Russian Store Finds & Scores

There's a couple Russian/Ukrainian stores that I know of in my area, me and @matt-a visited one of them yesterday. Even though I am from Crimea, I don't do my main shopping at Eastern European markets, but they're fun to go to sometimes, especially because they have things that you can't really find at regular American stores here.

A few months ago @alovelymess made a post about paying a visit to a Ukrainian grocery in Tennessee and all the candy she got from there, well, I bought some candy too, so let's proceed, even though it is not why I even bother going there haha. If you know me, you know that it is that smoked fish I am all about :).
I don't know why I love it so much, as you can see in the photo below it is just a mackerel, maybe being born by the sea and having all kinds of fresh fish and seafood around available to us made me develop this feeling towards it haha :D.

The first couple times I went to a Russian grocery I would buy so much stuff, just a little bit of everything. Having moved away from my home country and then suddenly finding myself at a store where everybody speaks my language and seeing all the merch I am so used to felt overwhelming.
These days I still buy a decent amount of stuff if we happen to visit the store, however it doesn't feel as crazy anymore haha. Here is picture that I took in 2015 I believe, you can see that I used to buy way waaaay more food back then.

Looking through my old pictures I stumbled upon these products that I saw at the Russian grocery. Extremely weird and funny haha, I would love to know what they were thinking about coming up with the labels.

Okay, a black dude wearing some furry winter hat, holding Soviet hammer and sickle on a bottle of some Russian? mustard, I honestly just don't get it haha.

The next one is borscht in a jar? This was the first time I saw it preserved, I don't think anyone from both Russia and Ukraine would eat it, some really funny stuff.
I don't mind canned food, it is useful when you don't have fresh produce at hand, but this is the entire dish we're talking about, I guess I was just really confused with this one, if anyone tried it, let me know what you thought of it.

And finally the last one is dried fish or fish jerky, whatever you wanna call it. I love the fish, but the the marketing is making me wonder if that is actually the way Americans see Russian women, holding a giant beer mug with their titties flopping out, just . . . getting drunk? Haha. It was probably a joke.

Slowly but surely getting close to the items I have purchased yesterday, these two are @matt-a's picks, even though they are not quite Russian. Georgian mineral water Borjomi and sweet pomegranate sauce (this one in particular is actually made in Russia).

Bread and cheese. If I had to define sooshki, I would say those are dried bagels, they are pretty good, like a true Russian person you would have to eat them with a cup of tea, but I am most likely just gonna serve those to friends with some dip like any American would :D.
By the way, the cheese is super good, unfortunately I do not know its name, I asked them to just give me a pound of that one with large holes.

Sweet tooths, rejoice! Candy time! I always buy the same things, I think it became a tradition at this point, I get some zefir and halva. Even though I would prefer my halva with pistachios or walnuts, maybe chocolate bits they had it plain this time.

Well since we bought all these incredible items yesterday, I failed at collecting everything around the house to take pictures and only after I was done, I was like: "Wait, noooo! There is more!" So I grabbed my phone and took photos of the remaining stuff with it instead of using the camera.

The sweet cheese desserts in the first picture are delightful, I wish they were mass produced and as popular in the US as they are in Russia, I mean Kefir is :).
My plain halva in the middle, it is still good pretty good with black unsweetened coffee, it is a small container, but it will last me a long time, I don't eat sweets often.
The last one features some sunflower seeds and sesame seeds desserts called Gozinaki in Georgian or Kozinaki in Russian, basically it is a traditional Georgian confection made of caramelized nuts, usually walnuts, fried in honey, and served exclusively on New Year's Eve and Christmas, which I actually had no idea about it, until about right now, thanks Wikipedia :). Now, excuse me, I am gonna go enjoy some of these delights!