Basil Cream

Basil Cream is fairly common in a number of areas of the world, including in Germany and Austria, where it is known as "Basilikum Creme." You can use sour cream or creme fraiche* as the base, or you can use Mexican Crema, which is more neutral in taste, as both sour cream and creme fraiche have varied amounts of tartness. Mexican Crema is also not usually as thickened as either of the other two. Basil Cream is used as an ingredient in several dishes, often to make a sauce for chicken or fish, but it is also used as a topping for some fruit and vegetable dishes. There are variations to recipes for Basil Cream, and this is mine.

Ingredients:

2/3 cup sour cream, creme fraiche, or Mexican Crema
15 medium basil leaves, chopped or torn into smaller pieces
1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil
1 tablespoon lemon juice
1/2 teaspoon black pepper
1/2 teaspoon salt

Add all ingredients to a non reactive bowl or jar. Mix well. Cover and refrigerate the basil cream for at least a couple of hours prior to use to allow the flavor to develop. Stir before using. 

* To make creme fraiche, here is the recipe. It is very easy: https://pontificating-randy.blogspot.com/2017/07/make-your-own-creme-fraiche.html

WORD HISTORY:
Horde-This word's exact history (the specifics) is a bit shaky, but that history seems to be close to the meaning of the word, as it seems to have traveled from Asia into eastern Europe and then further westward, as its less specific history is likely correct. By the way, it is not related to the word "hoard," the spelling of both the noun and the verb in English, which is a word from the Germanic roots of English. The ultimate origin of "horde" is far from certain, although there are theories that are just too loose for me to accept. Anyway, it seems to go back to Mongolian "ordu/ordo," meaning, "the residence or encampment of a ruler." (Note: It's important to remember that through much of history, "rulers/leaders" often literally led their armies in military actions; thus, a ruler was often in a camp with their military forces, which were often frequently on the move.) This was borrowed into Turkic as "ordu," meaning, "army force, army camp, military command camp." This was then borrowed into East Slavic languages, either from Turkic or Mongolian, as Russian has transliterated "orda," originally meaning "the Khan's military command camp," a little later identified with the Mongol, and then Mongol/Turkic area of eastern Europe/western Asia ruled by a Khan, and known as "the Golden Horde." As this area began to break up, groups traveled off, giving a twist to the meaning of the word as, "group of related nomads traveling about and living off the land" (and all that really meant, such as plunder and slaughter). Polish borrowed the word as "orda" from Ukrainian, which also had "orda," but the word also added an identification with the Tatars/Tartars, either from Ukrainian or Polish, as the Tatars had risen in military power as allies of the Mongols of Genghis Khan and then Timur, better known to English speakers as Tamerlane. German borrowed the word from Polish, as "Horde," but it's unclear whether the "h" had already been added in Polish, or whether this was a German insertion. Latin had borrowed the word as "orda," "seemingly" from Turkish in the Balkans? French had the word as "horde," "apparently" borrowed from German, but perhaps from Latin, with a French added "h?" English borrowed the word in the mid 1500s, but from French? German? Its meaning expanded in English to mean just about any group of people, usually unruly, but not always, and its older meaning is also still around. Examples: (broader meaning) "The soccer game drew a horde of fans as spectators;" but also, (derogatory) "After the local team won the soccer game, a horde of fans surged along the streets breaking windows, smashing doors and overturning cars;" (historical) "The roads were clogged with panicked people from the town as a horde of Tatars approached." The Nazis used the word to try to scare Germans into continuing their support of the war and of the regime to resist the Russians later in World War Two.       

Cucumber Soup, Excellent for Warm Days

A GREAT soup for warm weather and easy to make .... The chopped radish gives it a little crunch. 

Ingredients:

2 seedless cucumbers, chopped
16 ounces plain low fat yogurt
2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
3 cloves garlic, chopped
2 green onions with as much of the green as possible, chopped 
1/4 cup fresh parsley
1/4 cup fresh dill
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1/4 cup olive oil + more for garnish
3 or 4 radishes, chopped

Since the ingredients will be blended, they do not need some kind of uniform chopping. Blend ingredients, except for radishes, until smooth. Chill soup for several hours. Garnish each serving with some chopped radish and a drizzle of olive oil.

