moscow | Alexander Vershbow and his wife, Lisa, arrived in Moscow in July 2001.
He took some time adjusting to his new position as the United States’ ambassador to the Russian Federation. And then, the next spring, with the chill of winter still in the air, the Vershbows, who are Jewish, planned their first Passover in Russia.
“The idea to host a seder at our residence came naturally,” says Lisa Vershbow. The family has two sons; one was then in high school, the other in college. “We have often invited family and friends to our home in Washington, so it wasn’t surprising that we’d want to do the same in Moscow.”
It’s always a challenge to prepare the many courses prescribed for a seder, but there were even more challenges involved in making the seder at Spaso House, the American ambassador’s official residence.
The residence has two full-time chefs, who prepare the foods for frequent receptions, often with as many as 300 guests. The chefs also prepare the official breakfasts, lunches and dinners, often for 24 people per meal. The year’s biggest event, the Fourth of July reception, welcomes 1,500 people.
Every year, approximately 12,000 guests pass through Spaso House. Cooking is done in a restaurant-style kitchen in the basement, and the food is brought upstairs on a dumbwaiter.
“The Spaso House head chef is a delightful man, who has lived in Moscow for years,” says Lisa Vershbow.
The ambassador’s wife, too, is a good cook, who enjoys preparing food for her family. She came to Moscow equipped with her mother’s Passover recipes.
Though the residence’s head chef is skilled at preparing a variety of cuisines, he was unfamiliar with Passover fare. “But he proved equal to the task, making marvelous charoset from my description alone,” she says.
“He roasted the shank bone and the egg to beautiful perfection,” she continues. “He searched the Moscow open-air markets for whole horseradish root and bought our matzahs at the Jewish community center, since they are not sold in grocery stores here.”
Unfortunately the matzah balls proved difficult to get right. As anyone who’s ever attempted them can confirm, matzah balls can easily become cannon fodder.
In recent decades, many home cooks have avoided this potential catastrophe by relying on commercial mixes. Needless to say, these user-friendly mixes are not a staple item in Russian markets. But her mother saved the day by toting six boxes of matzah ball mix from Boston.
“During our first Passover, the chef, in his effort to create perfectly round spheres, overhandled the dough, producing some rather tough matzah balls,” she says.
“The following year, I found that by describing them as similar to French quenelles” — finely textured dumplings — “he produced the perfect consistency.” Light and airy, they practically floated above the soup, she says.
Every spring since they arrived in Moscow, the Vershbows have hosted a seder in Spaso House’s state dining room. They’ve invited between 40 and 50 people each year. They set up four or five round tables, each seating 10 guests. Identical seder plates grace each table. At the beginning of the service, Lisa Vershbow lights the candles and recites the blessing from her table.
“A number of previous ambassadors have hosted seders here,” she says. Her husband is not the first Jew to serve as U.S. ambassador to Russia. But non-Jews have hosted seders at Spaso House, too. That began in the 1980s, when Russia was still part of the Soviet Union and U.S. ambassadors made a conscious effort to support Moscow’s Jewish community.
Their guests typically include musicians, journalists, businesspeople, authors, artists and academics. They also invite the dozen or so Jewish families stationed at the American embassy and other colleagues who are interested in attending a seder.
“In Washington, we usually held our seder on the first night of Passover,” she says. “But here in Moscow, we switched to the second night, so it wouldn’t interfere with the personal family seders of members of the American embassy staff, who would be guests at our official one.”
Spaso House’s state dining room is a wood-paneled hall lit by a Venetian chandelier. The building was originally an elegant, spacious mansion commissioned by a wealthy Moscow merchant. In 1917, after the Bolshevik Revolution, the Soviet government appropriated it for official use.
Because Alexander Vershbow’s tenure as ambassador is due to end in late spring or early summer, this will be the couple’s fourth and final Passover in Moscow.
As she plans to recite “next year in Jerusalem,” she hopes to celebrate Passover 2006 at home in Washington. Believe it or not, she’s looking forward to doing all the cooking herself.