "Volga" on duty was waiting for me. And the drivers are always hungry, and I decided to get up for a minute to grab some sandwiches with me. I went in and saw - Nixon was standing in the middle of the kitchen, he saw me: "Is there a chief?" He shook my hand, hugged me and again: “Delightful, Victor! Delightful! " I didn’t come home myself, I said to my wife: “Imagine, the president of America himself shook my hand”.

And the next morning the following happened. By 9 o'clock the car brought me to the residence and, so as not to wake up the guests, dropped me off at the entrance gate. From the checkpoint it was necessary to walk three hundred meters. I was walking and suddenly I heard a whistle. I turn to the ensign: "Why are you whistling?" And the ensign shows me with his eyes somewhere upward. I look up, Nixon is standing on the balcony in a dressing gown and whistling to me. I didn’t know then that the whistle of the Americans was an expression of delight. I waved back to him. He lived in Moscow for a week, we began to communicate. He turned out to be an avid fisherman and asked him to cook fish on a hot meal.

During his visit, Nixon made three requests to Gorbachev. Mikhail Sergeevich satisfied only two. The first request was to take him to Zavidovo, where they once rested with Brezhnev. The dacha in Zavidovo was mothballed, but it was opened especially for such a guest. We fried kebabs. Nixon walked around and recalled how and where they were photographed with Leonid Ilyich.

The second request was as follows. He and Brezhnev went to some collective farm market, and this visit sunk into Nixon's soul so much that he decided to repeat it. They searched the archives, it turned out that we were talking about the Cheryomushkinsky market. They took him there, he says: “Let's not stir up the excitement. I'll go with Diana and one guard. " He thought he would not be recognized. He buttoned his coat so that the tie was not visible. The guards dispersed around the perimeter. But Nixon was figured out in a moment. And it began: some shoves fruit for him, some nuts, some flowers. Everyone is in a hurry to shake hands, reaching out for autographs. In short, he was stuck there for three hours. Finally returns to the mansion. We have everything ready, the table is set, but Nixon still does not come out. We look out the window, and he walks through the garden, and we can see that he is all on his nerves. The following was found out. At the exit from the market, an old woman met him on the steps and handed him two bags of seeds: “Make it so that there is no more war. I lost three sons in the war. " This was probably one of those times when he didn't know what to do. He took the bags, seemed to reach into his pocket for money, but apparently changed his mind in time, bent down to the woman and kissed her hand. After that, he came to his senses for a long time. A normal living person.

And Gorbachev never complied with the third request. Two days before his departure, Nixon came to see Mikhail Sergeevich. The latter asked him if there were any comments. He says: “Everything is fine, but there is one remark: I live in an excellent residence and there is a gorgeous chef who should be given a star for such a job. If you will allow, I would take him with me to America to teach my chef how to cook fish. " True, they told me all this later, when Nixon left. As you can imagine, I saw neither the stars nor America. And Nixon and I then took a picture for memory together. I received this picture with the caption: "To Viktor Belyaev, a truly great chef, with gratitude from Richard Nixon." I also gave a photo with my daughter. A couple of months later, at some event, the director of the food group came up to me: "Oh, Victor, I completely forgot: Gorbachev asked me to convey his gratitude."

- What was the difference between working "in mansions" from working in the Kremlin, for example, at state receptions? What were they all about?

What is a state receptionist in the Kremlin? This is a very serious event, the requirements for which are still high. A package of documents is drawn up, consisting of 50-60 pages - a menu, an estimate, trainings. For example, we started preparing for the New Year's reception in September. The menu is consistent with the protocol service. After that, test dishes are made, a table arrangement is prepared depending on the number of guests, and it usually amounted to about a thousand people. And all this is the country's elite. Therefore, the installation has always been like this: serving the table, for example, at number 115 should not differ from serving the first, main table.

Naturally, waiters from the best restaurants in Moscow and leading colleges are invited to large receptions, as in Soviet times. For them, route sheets are drawn up: where people should come, where they can change, where to eat, where to smoke, where they should not go. In total, about 300 people are involved in servicing the state reception. At special trainings, before the start of the reception, the waiters put on their uniforms, and we used the stopwatch to determine how much the waiters had to go from distribution to the table in order to serve the guest. Simultaneous serving was also perfected, when, at the signal of the foreman, the plates were put on the table. What is all this for? The reception is always accompanied by a concert. Therefore, you need to get in with the takeout of dishes, for example, during a break between rooms. Everything was calculated in seconds. Most of all, we were afraid of force majeure, when one of the guests makes an unexpected speech or one of the artists drags on the song without a pause. And this happened.