WORD HISTORY:
Yogurt-This word's ultimate origin is unknown, but it goes back Turkic ^ "jogurt," which had the meaning, "thickened or condensed milk." This later gave Turkish, "yoghurt," meaning, "milk fermented by addition of certain bacteria," which was borrowed into English in the early 1600s. 

 ^ Turkic is a language family just like Indo European (Indo European is the ancient ancestor of English). Linguists generally use a "family tree" setup in classifying languages, and Turkic has several branches, as does Indo European, with English belonging to the Germanic branch. Turkic also has languages in northeastern Asia. The Turkic-speaking Bulgars were a group that entered southeastern Europe, mixed with other people and became the modern Bulgarians, but a form of Slavic gradually replaced their own Bulgar language by about 1400. Bulgar is now extinct, as is Hunnic, the language of the famous Huns, which were also a Turkic speaking people. "Turkish," should not be confused with "Turkic," as "Turkish" is the language of the people of Turkey, and it is one of many "Turkic" languages.  

Here Come The Cossacks!

While the actual origins of the Cossacks is a bit sketchy, most people probably think of the Cossacks as the elite cavalry of Tsarist Russia, or others may think of the nomadic horsemen of the Russian Steppe. When I was a kid, the movie "Taras Bulba" was released. It starred Yul Brynner, who just seemed perfect for the role as the Cossack leader circa 1600.* Tony Curtis starred as his son. It was one of those movies I saw back in those times that I still remember to this day, as the masses of horse mounted actors dressed in colorful Cossack costumes dashed across the big screen. The film was loosely based on a novel of the same name by Nikolai Gogol, who was actually born and raised in a Ukrainian Cossack community in the 1800s.

The Cossacks initially had a contentious relationship with Russia, at times participating in open revolt against the Tsarist government. Eventually the Tsars saw the Cossacks as great military assets, and in exchange for their military service, they were not taxed. Viewed as elite and loyal servants of the Tsar, they were revered, but also feared by the population, as the government of Tsar Nicholas II used them to help put down the revolution that started in 1905, a good deal of which took place in the countryside. This role was not to be repeated in the revolution that swept through Russia in the late winter of 1917. With many Cossack units serving at or near the front line during World War I, the Cossack units, and for that matter, other army units, stationed in the capital of St. Petersburg (renamed Petrograd during the war) were largely made up of recruits and reservists who were witnesses to the lack of food and the terrible suffering of the population. When protests erupted, they did little to quell the disturbances, which encouraged more of the population to join in, and in fact eventually, these units went over to the revolution, helping to bring down Nicholas II and tsardom in favor of a "provisional government," which itself was overthrown later that year by the Bolsheviks.** This precipitated a civil war in Russia, with Cossack troops serving both in support of the Bolshevik government, as well as in opposition. When the Bolsheviks finally emerged triumphant, untold numbers of Cossacks were allegedly killed (likely true), and Cossack lands were confiscated, as the communist government sought to eliminate the Cossacks as a separate identity, and to bring their lands under government control. Later, many more died at the hands of Stalin and his forced collectivization program, which brought widespread starvation to the Ukraine and to parts of the Caucasus region, both home to many Cossacks. Exact numbers are unknown, but some estimates are that at least a million Cossacks died at this time.

World War Two brought new challenges for the Cossacks. Faced with defending the Stalinist regime, which had so decimated their people, some Cossacks defected and went into service for the Germans, while many others continued to serve in Soviet units. As the Cossack and other Soviet defectors to the Germans often served in units used to combat resistance fighters behind the actual front lines, there's no doubt in my mind that some of these forces participated in atrocities, but the details are beyond the scope of this article, although I may cover such details in a future article. Also, Tsarist Russia had a terrible history of mistreatment and repression of its Jewish population. How much Cossacks participated in this repression is something I need to research more, along with the specifics of the World War Two actions, but I wanted to at least make mention of it here. When World War Two ended, tens of thousands of Cossacks were prisoners of the Allies, who turned them over to the Soviets by agreement among the Allied powers. These were not just soldiers, but family members too, as they tended to travel in family groups. Some committed suicide, and how many were executed I don't know, but presumably all others were sent to labor camps.

There are some books available about the Cossacks, but I consulted the following for some of the information I used here:
"The Cossacks, An Illustrated History," by John Ure, published by Overlook Press, 2002.
"The Cossacks" by Philip Longworth, published by Holt, Rinehart and Winston," New York, 1970.

* Yul Brynner was actually born in the Russian Pacific coast region at Vladivostok.

