Moscow welcomes a honey fair in the former royal residence Kolomenskoe. “Kolomenskoe is a historic prayerful place. It is famous for gardens and apiaries for centuries. That is why it is a historic tradition and a link of centuries that the main honey fair is taking place here,” Sergey Khudyakov, Head of the State United Open-Air Museum Kolomenskoe, believes.
The production is presented by a half of a thousand of participants, including the North Caucasus. Apiculture in the Caucasus exists from ancient times. It was favorite business of the local population. The Caucasus residents widely used bee products – honey and wax. In summer people went to alpine meadows with sheep and took bees with them. Since ancient times the Caucasian beekeepers sold honey, wax and honey drinks to Turkey, Persia, and France. Honey is still irreplaceable in Caucasian cuisines – it is combined with fruits and added to drinks. According to the Beekeeping portal, in the early 20th century in the Caucasus and Kuban there were more apiaries than in Central Russia. Beekeeping was a subject in school schedules in the Caucasus. A peculiarity of the Caucasian bees is resistance to winter. In the boundary of alpine and sub-alpine zones where apiculture was developing winter is long and hard, weather is whimsy: even in July snow storms are possible.
“We have a big apiary. Me, my parents, and brother deal with it. We have many bees. The apiary is mobile, it is situated in mountains. We also travel across the republic and beyond. Chestnut and euphorbia grow here. Euphorbia is a star of North Ossetia because it gives iodine-rich and iron-rich honey, i.e. it is healthy for thyroid. We also have lime and acacia. Produced honey is rich, aromatic, and fragrant. We also have brought wax, cells, bee-glue, and herbs,” a beekeeper from North Ossetia says.
“The Caucasian mountains are beautiful,” his colleague from the Krasnodar Territory says. “The Caucasian biosphere conservancy area includes the Sochi National Park with splendid honey plants. We have brought chestnut honey, white acacia, Caucasian mountain cut-leaf lime, various flower herbs, forest honey, hawthorn with Tatarian maple. We also have citrus honey, bigarade honey which is produced only in Sochi, Adler, and Abkhazia. Tangerine honey. Every honey has its own properties both medical and gustative. For example, chestnut honey is iodine-rich honey, it cures thyroid. White acacia is honey which improves heart-vascular system, it is calmative honey. Buckwheat honey is iron-rich, it increases Hb. Lime is a nice honey plant and very tasteful. It cures coughing and snuffles.”
“In various cultures of the world, in various traditions honey has always been associated with prosperity, hard-working, the sun, and fertility. That is cannot be too much and probably we lack it,” Dmitry Krasnov, the deputy head of the Department for Trading and Services of Moscow, thinks.
