The Mysterious Alexandra Tarasova-Yusupov Page 11

  The group was rather uncomfortable entering a pub, but one of the men explained that pubs were not like American bars. The Queen Victoria was a nice quiet place, and they quickly lost their misgivings as they enjoyed the pub fare: free bread and cheese, chicken wings, pork slider, deep-fried, breaded calamari, and potato wedges with sweet chili and sour cream. They declined an arm load of pints of Foster’s Lager and had to settle for Diet Coke even though several of them were mildly uncomfortable about the possibility that caffeine drinks were in violation of the Word of Wisdom.

  The following morning, they returned to work reinvigorated to continue their official and unofficial searches.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  A FEAST FOR A PRINCESS

  Don’t get up from the feast of life without paying for your share of it.

  —Dean Inge

  Tarasova Fur Company Headquarters and Trading Center, No. 71 Svetlanskaya Street, Vladivostok, Russia, April 2, 1876

  Nearly sixteen-year-old Alexandra Abramovna Tarasova was almost as giddy as a child awaiting Christmas as the day for her birthday/debut/and ascension in rank approached. There were four more days before the actual birthday, and five more before the official celebration—April 1st—was to take place. Alexandra had been the model of patience, propriety, and willingness to learn so that her father, Abram, would not be able to find the slightest fault that could keep her on the land and away from the family’s commercial trading ships. She seldom brought up her desire, but let it be known in subtle ways that she was getting an education in everything that would make her an important officer in the family business.

  Abram said to his wife, Irina Ishmaelovna Inkijinoff, on the twenty-eighth of March, “Irina, do you think Alexandra is still dreaming of going to sea as a serious business woman?”

  He asked the same thing each day for the next two days and got the same answer, “You know as well as I do, Abram, my blind husband. You will act the fool if you do not accommodate her. Apparently, the two of you made a contract of some sort that she would learn everything there was to learn about your business that can be taken in on the land. She has done that and more. She is far smarter than her brothers or any of the other businessmen in all the Far East. Even a few of them will admit it.”

  “But, Irina, she is my little girl. I am afraid to let her go out into the world of sailors, Chinese, Russian aristocrats, and cunning traders. Please help me to persuade her.”

  “You jest, Abram. You can order her, but you cannot “persuade” her. You will lose her if you even hint that you are thinking of going back on your deal.”

  “Why are you always on the girl’s side?”

  “Because I am afraid of her. She is too smart, too strong-minded, and too able to fight, for me to handle her. Even you are no match for her. I think you should stop worrying about your poor little girl and start planning for the contest she will pose in a few years to take over the company.”

  He gave a heavy and defeated sigh. Not a particularly sad one, just one of resignation because he knew that his daughter was a tough genius, even though she was just a female. He knew he would have to accommodate her mind and her drive and that it would be advantageous for the company and for the family, in-all-likelihood. He determined to begin planning in that positive direction rather than to find that he had followed a machismo dominating attitude towards his remarkable daughter and thereby maneuvered himself into an unnecessarily lost cause.

  Four weeks of planning, shopping, rehearsing, and cleaning the company building preceded the day. Mountains of food and drink were imported from Japan, Chosŏn, China, England, Germany, and from everywhere in Russia where luxury goods could be obtained. Abram good-naturedly complained about the costs—that he was going to be a bankrupt pauper—but he was assured from the advice of his family, friends, and business associates, that the soirée would be the best marketing advertisement his far-flung business could ever have.

  Irina calmed her husband by assuring him that the positive results for the family business empire would be incalculable. She wrongly thought to reassure his many doubts and misgivings by saying that this party would be exceeded only by the one they would have when she married.

  “Irina, the thought of Alexandra going on sea voyages is enough to give an old man like me a heart spasm. Don’t bring up the dreadful idea that our princess will one day find a man to marry, and he will take her away from me.”

  Irina laughed, “Abram, you are not an old man; and you will be able to scare off the weaklings and dummkopfs for a while; but one day, some magnificent young prince will sweep her off her feet; and nothing you can do will get in the way of our princess when she has found her man and made up her mind.”

  Abram groaned in recognition of his eventual defeat. He smiled as he did.