** Nicholas II abdicated for both himself and his son, who was afflicted with hemophilia. The Bolshevik takeover came to be known to most as "the Bolshevik Revolution."

WORD HISTORY:
Cossack/Cassock-These two words seem to actually be the same word, but the spelling variation and the different meanings having come to English from different "immediate" sources. They both go back to Turkic, a family of languages primarily from southwestern Asia, which then spread into southeastern Europe. ^ The exact Turkic root of the word is unclear, as some believe it be "qaz," which had the notion of "wander," and the various Turkic tribes were often nomads of the Asian plains, but there are other possible Turkic word sources. Whatever the case, the source word expanded to "quzzak/kazakh," with the meaning "wanderer, nomad, free man of the open plain," and this was borrowed by Slavic as "kozak." This gave its Russian descendant "kazak," which was later borrowed by French as "casaque," and English borrowed the word from French in the later 1500s or early 1600s. The word "Kazakh," and its plural form for a Turkic people from Asia, prominently featured in the name "Kazakhstan," is really the same word as "Cossack." The Cossacks' long history as nomadic horsemen made them expert cavalrymen and they eventually became part of the Tsarist military in Russia as elite cavalry units."Cassock" goes back to the same sources, except that Italian called a long riding coat a "casacca," after similar apparel used by the Cossacks. French likely borrowed the term from Italian as "casaque," simply with the meaning of "long coat," and English borrowed it from French in the 1500s. It began to be used for religious clothing in the mid 1600s.

^ The more specific language, "Turkish," is one of the Turkic languages, a language family just as is Indo European, the ancient ancestor of English. Linguists generally use a "family tree" setup in classifying languages, and Turkic has several branches, as does Indo European, with English belonging to the Germanic branch. Turkic also has languages in northeastern Asia. The Turkic-speaking Bulgars were a group that entered southeastern Europe, mixed with other people there, and became the modern Bulgarians, but a form of Slavic gradually replaced their own Bulgar language by about 1400. Bulgar is now extinct, as is Hunnic, the language of the famous Huns, which were also a Turkic speaking people.

Rasputin's Importance To History, Part 8, Rasputin's Death

Slightly edited and updated with a Word History October 18, 2014.

As conditions worsened throughout Russia, especially the food shortage in the cities, people in the nobility and the Romanov family began to plead with the Tsar to take action by sending Rasputin back to Siberia and sharing more power with the elected parliament, known in Russia as the "Duma." By sharing power, the feeling was that it would take some of the pressure off of the Tsar, as at the time, anything that went wrong was blamed on the Tsar and the government (And correctly!!! You can't have virtually all of the power and none or little of the blame when things go wrong.) There was also the plea for him to limit Alexandra's influence and involvement in governmental affairs, often with the suggestion of sending her to their summer vacation palace in the Crimea, "Livadia." The Tsar refused to act.

Likewise, some in the nobility and the Romanov family tried to get Alexandra to rid herself of Rasputin. Even her own sister, Ella,* visited to try to bring Alexandra to her senses, but without success. The two sisters parted, never to see one another again. A princess from one of the wealthiest families in Russia, the Yusupovs, came to see the Tsarina, only to be led out of her presence by a servant who was summoned by Alexandra once the princess even dared to mention that something had to be done about Rasputin.** The Tsarina told the princess that she hoped never to see her again, a wish that was fulfilled.

Met with inaction by the Tsar and the Tsarina, others began to plot to take matters into their own hands. Prince Felix Yusupov (who was married to the Tsar's niece), Grand Duke Dimitri Pavlovich Romanov (the Tsar's cousin, who had essentially been raised by Nicholas and Alexandra), and Vladimir Purishkevich, an ultra right wing zealot and politician, devised a plan to lure Rasputin to one of Yusupov's palaces in the capitol and to kill him there. In December 1916 they were able to implement their plan. I'm not going to go into all of the details, as just as with so many other things about Rasputin's life, the particulars about his death are also in question. Supposedly, the trio provided Rasputin with cakes and wine laced with poison (cyanide). The problem was, when Rasputin ate some of the cakes and drank some wine, he did not die, although he seemed to have some labored breathing. Here again, this whole situation has caused great debate. Did the conspirators use enough poison? Had the poison lost potency? (Hey, nothing worse than spoiled poison!) I'm not a scientist, but all joking aside, from what I understand, cyanide can indeed lose potency. When Hitler planned to commit suicide in 1945, he first tested the batch of cyanide he had on his dog to make sure it was effective, which it was. So, it seems that the cyanide used by the conspirators on Rasputin was not strong enough. At first, when they saw that Rasputin survived the poison, they truly began to believe that Rasputin was a holy devil, possessed by supernatural powers.

