As Russian and international media hunted for scraps of information relating to Wednesday’s meeting between Russian President Vladimir Putin and the US presidential envoy Steve Witkoff, the pro-Kremlin media filled the void with details of the American’s breakfast.
According to the independent Meduza news site, almost a dozen Russian news outlets including RIA Novosti, Komsomolskaya Pravda, Vechernyaya Moskva, Lenta.ru, and the Russian Senate’s in-house newspaper all led with detailed accounts of Witkoff’s breakfast dish, which he ate ahead of the meeting.
According to the news reports, the diplomat ordered an unusually large version of the cheburek – a Crimean Tatar specialty of fried, savory pastry filled (in this instance) with minced beef, lamb, chopped onions, greens, and seasoning.
The news reports not only went into culinary detail, but also commented on the cost of the dish – 550 rubles ($7), how it was served with disposable gloves to allow the pastry to be eaten using hands – “though it can also be easily cut with a knife.”
Some of the reports were padded with “exclusives” that included an interview in “Argumenty i Fakty” with Maxim Tarusin, the chef from an unnamed restaurant on Moscow’s Vavara Street who made the pie; the recipe of that particular cheburek published in Parents.ru; the fact that Witkoff “tried to say thank you in Russian” to the waitress who served him (Komsomolskaya Pravda). Vechernyaya Moskva came up with the earth-shattering reason why Witkoff selected the cheburek – he was hungry (and ate it all).
He was accompanied at breakfast by Kirill Dmitriev, who was appointed as the Kremlin’s special envoy for peace negotiations with Ukraine – if you’re interested, he ate a salad.
Meduza commented that the last time Russian media got into such a frenzy over a foreigner’s visit was during former Fox News host Tucker Carlson’s February stopover to interview Vladimir Putin.