Polina Chesnakova: Chesnok – in Conversation with Yuri Urbanovich

Join us for an evening with Polina Chesnakova, who will speak about her new cookbook, Chesnok: Cooking from My Corner of the Diaspora: Recipes from Eastern Europe, the Caucasus, and Central Asia. A conversation with Yuri Urbanovich will follow. This in-person event will be free and open to the public. We recommend arriving early for the best seating.

About the Book: In a love letter to the food of her childhood, acclaimed writer Polina Chesnakova shares 100 vibrant regional recipes from Eastern Europe, the Caucasus, and Central Asia.

Born in Ukraine to Russian and Armenian parents from Georgia, Polina Chesnakova grew up cooking and eating at the hip of her mother and aunts. Chesnok paints a warm portrait of the Soviet diaspora through food, with dishes that will be nostalgic and familiar for those within the diaspora and enticing to anyone looking to expand their palate and pantry.

From Georgian Tkemali (sour plum sauce), Uzbek and Azeri Plovs, and Armenian Gata (butter pastry) to Ukrainian Varenyky (dumplings), Russian Olivier Salad, and Medovik (honey cake), Chesnok is your invitation to learn the rich history of a people through their most cherished recipes and traditions. Essays, stories, and profiles of the amazing cooks in Polina’s life are peppered amongst recipes as diverse as the communities from which they blossomed and the immigrant experience they were subsequently passed down in.

About the Author: Polina Chesnakova was born in Ukraine to Russian and Armenian parents from the country of Georgia. She was raised in a tight-knit Rhode Island community of refugees from all over the former Soviet Union, and has cooked and baked in a handful of professional kitchens. She’s had her blog (now newsletter) Chesnok since 2015, and her work has been published in Saveur, Epicurious, The Washington Post, and Food 52. She has written two previous cookbooks: Hot Cheese and Everyday Cake. She worked for Book Larder in Seattle and presided over the cooking class program as the Culinary Director from 2021 to 2023. She lives in Rhode Island with her husband, Lee, and son, Anton.

About the Moderator: Yuri Urbanovich was born in Tbilisi, the capital city of the Republic of Georgia. Formerly a professor at the Diplomatic Academy in Moscow, he was invited in 1992 by the University of Virginia’s Center for the Study of Mind and Human Interaction (CSMHI) to participate in and coordinate a muti-year conflict resolution project in the former USSR. Since 2000, Dr. Urbanovich taught in the Department of Politics, Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures, and School of Continuing and Professional Studies. He retired in 2021 but continues to teach on a part-time basis. His area of expertise is politics in Russia and the post-Soviet region.