Do you know what we were always worried about at the reception? We cooked everything so deliciously. And the president tried the cold appetizer, only a hot one was served, and the people were already reaching out to him. How many times have we warned both the protocol service workers and the FSO: "Guys, let us at least serve dessert, then let the people through." But more often than not, the president himself nods his head - they say, skip it. And that's all - he gets up, starts talking, everyone wants to talk to him. The head of state does not really manage to eat at the receptions. And then, what is a protocol event during an official visit of a person? Well, imagine. No matter how experts in etiquette Vladimir Vladimirovich or Dmitry Anatolyevich are, there is still a double load: you have to talk and eat decently. And thousands of eyes, cameras are directed at you. What kind of food is there? On the sidelines somewhere, maybe they get pleasure from fried potatoes, cabbage, steamed glasses. But this, believe me, happens very rarely.

- In 2000, you headed the Kremlin food processing plant and headed it for eight years. What kind of "special service" is this?

As such, the food plant was created under me. Before that, there was a separate food factory in the State Kremlin Palace, food factory No. 2 in the 14th building of the Kremlin, which served the administration, and a food factory on Staraya Square, which fed the FSO. The first building of the Kremlin, where the heads of state work, served a special kitchen and special buffets, which appeared during the time of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. In 2000, it was proposed to drain the food factories, and I was asked to take over this business. Food factories of the Central Election Commission and the Bolshoi Theater also joined the structure being created. I called it the "Bermuda Triangle" - the Kremlin, Old Square, Bolshoi Theater. I was subordinate to 1,200 people who were responsible for the work of canteens, 115 canteens and, of course, for food for the first persons of the state. But it should be noted that the first persons have personal chefs - their work is in charge of the FSO. In Soviet times, personal chefs belonged to the 9th department of the KGB, they were all questioned. Although we were also tested, they were visible through to the 15th knee, and they were all liable for military service. And now there is a special cuisine. And in places where the first persons of the state live, only personal chefs cook. But this is not one person, but several, working in shifts. If you need to feed the president and his wife, then, of course, one person is enough. And if the president has some kind of home event, then cooks and waiters come to help. This system has been preserved since Soviet times. At large receptions, the first persons are also served by a special kitchen. We made the menu together, because both guests and hosts should prepare the same dishes. Get into personal chefs in different ways. It happens that an acquaintance. Mostly they invite professionals from the country's leading restaurants and look closely at them. The special services must check on their own lines. But now this is easier. Earlier, for example, if your father was tried even for a minor offense, you could not get to work in the Kremlin.

- How are the products that get to the table of top officials checked?

All batches of products are preliminarily sent to a chemical laboratory. A check is underway for the content of heavy metals, pesticides, and other harmful substances. It's simple: if the product rolls over according to sanitary standards, it is rejected.

- And what, there were never punctures?

In my memory, never. Is that such a case. Somehow one of the deputies of Kosygin was poisoned and ended up in intensive care. We all began to be checked for smears, for bacterial analysis. While they were studying the blood tests, while taking the pictures, a day and a half passed, and then it turned out that it was his mother-in-law who fed the mushrooms that she herself collected in Barvikha.

- But what about the recent sensational story with the worm in the plate of Governor Zelenin at the Kremlin reception?

I categorically declare: this could not be. From time immemorial there has been, is, and, I hope, will be, in the Kremlin on this score, iron discipline and the highest responsibility. Let's say the waiters are already putting the appetizer on the tables. We instruct them: when you carry the dishes and put them on the table, look, suddenly somewhere something has turned over, suddenly somewhere something is hurt, suddenly something is not right. Before the very beginning of the reception, the cooks come out into the hall. They have gloves on their hands. They once again carefully examine everything and, if necessary, correct. In addition, all dishes are prepared by hand. The same greens are thoroughly washed and sorted out. Therefore, by definition, there could not be a worm in Zelenin's plate.

- Where did the products come from and are delivered to the Kremlin?

How was it during the Soviet Union? Let's say the next party congress is convened. Delegations come from all over the world, the delegates alone are about six thousand people. To feed them, it took a whole army of cooks and mountains of food. Distribution orders were issued to the secretaries of the regional committees, and carts were drawn from all over the country to Moscow: from Belarus - dairy products, from the south - fruits, from Moldova and Dagestan - brandy, from the Baltic states - lampreys and sprats, from Ukraine - sausage in porcelain barrels. Now, of course, things are different. There is no shortage. Any company is able to supply any product, the only question is the quantity and price. Another thing is that today you have to work mainly with foreign products. We do not have our own good cucumbers, many varieties of apples have disappeared, the quality of dairy and sour-milk products has deteriorated, meat is brought from all over the world. All this leads to the disappearance of the national cuisine.

