After relaxing on the Black Sea coast in the famous resort of Sochi, I want to remember these places for as long as possible. In the company of close relatives and friends, it is pleasant to tell about a happy vacation trip. At the same time, be sure to give them a small souvenir that smells of the sea, sun, exotic plants. It is much easier to realize a pleasant tradition if you first find out information about what to bring from Sochi as a gift.
Wine
Good southern wine has long been a souvenir # 1. Popular brands are red "Merlot", white "Chardonnay Cru Lermont", sparkling "Riesling young". If you want to buy homemade wine, you need to clarify the information about the manufacturer. There are many quality homemade wines in Sochi. There are huge shopping arcades with local wine in the Central Market.
It is useful to try their quality during your vacation: buy in the market, visit the "Wine Cellar" in Khost, a restaurant on Agurskoe Gorge Street, where drinks are prepared according to their own recipes. The original drink of their mulberry, blackberry is recommended to be purchased in Adler, Lazorevsky. When deciding to buy wine in official retail outlets, it is useful to focus on the products of Fanagoria.
Chacha
An excellent gift for a man will be a beautiful bottle, decorated with a bunch of grapes, filled with a strong drink belonging to the brandy class. This is not a local moonshine. The history of making chacha (Georgia, the word "chacha" is translated "pomace") goes back to ancient times and developed along with the technology of distillation.
Chacha is a stronger alcoholic beverage than vodka, whiskey, brandy. Nowadays, industrial and home production of the drink is actively developing. In 2011, a patent was issued for its production in Georgia.
There are different options for recipes for making chacha: not only from certain grape varieties of Rkatsiteli, Kachich, Isabella, but also with the addition of figs, cherry plums, tangerines. It is recommended to buy chacha as a gift in shops, small shops selling wine. Private products may be worse.
Smoked fish
It's nice to receive a golden, aromatic smoked fish as a gift after processing according to local recipes. Its extraordinary aroma lifts the mood and induces appetite. You can buy it in the market from local fishing people, or a factory product from specialty stores. There is an opportunity to get acquainted with the production of a trout factory and buy a souvenir in the shop of the enterprise.
It can be Black Sea flounder, omul, grass carp, trout. But, probably, the most pleasant will be the packaging with the Black Sea red mullet smoked on alder. You can catch a fish, master the smoking process under the guidance of specialists on your own.
To do this, it is advised to come to the Eco village of Votchina. The process takes place in beautiful gazebos, under a roof with modern smokehouses. You can process a specific batch of fish in any weather. Prices are negotiable.
Spices
Modern cooking methods complement the possibilities of making culinary masterpieces in your own kitchen. The problems of buying a previously unknown vegetable, fruit and making any dish according to numerous recipes have disappeared. At the same time, one cannot do without spices that give them the necessary taste, aroma. Even the smallest package of exotic spices will be a pleasant gift for any housewife.
Among them are colorful jars, bottles with marjoram, sesame seeds, pepper, basil, cloves, turmeric, cinnamon. And also variants of the Adyghe salt (ordinary table salt with spices). Spices for barbecue, fish, white meat, lamb. You can buy them in supermarkets, markets, specialized stores.
Adjika
Supermarkets offer a large selection of interesting products, covered with secrets and legends of the Caucasus. According to one of the versions, this is salt with spices, which the sheep shepherds took with them. It can be dry and canned.
In its original form, adzhika never included tomatoes, bell peppers, or any other vegetables. The powder was used to add to salads, soup, barbecue marinade. If vegetables are included in the composition, then a pasty seasoning is obtained, which in different countries was called in its own way ("apyrpyl-dzhika", "ajiktsatsa").
The classic composition of adjika contains salt, pepper, garlic, cilantro, walnuts, suneli hops. It does not include vinegar, tomatoes, vegetables. Often called adjika pasta (in the form of a sauce) cooked with carrots, tomatoes, peppers, zucchini, eggplants. Apples, plums, spices, vinegar.
Each housewife has her own secret of preparing delicious vegetable mass. But it is better to bring dry, real adjika.
Tkemali
Having received tkemali sauce as a gift, the hostess does not need to come up with any special dishes, look for rare products for it. This is a universal, favorite sauce, without which, for example, in Georgia not a single feast, a simple lunch goes. Kebabs, chakhokhbili, chanakhs, turkey, pasta, potatoes become tastier with this sauce. It is based on an ordinary sour plum that grows in any garden.
