A little bite of home

­Natalia Karasseva needed help picking out some fine wines when she walked into Natasha’s Euro Market on Vandiver Drive last week. After getting some good advice from the owner, she selected two bottles, then brought them to the front with all her other purchases.

When proprietor Natasha Linhardt was finished ringing them up, Karasseva reached into her bag, retrieved both bottles and placed them back on the counter.

“Happy New Year,” she said in Russian, offering the wine as a present.

Linhardt declined, saying she couldn’t possibly accept the gift. Back and forth they went until they finally reached a compromise: they would meet one evening soon and drink the wine together to cele­brate the new year.

The conversation served as a perfect illustration of the Euro Market’s unique charm. A shop that specializes in foods, liquors and other products from Eastern Europe, it has also created a sense of community for people from the region. Russians, Romanians, Bulgarians, Poles and people from the former Yugoslavia all frequent the market to buy their favorite foods, talk in their native languages and get a taste of home.

Americans also shop at Natasha’s.

“It is the next best thing to actually getting to go to Europe,” said Bri Kneisley, 25, an MU graduate student. She buys a new food item for her son and herself to try almost every time she goes to Natasha’s. They don’t always like them, but they appreciate the opportunity to experience something new.

“All in all, I find that shopping at Natasha’s increases my awareness of primarily Eastern European foods and culture,” Kneisley said. “(I) would love to see more people open similar independent grocery stores to educate Columbians about other cultures.”

The Euro Market opened in January 2003 in the strip mall at 705-H Vandiver Drive. Linhardt, 25, bought it in September 2006. She learned the business was up for sale when she stopped by to shop and to chat in Russian one day.

Natasha’s is divided in half by shelves full of liquors and chocolates. Free monthly newspapers for Russians in the United States lie on a table near the entrance. The Russian America features front-page stories on the head of Russia’s Chamber of Commerce and a retired Russian professor from Houston.

A bulletin board nearby advertises local businesses with Russian connections. There’s a cosmetologist from St. Petersburg, Russia, a bilingual day care center and a Russian builder. A rack of traditional Russian greeting cards stands between shelves full of preserves and cosmetics. In the background plays an album of love songs by Russian pop singer Angelika Varum. A round table covered by a colorful tablecloth with handmade lace displays bottles of wine and chocolate candies. A set of wooden kitchenware painted in a traditional Russian hohloma style completes the decor.

Linhardt strives to make the Euro Market part of the community. She recently prepared, wrapped and donated presents of Russian candies and biscuits for a traditional Russian New Year’s party for 20 children at St. Luke Orthodox Church, where Karasseva and Larisa Artemova run a nonprofit Russian school. She also advertised the party by printing the text of an article about it from a listserv for Russians in Columbia. The listserv has 57 Russian-speaking members.

Lindhardt said her American customers, many of whom have German ancestors, treat the Euro Market’s products as gourmet food. They tend to buy meat products and cheese. One of Natasha’s regular American customers often buys suluguni cheese. Some of the most popular items among Russian customers are sauerkraut, bread, Moscow wurst and jumbo herring, the primary ingredient of a traditional Russian salad called “herring under the fur coat.”

Miglena Sternadori, 31, a Bulgarian doctoral student at MU, said the market has products she used to eat when she was a child. It has powdered versions of the soups her mother used to cook for her, Bulgarian feta cheese with the same export label her grandparents used to buy and Bulgarian walnut cookies, called orehovki, in the same package they were sold in when Sternadori was young.

Dennis Sentilles, 65, a retired professor, said he shops at Natasha’s because he can get foods there that he can’t find anywhere else. He particularly likes blutwurst, or blood sausage, saying it’s exactly like the sausage he ate as a child 60 years ago in Louisiana.

“Natasha’s brings something new and special to Columbia,” Sentilles said.

Bogdan Stroescu, 57, an American who was born in Romania, is a self-employed eBay power seller. He discovered Natasha’s when it opened several years ago. He was delighted to find Bulgarian feta cheese and Romanian wines, which bring back memories of his home country. His family also frequently buys black forest ham, smoked fish, kefir and sour cherries.

“I connect to the community when I shop at Natasha’s,” Stroescu said. “When I meet other Romanians there, we often discuss the quality of items and compare prices to shops at St. Louis and Chicago.”

Nina den Hartog, 44, stopped by the Euro Market recently while she was in Columbia visiting relatives.

Den Hartog is from Ukraine but now lives in Jamesport in northwest Missouri.

“Sometimes I feel I miss Russian food and want something special,” den Hartog said. “I always try to go to Russian shops wherever I go.”

For Sternadori, shopping at Natasha’s is like entering a different culture.

“I like that nobody is pressuring me or expecting me to buy anything,” she said. “You know how in so many American stores you feel like things are being peddled for you to buy. I’m OK with the American way, but just every now and then I like to feel as if I’m shopping back at home. Also, I take pride in being able to read the labels and to eavesdrop on conversations in Russian.”

Julia Wanless, 35, a Wal-Mart cashier who comes from Russia, said she visits the Euro Market when she gets nostalgic for products with fewer chemical additives. She also likes talking to Linhardt.

“It’s an opportunity to share problems with a person who understands you because they speak the same language and share the same mentality. It’s a small piece of Russia,” she said.