Many foreigners coming to Russia are greeted with a strange custom: they are greeted with bread and salt. However, this gesture is actually an ancient Russian tradition of welcoming important guests. Let’s take a look at the meaning behind this ritual.
In Russia, dear guests are traditionally welcomed with bread and salt. The guest must break off bread apiece, dip it in salt and eat it. The welcoming guests with bread and salt custom has been known in Russia for ages. The salt and bread combination plays a very capacious symbol role: bread expresses a wish for wealth and prosperity, and salt is believed to protect people from evil spirits and hostile influences. By offering bread and salt to a guest, the host sought to establish love and trust a relationship with the guest, and refusing to taste the bread and salt was considered an insult.
Word “хлебосольство/ hospitality“ (the хлеб/bread and соль/salt combination) still means hospitality, i.e., the kindness and generosity shown when treating a guest. In the XVI century it was the Russian sovereign’s custom to give guests bread and salt from their table: the bread was supposed to express benevolence, and the salt to express love.
The expression “bread and salt” was considered a generic name for food and refreshment. And if you were called for bread and salt, it meant an invitation to a feast. The Old Russian wishing way
“Приятного аппетита! / enjoy your meal!“sounded like “Хлеб да соль! / Bread and salt!“. The phrase was believed to have special significance and to have the power to ward off evil spirits and evil in general.
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The offering bread and salt to dear guests’ tradition is less common today. But there are still occasions when this ritual is considered obligatory. It is most often seen at traditional Russian weddings, when newlyweds’ parents greet their children with bread and salt after the main ceremony: husband and wife should break bread off a piece, dip it in salt and feed it to each other. This is a sign that they are ready to share life’s difficulties all and promise to always look after each other.
At weddings, not just bread is served, but каравай – round bread with traditional decorations made from the same dough as the loaf itself. Spikes mean wealth, swans mean fidelity and plaits mean fertility. The loaf is served to the newlyweds on a рушник (an embroidered decorative towel), and a salt pot with salt is placed in the loaf centre.
Bread and salt as foodstuffs were important to the Russian people. A meal without bread was considered incomplete, the bread and milk combination, for example, was already enough to eat. Salt in Russia was a difficult and expensive product, it was valued and cherished. The value of bread and salt is reflected in the language, in proverbs and sayings:
Now, if you are welcomed with bread and salt, you will know that you are being treated as a very special guest and that you should share the meal with your hosts, thus expressing your respect.
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