  The Russian Far East in the waning years of the nineteenth century and the first half of the twentieth was lacking in several crucial factors enjoyed by the Europeans for their debuts—coming out into society—so much a part of the coming of age of the rich. First of all, there were not that many rich families in Siberia or the Far East. Secondly, the only aristocrats living in Siberia were ones whose families had fallen far out of favor with the oligarchy and had been deported to the most thankless place in the world. Thirdly, the other group of young gentlemen available for marriage were members of the military, especially the imperial navy. The naval officers’ backgrounds and behavior were suspect; and to complicate that problem, they were often in port only briefly—hardly enough time to strike up a relationship, be vetted sufficiently to be acceptable to the prospective bride’s family, and to get into society with its debuts and marital celebrations with all of their elaborate and costly planning and execution.

  Abram shuddered at the prospect of finding a husband for his difficult, even sometimes unmanageable daughter. At least for the time being, all the family had to do was to get through half a dozen or so fancy parties. Siberian formal society was not quite what English, French, American, or even Moscow and Saint Petersburg society was. The Far Easterners had to make some exceptions to the complex and mandatory sets of rules governing polite society in those more sophisticated societies. Because of the availability of more young men from rich and otherwise acceptable families in other European and American countries, the proud Siberians had to forego many of the elitist cultural customs surrounding coming-out into society.

  Most of the other countries required that a girl wait until she was at least seventeen, preferably until she was eighteen or twenty. Alexandra was not quite sixteen. To ensure the all-important virginity of the English, French, Austrian, and German debutants, many of them were schooled in religion, etiquette, and proper comportment during the debut period, as well as the restrictive religions of the several countries. In those countries casual meetings between members of the opposite sex were frowned upon and avoided as much as possible. Older ladies tended to run the process. Mothers, aunts, older married sisters, and even well-intentioned male family members and friends worked, connived, and often provided financial inducements to eligible bachelors of well-to-do commercial families or landed gentry. In those countries, the appropriate choices for young ladies and their families were somewhat limited and clearly defined. There were not such institutions in the Far East.

  Things were different in Siberia and the Far East. Many of the members of what passed for high society in those regions were considered minority peoples in the West, including Moscow and Saint Petersburg. Abram held trading conferences with chieftains of the Buryats, Altai, Chukchi, Evenk, Khanti, Mansi, and Nenets who were more closely related genetically and culturally to the indigenous peoples of the Americas than they were to native Russians or their predecessor Vikings.

  At least two headmen of each tribe and their wives and oldest sons were invited. The headmen persuaded their wives that attendance at the Tarasova girl’s parties would mean introduction into the society that was only lukewarm to their presence and would give them an
edge in commerce that had long been denied them. Several dozen indigenous couples made firm plans to attend and not to be outdone in their gift giving.

  Irina took on the task of persuading the elites of the European transplants and visitors to Vladivostok and the rest of the Irkutsk oblast. Her methods were near copies of the social agenda used in the rest of Europe: presentations to the Tarasova family, presentations to the governing leaders of the imperial navy, marines, and army as well as the mayors and provincial governors. Irina held more than a dozen supper parties and persuaded other notable women to do the same. The response from mothers of younger upcoming daughters was enthusiastic. The costs were extravagant, but Irina loved the galas she produced. Hundreds of ladies persuaded their husbands that they would go to Alexandra Tarasova’s debut, and they would like it because that was where the power and the influence resided.

  Alexandra’s two brothers, Veniamin and Valéry, were sent on separate voyages to combine commerce and diplomacy. Turning a profit from their bales of furs was important, but persuading the elite of Chosŏn, China, and Japan to attend the Tarasova daughter’s debut was paramount. Along the way, they succeeded beyond their parents’ expectations: they were able to coax young American, Austrian, German, English, Asian, and French diplomats and business gentlemen to make a commercial voyage to Vladivostok and to attend the celebration.

