Russia these days is full of contrasts between old and new. As memories of the Soviet Union recede further into the past, a number of old Russian traditions are regaining in popularity. This includes the celebration of traditional Orthodox holidays like Maslenitsa, a week long festival held before the beginning of Great Lent.

Maslenitsa is both a carnival-like celebration and a festival to herald the coming spring. At its center lies one of Russia's most famous culinary offerings: blini. These thin pancakes are traditionally served filled with cheese, caviar or sour cream and have been a family staple across the vast nation for centuries.

But in cities like Moscow and St. Petersburg, there is another way to enjoy blini: as fast food served at restaurants and small kiosks, most of which are operated by Teremok - a chain founded 12 years ago by a young Russian businessman named Mikhail Goncharov.

From traditional to fast

These days Teremok is the largest Russian-owned fast food chain in the country and the fourth largest overall, behind McDonald's, Kentucky Fried Chicken and Pizza Hut. And fast is the key word here. It only takes a few minutes to pour out the batter on a round shaped electrical stove and shape it with a spatula. Once the blini reaches a gold-brown colour the filling is added, then it's folded into a triangular form and served on an orange paper plate – or in a napkin as a take-away version.

The whole procedure looks very similar to the making of crepes on the streets of Paris. And that's exactly where Mikhail Goncharov got the idea to market his country's version of the pancake as a convenient snack.

He instantly felt that selling blini through a chain would be a great opportunity to earn money because the only restaurants left in post-Soviet Russia at the time were the big American chains.

"Many of the small restaurants who had sold traditional Russian food like blini or pelmeni in Soviet times all had gone bankrupt – because they continued working like before: cooking bad food and neglecting customer service," he explained to Deutsche Welle.

Global expansion

When the Russian stock market crashed in August 1998, Goncharov, who was 29 at the time, lost his electronics distribution business, so he decided to put his fast food plan into action. He scraped together $80,000 (58,100 euros) as starting capital and opened his first blini kiosk in April 1999.

Just three years later he had almost 30 kiosks and restaurants, not only in Moscow, but also Russia's famous northern city St. Petersburg. This year the company will open its 100th site. With such an economic Cinderella story, the company's name seems fitting: “Teremok” can be translated as “fairy tale cottage”.

Goncharov hopes to expand and dreams of taking the blini global. He is, however, still apprehensive about opening up Teremok restaurants in other parts of Russia due to what he describes as legal difficulties.

"We are not ready to go (to the regions) yet, but they're not ready for a company like ours either," he explained. "In Moscow and St. Petersburg people are living a more European way of life, regarding habits and income. I think it will be relatively easy for us to expand in Europe."

While Goncharov still considers the US as the perfect fast food market, for now he is concentrating on countries closer to Russia including Great Britain, Germany and France - despite competition from the traditional crepe.

Goncharov points out that blini would not be the first food with ethnic roots in the East to make it big in Germany. The doener kebap, a Turkish food that's been adapted to suit German tastes, can be bought on just about every corner in every major city in the country.

Author: Mareike Aden (mrm)
Editor: Sam Edmonds