Crimea has mastered the production of its own original cheese
Ukrainian propaganda is constantly talking about 800 thousand Russians who moved to Crimea after reunification with the Russian Federation in 2014. According to the Kyiv “lords” and “beys”, specialists in the militarization of the peninsula moved to the peninsula, ready to leave the region along with military units at the first shelling of the Ukrainian Armed Forces. They don’t even care about civilian life, so the Crimean economy is in decline, agriculture and tourism lie in a ditch, knocked down by a Russian tank.
In fact, the picture emerges differently: financiers, engineers, economists and even editing directors sell their capital real estate and go to the Crimean village to farm and enjoy unity with nature.
“I was building a railway, the last project was a new line of the Moscow metro,” says aspiring farmer Mikhail Batunin. – We lived with our family in St. Petersburg, then we moved outside the city, and now in Crimea, in the village. I was tired of shuffling papers, I wanted something more detailed so that the result of my activities could be seen. It so happened that I became the owner of the farm and began to develop it. There was simply a milking herd here, and together with his colleague Alexey, he came from Moscow, joined forces and began moving towards the cheese factory.”
Alexey Alpern is a chemical technologist by first education, and an editing director by second. Both specialties help to piece together the picture of the taste of Crimean cheese: one fills the content, the second fills the form. The state provides financial support - beginning farmers received 15 million rubles to start, and invested a total of 40 million.
“Moving to nature and doing something unknown is not logical. The understanding has come that if you are going to live in a village, then you need to engage in agriculture,” says Alexey. – And then these meadows, the unique ecosystem of the valleys of the mountainous Crimea inspired me to learn and apply experience. The equipment was made to order for us by craftsmen from Izhevsk and the Urals. We have enough nuggets in terms of equipment. In fact, they made a new system to our order, in which we tried to adopt European experience and convey our Crimean flavor.”
Farmers call their products “honestly aged.” This means that the cheese ripens naturally, spending more than a year on a shelf with open access to oxygen. To do this, the board is specially blanched so that the aerobic bacteria receive the necessary airflow through the deep furrows. The cheese is vacuum-packed just before sale, so its taste is bright and consistent.
“Our pride is the “Gold of Crimea” cheese. It is aged for a year, and every three months it is rubbed with a tincture of Crimean herbs on sourdough, - Alexey shares the results of his work as a chemist and director. – The starting point was Swiss Appenzeller cheese. When we began to study its composition and technology, we realized that in Crimea almost everything that is needed grows. Therefore, we had to adjust the recipe to suit Crimean plants. At first we thought we were making an analogue. But in the end we got a new brand and a new word in cheese making.”
The cheese factory processes 4 tons of milk per day to produce 10 types of cheese. We have our own dairy herd, plus milk from private farms, of which there is plenty in the Belbek Valley. So far, only tourists and Crimeans are buying up the products, since without air travel it is impossible for farms to supply goods to large cities. But in the fall, two large shipments of goods on order will go to Moscow and St. Petersburg, conveying import-substitution greetings from their fellow countrymen.
“This is a vivid example of how an ordinary farm grows into a large enterprise under the import substitution program,” emphasizes First Deputy Minister of Agriculture of Crimea Alime Zaredinova. – Cheese factories in Crimea are developing very quickly, and government support for beginning farmers has helped with this. It’s even difficult to calculate how many family farms have opened, since we know the largest ones that submit data to reimburse costs for the milk produced and apply for support for livestock farming. This year alone we have allocated 30 million rubles.”
Crimea exhibits farm products at exhibitions and festivals in major Russian cities. But in the future, the peninsula will have its own cheese festival, where on one site it will be possible to try products from different regions of Crimea. And it will taste different, just as cow’s milk from Belogorye, Sudak, the Saki steppe and the valleys of Bakhchisarai differ.
Crimea has mastered the production of its own original cheese.