What’s more, from a very young age. Birch sap is one of the most popular traditional Russian drinks, so Russians know the taste of birch trees well. They first came up with the idea way back in ancient Russia when Birch sap, as well as kvas (a drink made of fermented bread and malt), was used as raw material for making wine.
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If a Russian tells you the juice is squeezed from birch logs, don't believe it – they’re just pulling your leg. In order to obtain the juice, you must go to a forest between March, when the snow is melting, and the end of April. Make a small hole in the tree trunk about two centimeters deep, insert a straw and then put a jar under it. Usually, one birch tree produces between two and three liters of sap a day.
But isn't it strange to drink tree juice? Perhaps. But it does no harm to the tree—the main thing is to plug or seal the hole when you’re done—and consuming it is good for you. Birch sap has wide array of healthy properties. It is regarded as beneficial for the heart and blood vessels, provides relief from edema, and fights infections and tooth decay among other things.
Can you imagine a night that lasts for six weeks or even six months? That’s a reality for hundreds of thousands of people in Russia. In cities above the Arctic Circle, the polar night, like the polar day, can last an incredibly long time.
Nearly 178,000 people live in Norilsk [2,881 km from Moscow], which is one of the coldest and northernmost cities in the world, Here, sub-zero temperatures last for up to 280 days a year, and summer in the conventional sense doesn't exist. Food prices are high because delivering anything from central Russia takes a long time and is costly, and because food products here have a long shelf life they are virtually tasteless.
These are inhuman conditions, you might say. But in Russia extremely low temperatures are not something to be afraid of. Many people like the long winter and temperatures of minus 30 degree Celsius because there is more fun to be had in winter than in a "summer” that barely even exists anyway. Instead, during the winter people enjoy the northern lights, do winter sports and evenyes it’s true—hold beach parties in winter.