  The European and American purpose for the debutantes’ coming-out seasons was largely to bring acceptable choices in young gentlemen and ladies together to begin a serious vetting process for eventual marriages and the establishment of strong commercial, oligarchical, and exclusive dynasties. Abram and Irina’s motives were less distant in character: they wanted business alliances now; and they were not the least troubled by inviting people of color, exotic origin, or differing cultural attitudes and practices. They had less interaction with the far-away world of Europe than they did with nearby Chosŏn on the south, China on the west and south, and the islands of Japan. The intention to build stronger bonds with the Asians was a serious driving force in decisions about who would be invited and who would be flattered and accommodated than any other cultural considerations The European circle of ruling old ladies had no real place in this frontier region because there were very few of them. This was a young people’s world. Neither Abram nor Irina neglected the potential that one of the young men invited to the balls and dinners could become an appropriate and successful suitor of their daughter, and at the same time, a new partner in the burgeoning Tarasova industries.

  In the frenetic period of preparation for the many celebrations planned for the coming-out of their highly eligible daughter included the construction of a huge new warehouse-sized addition to the original Tarasova Fur Company building. It was completed two days before the grand entrance ball scheduled for the evening of Alexandra’s actual birthday. The result would might well have fitted the society of Moscow or Saint Petersburg for all its luxury and grandeur, if not the actual people they would meet at the celebration.

  The food—enough for a thousand people for four days—included local and imported foods: a variety of smoked, salted, and marinated fish—trout, carp, zander, sturgeon and starlet (Tzar Fish) with barrels of the favorites, salmon and smoked herring; crêpes; red salmon and black sturgeon caviar; Irini’s mother’s favorite homemade “herring under a fur coat” (shuba, salted herring in a salad covered by layers of grated boiled vegetables, beets, onions and thick mayonnaise.), seven varieties of borsch with meat, potatoes, dill, and Smetana, the favorite Russian sour cream; black rye bread, garlic toast with melted cheese with a myriad of choices of the cheese, creamed mushrooms, and blini—the Russian variation on the French crêpe. The Russians have been creative with their crêpes—buckwheat pancakes, and white flour for sweet toppings and fillings (a dozen local jams, sour cream, condensed milk, and caviar).

  Knowing the carnivorous nature of their expected guests, Irina sent inland to Central Asia for tartareis—a vegetable lamb dish, varieties of roasted lamb, chicken, beef, venison, and fish on skewers, a Russian variation of the shishkebab served with a spicy tomato-based sauce, Russian pickles, and thick, heavy unleavened breads. The other meat contribution to the princess’s feast was pelmeni—Russian dumplings. They were lovingly created by the Tarasova staff and filled with lamb, pork, beef, salmon, creamy minced onions, and mushrooms, served simply or in a broth.

  The Tarasovas contracted with an Irkutsk bakery to make mounds of pirozhki–same fillings as the pelmeni but placed in pastry and languorously baked in the several families’ 15th century brick ovens—a favorite in Moscow but considered a luxury in Vladivostok because of the cost of the construction materials and the difficulty of finding a true expert builder. No Russian aristocrat or rich businessman’s wife would even dream of having such a feast without the worldwide favorite Stroganoff. Irina personally supervised the preparation of the dish, made smoother by its Russian cream, and tastier by its large variety of mushrooms, and more filling by the ample portions of rich venison, beef, and pork meats.

  The Tarasova ships brought the best of German products for Alexandra’s special day: spaetzle and käsespätzle–thinly sliced beef, veal, pork or minced meat around a filling of bacon or pork belly, chopped onions, pickles, and then browned and braised in broth dumplings–served with Rouladon meat gravy, mashed potato with savory chunks of sausage cooked into it, and barrels of cooked red cabbage the Germans called blaukraut. For the guests staying over after the first festive day, the Tarasovas imported barrels of ingredients for eintopf—the one pot stew made of broth, fresh vegetables, pulses, and a variety of meats and fish. Abram had grown fond of several eintopf varieties: He was amused as much by the name of lumpen und fleeh–rags and fleas–as he was of what was simply Irish stew, and a Thüringen lentil soup known as linseneintopf.