- Is it more difficult today to surprise people at state receptions than, say, 20 years ago?

More difficult, of course. Both Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin and Dmitry Anatolyevich Medvedev are young people who have traveled a lot around the world. And people who have visited different countries and have tasted different cuisines come to the receptions. And therefore, since 2000, the state receptions themselves have changed significantly. Before that, huge long tables were placed - I called them "ships". To be honest, they didn't look very pretty. Saved the entourage - the beautiful walls of the St. George Hall, chic chandeliers. But Putin's protocol service decided to change all this. First of all, they refused from the maximum set of dishes. In Soviet times, at receptions, there were three to four kilograms of food per person! Will you eat that much in two minutes? All this was irrational and wasteful. But it was supposed to put fashion dishes on the tables - whole stellate sturgeon, piglets. This demonstrated the scale: here we are, Russia, we have an abundance, mountains of pies, caviar with spoons! At Soviet receptions, do we know what we rubbed on? On shaped ice cutting. Caviar was not just served. The ice was used to make forms in the form of the Kremlin wall. First, water was poured into the pans, where it solidified, and then they cut it out with a blowtorch. Now there are special electric jigsaws for such a thing, but then everything was cut out with a knife. When the mold is ready, it is dipped in beetroot paint to give the desired color. And in the resulting ice figure, at first, a cupronickel was placed, and a glass caviar dish was put into it, and in this way the caviar was served on the table. Nice, no words!

For sturgeon, there were also special forms - razlett so that the fish looked in all its glory, and even decorated with mayonnaise, cranberries, herbs. Whole pedestals for fish dishes were erected: water was poured into a transparent container, like into an aquarium, and small fish were launched there. All this was highlighted. Imagine: the chandeliers were on fire, the anthem of the Soviet Union began to sound, the guests came in, and on the tables there were handsome pigs, sturgeon, caviar! The fruits were placed in ruby ​​vases. And there were about two hundred such vases. They were lined up on a table along a taut thread to maintain symmetry.

But all this splendor collapsed under Gorbachev. The rich dishes disappeared somewhere, the table became scarce. Under Boris Nikolaevich, there were attempts to return everything, Pavel Pavlovich Borodin bribed something. But under Vladimir Vladimirovich, the Russian table is practically a thing of the past. On the other hand, they set up round tables, which, by the way, is very cool, chair covers appeared, and the reception hall was transformed. Changes to the menu also followed. First of all, the appetizer was minimized. They began to put only small pies for two bites and fruit on the table. From vases with large oranges, apples and grapes, we switched to small vases with berries - raspberries, blueberries, blackberries, pinned on a “needle”. Serving of dishes began to take place according to the European standard - not everything on the table at once, but in turn: first a cold appetizer, then a hot one, then the main course and dessert. And they seem to have abandoned the imperial scope, they began to move away from Russian cuisine, but somewhere in 2003, at a meeting on preparation for the next reception, I hear: Russian table. Let's not forget the national cuisine. Let's serve herring again under a fur coat, jellied meat. " To say one thing, but how to serve them as a banquet? Found a way out. Herring under a fur coat is now served in small pie plates, and jellied meat is simply poured in tiny glass forms.

- The person at the desk is one hypostasis. The person at the set table is completely different. Has it ever happened that during a high feast, people opened up from a completely unexpected side?

Constantly being in officialdom is hard. Of course, in everyday life, many of the top officials are completely different. I rarely managed to be at the same table with them, but, for example, the departed Patriarch Alexy II always invited them to the table, was a very interesting storyteller, loved to recall episodes from his childhood and youth. And in the process of communication, he became such a close person that it seemed as if you knew his long life well. You did not feel squeezed, but began to dissolve in his stories, easily kept up the conversation.

Evgeny Maksimovich Primakov, God grant him health, is also like that. He is a human soul. Easily opened and entered any company. He could skillfully lead the table, like a toastmaster. Pavel Pavlovich Borodin is the same. Once at the table, he loved to tell jokes and at the same time he himself burst into laughter. When I found myself at the same table with Zhirinovsky, I saw in him the sweetest and kindest person. You can sit and sit with him in the company. But with Boris Nikolaevich it was not easy, he strained, because he always made heavy toasts, and each time he had to drink to the bottom, because he personally followed this. At the same time, I don’t remember a case of someone getting drunk at receptions. Some kind of inner discipline kept me going. I saw people who were drunk, cheerful, but they apparently knew the line when to stop. Or they were skillfully stopped.