In some recipes, it is replaced by sour gooseberries, red currants. Garlic, herbs and ombalo (non-fermenting mint). No vinegar is used. The stores offer a large amount of sauce from different manufacturers. It is advised to buy tkemali as a gift in bottles with the inscription AIK on the lid.
Honey
It is not a problem to buy honey in any region of Russia. But everyone will want to try the product collected from exotic flowers. Especially if it's hidden in a pretty bear-shaped bottle. This is the famous Caucasian chestnut honey (it is collected in the Krasnaya Polyana region).
It does not exist in the northern regions. It should be presented to friends who do not have allergies. Luxurious apiaries are located in the Adler area. Here is the maximum selection of the product developed by the Caucasian mountain bee, which is of particular value among beekeepers.
It is recommended to buy it in stores. Unknown "tent" sellers admit the dilution of honey with sugar syrup. Krasnaya Polyanskiy is one of the famous varieties of Sochi honey. It is stringy, gentle. It can be found in supermarkets, specialty stores, in the Central Market. For example, in the stores "Pchelka", "Honey Paradise", "Good Apiary".
Jam
One of the most pleasant memories of your summer vacation will be a tea ceremony with your family and friends with amazing jam from exotic fruits. The smell of strawberries, apricots, raspberries, delicate rose petals, pine cones invites you to the table to enjoy healthy food without chemical additives, unnecessary preservatives.
Homemade jam, prepared according to old recipes from the Caucasian cuisine, has gained a new surge in popularity. It is obtained from fruits and berries growing in ecologically clean mountain areas near the Black Sea coast. The raw materials are collected by hand.
During cooking, trace elements, vitamins that are beneficial to health are preserved. At the same time, jam from walnuts, chestnuts, figs, dogwood, feijoa will cause surprise, delight. You can buy it in specialty shops selling sweets, for example, in the Central Market.
Churchkhela
You won't have to look for this gift for a long time. The classic delicacy of the Georgian national cuisine is made from nuts and grape juice, prepared according to the ancient technology of obtaining a jelly-like mass, called Tatara. Delicious, long-shelf life product is good to take as a souvenir.
Churchkhela contains a large amount of nutrients, it is a nourishing, easy-to-digest food product.It is offered to buy it from merchants on the beach, numerous shops, shops, the Central Market (it is customary to bargain here).
When buying, you need to touch the sausage (with the permission of the seller and with gloves). Too hard means that the churchkhela is dry. A soft product is formed when technology is violated. It will crumble during use.
Churchkhela comes in different varieties (due to the use of numerous types of nuts). You can choose any for a gift. During transportation, each sausage is packed separately with cling film.
Baklava and halva
Baklava (or Sochi Pie) can be (not very easy) cooked at home. But to really feel the taste of this ancient delicacy, hear the hidden southern aroma of the product, learn its interesting history, you can receive golden rhombuses of delicious baklava from Sochi as a gift.
In different countries, they cook it according to their own recipes, keeping the main difference - this is a very thin dough, a huge mass of nut filling and honey filling. There are many places in the city where baklava is sold.
The main thing is not to rush and buy it before leaving, so that friends and relatives try the wonderful delicacy fresh, presenting themselves as a real sultan, a sheikh who appreciated this product.
The eastern sweetness of halva first appeared in Odessa and quickly became a favorite delicacy for children. It is produced in different cities, but halva from Sochi has its own extraordinary taste, determined by a large selection of nuts.
Having prepared a rigid container for reliable transportation, it is proposed to buy sesame halva, with the addition of pistachios, pieces of melon, and almonds. It is useful to remember that halva spread on bread and butter is still considered a popular breakfast in Egypt.
You can try a high-calorie product rich in vitamins and microelements, use it not only as a sweetness, but also as an important food element.
Dried persimmon
The resort of Sochi is located in a subtropical climate, where a variety of fruits grow in abundance. The desire to bring something home always arises. It is difficult to bring ripe fruits, but it will not be difficult to surprise, for example, with an exotic dry fruit with dried persimmon.
A popular gift looks like a beautiful bundle and costs about 300 rubles. for 1kg. Dried persimmons contain a high percentage of sugars (comparable to champion figs, dates, raisins) and are considered a natural substitute for sweets.