  Irina arranged with the Austrian vegetable monger, Klaus und Franken, Eingearbeitet, to provide ample pulses: baked beans, red, green, yellow and brown lentils, chana beans, sweet garden peas and black-eyed peas, runner, fava, kidney, butter, cannellini flageolet, pinto, and borlotti beans—enough for a small army, and augmented by bales of dried Kartoffelknödel ready for the addition of water and cooking to produce the all time favorite German dish, potato dumplings. She also ordered special boxes with ice on the bottom to hold her personal favorite Schnitzel Wiener and a large sampling of many of the 1500 kinds of wurst–Bratwurst made of ground pork and spices, Blutwurst and Schwarzwurst–the two blood sausages–Currywurst, Bavarian Weisswurst, Nuremberg grilled Rostbratwurst, and Thüringer Rostbratwurst accompanied by dozens of tubs of sauerkraut.

  Two French ships–the Vive la révolution, and the Brig Cargaison de France—carried ships’ larders packed with the essentials for Soupe à l’oignon, including the appropriate brandies and sherries; Coq au vin, including the alcohol appropriate for the French regional variations, coq au Riesling from Alsace, coq au pourpre or coq au violet—the Beaujolais nouveau–and coq au Champagne; bœuf bourguignon from Burgundy; duck meat marinated in salt, garlic, and thyme for up to two days and kept on ice for the Tarasova extravaganza’s Confit de canard.

  It took the servants two hours to unload the beverages for the evening, and the diversity, quality, and quantity of the selections would have suited the Romanoffs. There were a dozen teas from Asia and India—hot and cold—spicy hot sbiten, coffees, sweet fermented honey medovukha, ormors made of a mixture of the juice of several kinds of berries and birch tree juice, black rye bread kvoss with its low alcohol content, vodka bottles standing behind boxes of shot glasses, French brandies, wines, and champagne, German and French Armagnac and cognacs and other brandies smuggled in from Cornwall, England, Slivovitz plum brandy, and surprisingly good sake, absinthe (green fairy), American whiskeys made by relatives of Daniel Boone in Nelson County Kentucky, Bourbon—so-called red liquor—sour mash Old-Crow and Old Pepper Whiskey which were stored in charred oak barrels made by white and black slaves in the Americas, and rye whisky. There
were five bottles of Duret Cognac 1810 which originally came from a single precious barrel carried by a French naval ship, reserved for the very carefully chosen crème de la crème of the guest list. There was no gin, of course—too cheap for the discerning palates of the Tarasova guests.

  Finally, for those gluttons not completely surfeit from the gourmet fair, there was a table of cheeses from around the world: fromage poises: pungent to the level of odiferous and not for the dainty characterized by their funkyness, smoothness as velvet such as Époisses, a cow’s milk cheese from Burgundy, washed in brandy to a custard-creamy texture which have meaty, salty, charcoal, butterfat, grass, truffle, and briny flavors; semisoft and buttery smooth Fontina Val from Italy; Spanish basque smokey Idiazabal, a hard sheep’s milk cheese. Goat’s milk Leonora, another Spanish cheese, but this one hard as a stone in the center and bright yellow and creamy near the rind. It tasted of pepper and the sap of local Spanish pines; southern French Ossau Iraty, a very firm raw sheep’s milk with a unique blend of tastes: butter, nutty, caramel, tropical fruit, chamomile tea, and mint sweetness. A favorite of the French guest–but no one else–was Selles-sur-Cher goat’s mild cheese with a rind dusted in ashes which detracted from the almond, hazelnut, and copper pennies.

  For the true gourmands there were truffled cheeses–truffle tremor, made with black summer truffles in whipped goat’s milk paste with a tangy and earthy mushroom flavor. Yarg from Cornwall, England was fairly unappetizing to look at—lacy mold on nettle leaves. The taste was something like citrus and mushrooms, belying the rather unpleasant rind’s appearance. To prove that the pungent, very strong cheeses becoming popular through Russia during the nineteenth century were not just luxury imports, Irina brought in exotic cheese from Siberia, the Mongolian steppes, Moscow, Saint Petersburg; and Russians were becoming experimenters with the moldy, smelly, and particularly strong cheeses. The affluent were acquiring a taste for them. The Russian varieties were set apart by being big long logs. Irina had them kept in glass cases to provide a positive Russian cachet. Besides the commonly known korall and quark, she included bries, cheddars, parmesans, and camemberts, which had fallen out of fashion in courts of European and the mansions of America. The Russian guests were aware of Irina’s effort to tout Russian products and flocked to the Russian section of the cheese display.