In Soviet times, at the insistence of doctors, we went to the cunning about alcohol. At receptions, Moldovan cognac was displayed on the main table, and next to it was the same bottle, but filled with rosehip decoction, to which a little lemon was added for shine. It is completely indistinguishable from a real skate. When everyone saw that they were drinking cognac at the first table, and even quacking, everyone had the impression: "Oh, they are still drinking, they are still healthy, so everything is fine!"

- Did anyone know how to cook from the first persons? Take, for example, and fry a barbecue or cook a fish soup?

I saw how Alexei Nikolaevich Kosygin cooked kebabs. And judging by the pleasure with which he did it, it seemed to me that this was not the first time. But Boris Nikolayevich Yeltsin loved to teach how to cook fish soup, what fish and how much to put.

- Have you met fastidious or, say, gourmets?

The current leaders of the country have not been noticed in anything like that, they are unpretentious. And I met the leaders of the Soviet era at an age when most of them were already deeply sick people. The doctors were careful to ensure that we gave them all that pureed, dietary. In the Brezhnev family, I worked three times in Zavidovo. The simplest requirements: porridge, omelet, sausage, cheese. No overseas products. I remember that in those years the doctors forced Leonid Ilyich to quit smoking, but he always had a pack of Novost cigarettes somewhere nearby, sometimes he smoked a Marlboro and sometimes, when he was driving to Zavidovo, he asked his attached driver: “Volodya, light a cigarette. " Volodya was a non-smoker, but he took a cigarette and lit it.

Kosygin was also very simple to eat. He was very fond of buckwheat, cheese cakes. But once he struck me with his knowledge. There was a small reception of about twenty people for the Korean delegation, only this time friendly to us. There was a menu on the table. Kosygin decided to check if the guests know our cuisine well. He took the menu and reads: "Borshchok with a pie." Koreans say: "Well, we know, beets, cabbage." “No,” explains Kosygin, “you don’t know anything. Borshchok is an old Russian dish. When you try, you will be stunned. " They ask him: "How do you know?" He says he read it in some book. And borshchok is a really rare dish: hazel grouse broth, combined with a strong broth of beets and seasoned with a spoonful of brandy. In the old days, they always cooked it with them on the hunt. The strong broth provided nutritional value, the beets peeled, and the cognac invigorated.

True, with some foreign guests the passion for Russian cuisine played a cruel joke. There was an incident in the Kremlin when we served the Mongolian delegation. It happened in May, and we decided to serve small young potatoes to the table. Boiled it, fried it. During the reception, one guest put a whole potato in his mouth and decided to talk to someone, and she got up in his throat. The unfortunate man began to choke. The committeemen ran in and put a man at each door. You never know what happened, suddenly a provocation. We were very nervous then. And the poor man was saved by two of our guards. They took him by the legs, shook him, and everything spilled out of him along with those potatoes.

- Do you think Russian cuisine is well known abroad?

Not bad, I think. Once at one of the congresses of the World Association of Communities of Chefs, delegations from different countries - about five hundred people - gathered for the final evening. Buffet. And on the tables there is only bread and butter. Half an hour passes. They carry nothing. But the Russians have everything with them. We got caviar, herring, black bread, vodka, bacon from the diplomats. All of Europe, then America, then Asia began to pull up to our table. Finally, the then president of the association, Bill Gallagher, steps onto the stage: "I have always said that while the Russians are drinking, they are invincible."

- Do you pass on experience?

Of course! I give lectures at Plekhanov University and try to explain to the guys so that they, learning the craft, do not forget about the national cuisine. He headed the Association of Russian Culinary Experts, and we declared 2010 the year of Russian cuisine in order to draw people's attention to the fact that you need to eat our usual food. But now the promotion of Russian cuisine in large metropolitan areas is useless. Fast food reigns supreme. And it's a shame in such a situation, rather not for the profession, but for the entire food industry. She dies. Recently, for some reason, it is generally accepted that people eat exclusively in restaurants. But for some reason they forget that there is baby food, there is preschool, school, student, military, sports, hospital, social. We have moved away from cooking as a science. For example, in my thesis, I studied the nutrition of Uralmash workers. If you and I need from 2800 to 3000 kilocalories per day, then a worker needs 1500-2000 more to work effectively in a hot shop. A worker who took a bite and got 2500 instead of 5000 calories, half an hour later thinks not about labor productivity, but about what is sucking in his stomach. And it makes no difference whether it is a worker or an office worker. But today few people think about it. Here we are - thinking ...