It is useful for the prevention, treatment of many diseases, which is used by the medicine of different nations. It is offered to buy a gift in the markets, in shops. It is useful to remember the elementary safety rules when using dried persimmon: do not eat it on an empty stomach and do not drink milk at this time.
By interacting with milk proteins, the tannins in persimmons harden and cause severe stomach pains. When choosing persimmons, it is good to buy some fresh chestnuts. Having prepared an extraordinary dish in the oven, you can once again surprise your loved ones and friends.
Cheese
Nowadays it is difficult to surprise the inhabitants of any city with the variety of cheeses on offer. But it is undoubtedly worth trying the famous homemade cheeses of Sochi, which have become a very popular product.
Caucasian cheeses are not only suluguni, but also chechil, whose fame is lower than that of the famous suluguni. All cheeses are well stored and tolerate transportation well (in the summer heat, it is recommended to take the smoked version for a long train ride).
Classic suluguni has a soft texture, salty taste, and is available in regular and smoked versions. Smoked has a longer shelf life. When buying from the Central Market, it is allowed to taste a bite.
An original gift will be a pigtail of chechil cheese (similar to suluguni and is considered the national dish of Armenia). It consists of individual fibers, handcrafted and woven into an original golden braid. For beer lovers, chechil is considered an exquisite snack.
Tea
Supermarket shelves in Russian cities are filled with exotic teas from all over the world. Among them are packaging of different quality, cost, composition. Many of them have all the gustatory, useful properties inherent in the most valuable ancient drink.
But trying your own famous Krasnodar tea is an obligatory procedure during a friendly tea party. It is not inferior in quality from distant Indian, Kenyan, Chinese plantations. To do this, it is proposed to visit the brand stores "Dagomys Chai", "Matsesta", "Krasnodar Chai".
Here you can choose red, black, yellow, green tea, known far beyond its borders. It can be packed in pretty boxes or sold by weight.
Teas ("Century Traditions", "Krasnaya Polyana") based on herbal preparations are best purchased in Adler. Now in Sochi there are 6 large and several small factories specializing in the production of teas. A pleasant warm gift from Sochi may consist of the well-known brands Matsesta Chai, Dagomys Chai.
Basturma
The life of merchants carrying goods to distant countries required special preparation of products for a long journey. Among them, one of the first options for preserving meat was the famous basturma or dried beef tenderloin.
The technology for cooking it is not always simple (now housewives make a similar product in any kitchen). The original, piquant taste of the delicacy can be felt by tasting a piece of fragrant meat cooked with southern spices.
Among them, a must-have ingredient in the recipe is chaman steeping. It includes fenugreek seeds. Replacing it with local spices changes the taste of basturma. Having tasted a small piece of a real oriental delicacy, for almost two days you can feel a pleasant aftertaste of seasonings.
An excellent beer snack can be stored for a long time. Together with her, it is interesting to try sudjuk (the closest relative of bastroma). These are jerky sausages made from ground beef, horse meat with a lot of certain spices.
Nuts
In addition to the well-known walnuts, almonds, hazelnuts, pistachios, ordinary peanuts, arriving from Sochi, you can treat your friends with rare nuts such as pecans, cashews, coconuts, Brazil nuts. It is easy to buy them in the central market in stores.
Many individuals offer shelled walnuts. In the climatic zone of Sochi, more and more walnut orchards with trees are not entirely known to tourists before.
It is useful to know that, for example, "the most nutty of all nuts" pecans (in ancient times it was called Caria Illinois) cannot be bought peeled. The high fat content leads to rapid oxidation in air and makes them bitter.
You can buy a jar of nut butter as a valuable souvenir. The surroundings of the resort are buried in thickets of various walnut trees. Courageous vacationers often collect this tasty, valuable product on their own.
Bay leaf
You can talk for a long time about the wonderful properties of the noble laurel that has been growing on the planet since ancient times. On the territory of the southern part of our country, the sacred tree appeared 25 centuries ago and immediately took a special place in cooking and medicine.
Lightly touching the laurel leaves, you can hear the familiar scent. An amazing fact is the increase in its concentration and strength on the dried plant. This is almost the only gift of nature that does not lose its aromatic, healing properties after long-term storage.
It will be pleasant and useful to receive as a souvenir a bag with a bay leaf plucked at the place of growth. Its unforgettable aroma will be heard from the first and second courses prepared by the hostess. By the way, the most complex aroma is formed when using the Californian leaf.