As time passed and Rasputin did not die, Prince Yusupov took a pistol and shot Rasputin, who fell to the floor, apparently dead. The prince ran up the stairs screaming to the other two conspirators who were waiting there, that he had killed Rasputin. Upon return to Rasputin's "corpse," he saw Rasputin move. Supposedly Rasputin spoke to him, threatening to tell the Tsarina the whole story as he made his way out of the palace. The other two conspirators, joined also by the prince, took shots at Rasputin. How many of these shots actually hit him, and where they hit his body, is again a detail that is debated. The trio claimed that Rasputin should have been dead, and that his survival showed his evil supernatural powers. They beat him until he was supposedly dead. His bound body was taken by car and dumped into the river. A few days later the body was discovered and supposedly an examination showed that Rasputin had still been alive when tossed into the icy water and that he had drowned. Supposedly he got loose from some of the rope used to tie his body and he made a sign of the cross as he died, with his partially frozen arm and hand still in that position when the body was recovered.*** Again, to the believers that Rasputin had evil supernatural powers, this only confirmed that he was a holy devil. The story is disputed by others, with some saying that he was indeed dead when dumped into the river, and others saying that while he did die by drowning, that the position of his arm and hand was simply his attempt to free himself from the rope and get to the surface. I guess you could say, "The devil is in the details." (Oh Randy, you're funny!) Regardless of the details, Rasputin was dead.

To be continued in the last part  ...

* Ella had been married to one of Nicholas's uncles, Sergei, a brother of Nicholas's father, who was assassinated many years before by revolutionaries (he was literally blown to pieces by a bomb). Ella eventually became a nun, and was such when she came to see her sister about Rasputin. Ella was killed by the Bolsheviks after the revolution, when they threw her and some others down a mine shaft while they were still alive! Grenades were tossed in afterward, but autopsies on the later recovered bodies suggested that some of the victims had died from wounds, but others died of starvation.

** Note that Alexandra referred to Rasputin as "our friend" when talking with or writing to her husband. She never called him "Rasputin." If I remember correctly, to others she frequently, but not necessarily always, referred to him as "Father Grigory."

*** All of this "seems" a bit far fetched to me, like something scripted for a movie, but I can't say some or all of it is untrue. There are photographs taken by the police of Rasputin's battered face and his raised arm, but whether he was making a sign of the cross I can't say.

WORD HISTORY:
Siberia-This word came to be applied to the Asian lands that gradually came under Russian control beginning in the late 1500s, with major expansion of Russian control thereafter. Its ultimate origin is unclear,^ but it goes back to the Tatar (also often "Tartar") occupation of what became an area in the southern part of western Siberia in the late 13th Century. The Tatars spoke (and speak) a Turkic language, and they still exist today, although there are strong dialects involved in the overall language now, as they didn't remain together, but rather split into groups settling in various regions of Siberia and European Russia. The Tatars called this settlement the Khanate of "Sibir." A Khanate is an area ruled by a Khan. Russian borrowed the word "Sibir," and it remained the name of that specific region, but expanded in geographic meaning along with the expansion of Russian control further into Asia. It "seems" English borrowed the word as "Siberia" in the earlier 1800s. Since European Russia was the center of the Russian Empire's power, political prisoners were often banished to Siberia by the Tsarist governments in the 1800s, as the area was generally very sparsely populated. During the Soviet Union era, the Soviets established labor camps (prisons) in Siberia for opponents and those suspected of being opponents, thus the Western European and American idea of "being sent to Siberia," likely the usage of the word most recalled by many English speakers. During the latter stages of World War Two, Nazi propaganda tried to frightened Germans into resisting the approaching Soviet armies with the slogan, "Sieg oder Sibirien" ("Victory or Siberia").  

^ A "possible" source is the combination of two old Turkic words, "su," which meant "water," and "beri" (or "biri"), which meant "wilds," in the sense "wilderness." The settlement of the Khanate of Sibir came at the junction of two rivers (later called the Tobol and Irtysh).