Plant Growing Kit
Walking through the parks, the outskirts of the resort, looking at beautiful outlandish plants, there is a great desire to plant something like that.To implement their plans, gain experience as a gardener, florist, it is proposed to buy a souvenir called "A set for growing plants."
There are 4 series of them: indoor, edible, trees, vines. Thanks to the work of breeders, all plants are adapted to the conditions of central Russia. In the third year of development, they are transplanted into open ground.
Among them are thuja, blue, Canadian spruce, maple, butcher, holly, ginkgo biloba, and venereum hair. The kits provide everything for the effective development of the plant. On the shelves of Adler's seed stores, in addition to the sets, there is a huge selection of seeds, bulbs, rhizomes. This is an original eco souvenir for children and people of any age.
Ceramics
Modern technology for making tableware has filled the world with a variety of goods. It is comfortable, beautiful, different in cost. But often, sitting on long winter evenings in a warm, cozy kitchen, you want to see in front of you, use handmade items made by human hands using ancient methods. It is very good that the number of private pottery workshops is increasing.
In Sochi, there are shops selling ceramic souvenirs made by experienced craftsmen. For children, you can always show during master classes all stages of manufacturing, for example, ceramic toys, whistles, dishes. Many products are offered to be bought, presented to friends, classmates and told about the wonderful properties of natural clay.
Krasnopolyanskaya handmade cosmetics
Every year, the world's cosmetics industry fills the shelves with new skin care products. At the same time, the value, consumption of natural, environmentally friendly products increases dramatically. This rise is explained by many factors.
The main one is the forced fight against allergies, which are moving at an accelerated pace across the planet. Health problems are on the rise with the use of synthetic products.
The solution to this problem is a cosmetic factory located high in the mountains near Krasnaya Polyana. For the second decade, the technology of soap making, the production of hair care products, based on the use of environmentally friendly raw materials collected by hand, has been introduced here.
The assortment of the factory originated from handmade soaps and turned into a large business producing numerous cosmetics. It is impossible to pass by beautiful, medicinal cosmetics (presented in a specialized store) without feeling the desire to buy. Moreover, it will be a wonderful gift brought from Sochi.
Boxwood souvenirs
Before buying boxwood products, you need to remember that now there are no famous factories for the production of souvenirs in the city. Local crafts and goods from China fill the souvenir shops. Boxwood memorabilia take a special place in this myriad wealth.
Unfortunately, the relict boxwood grove on the outskirts of Khosta is being ruthlessly exterminated. Especially, the same Colchis box-tree listed in the Red Book. It was from it that the famous boxwood trinkets, candlesticks, stupas, beautiful boards, spoons were made.
The plant forms slowly, plantations are restored after decades. The dried wood of boxwood (or buxus, meaning "freshness") has an amber hue and is solid. It was used to make musical and medical instruments.
According to an ancient legend, the famous flute of the goddess Athena was made from boxwood. Having decided to buy a souvenir from a boxwood, you need to know that only a skillful craft will be cheap. The same applies to souvenirs from an endangered juniper.
What to bring your child
Shells, magnets, starfish, marine-themed clothing attract children of all ages. And here are fashionable jeans, T-shirts. Other branded items are useful to buy at sales or at your place of residence. Their prices do not differ much. There are a lot of cheap clothes from Turkey in Sochi. This is an important moment for buying T-shirts, swimwear, fashionable summer sundresses for rapidly growing kids.
Of the more expensive things, you should pay attention to warm mittens, socks, sweaters, scarves made from the fluff of local goats. Turkish shops are located next to the central market. Products made of genuine leather and fur are also offered here. It will be nice for young children to bring delicious sweets, dried fruits, nuts and treat their friends with them.
Where to buy souvenirs
It is recommended to bring edible souvenirs first. Magnets, nesting dolls, Olympic souvenirs, and other items are everywhere. Of course, starfish and shells brought from the Black Sea are an important souvenir. But the rest (dried fruits, meat products, teas, nuts, honey, drinks), even with a large selection in the local supermarket, are of interest and often differ greatly in quality and taste.
Why not compare. The best places to shop are Alexandria, Mandarin, Olympus, Atrium shopping centers. Standard souvenirs depicting local attractions, beautiful surroundings are offered at a reasonable price at the Avant-garde market.
