Authors: Anastasia Shteinert, Michael Perekrestov

While working through the museum’s porcelain collection, we came across a peculiar dish that prompted a deep dive into a little-known chapter in the culinary and industrial history of the Russian Empire.

The piece that launched this gastronomic exploration? A shell-shaped porcelain dish from the coronation service of Alexander III, rimmed with gold and decorated with a black Imperial eagle.

Its sole purpose? Serving a very specific delicacy: shucked oysters.

Oyster dish from the coronation service of Alexander III. Imperial Porcelain Factory, St. Petersburg, 1889. Gift of Elisabeth Brannon (565.84)

The very existence of specialized oyster tableware in the nineteenth-century Russian Empire raised some intriguing questions. Were oysters truly that popular? Where were they produced, and who consumed them? Here’s what we discovered.

Oysters at the Imperial Table: From Peter the Great to Catherine II

Russia’s first notable oyster enthusiast was Peter the Great. During his Grand Embassy of 1697–1698, he encountered shellfish in Western Europe and reportedly developed a particular fondness for Flensburg oysters [1]. His successors continued the trend. Catherine II was also an admirer of oysters and even mentioned them in her memoirs [2]. During her reign in the late eighteenth century, the delicacy gained broader popularity among the elite.

Despite this growing demand, early attempts to establish oyster farming within the Russian Empire proved unsuccessful. Most regions lacked the necessary conditions: sufficiently warm temperatures, adequate salinity, and the specialized knowledge required for cultivation, which had not yet been fully developed.

Imported Luxury: Oysters in Nineteenth-Century Russia

Throughout much of the nineteenth century, oysters were imported primarily from Germany and Belgium. Transported by ship in barrels of cool salt water, they arrived fresh enough to be enjoyed in the Empire’s major cities. Not surprisingly, oysters became a fashionable indulgence in Saint Petersburg and Moscow, where the nobility purchased them at luxury grocery stores or ordered them in upscale restaurants.

Literature of the period reflects this culinary trend. In Anna Karenina, Leo Tolstoy describes Stepan Oblonsky and Konstantin Levin dining on famed Flensburg oysters at a Moscow restaurant. Anton Chekhov’s short story Oysters presents a more sobering perspective: a poor boy, unfamiliar with the delicacy, becomes ill after attempting to eat the shells themselves. The story underscores the social divide surrounding oysters, which remained largely inaccessible to the lower classes.

Crimean Oyster Farms and Technological Innovation

By the late nineteenth century, oyster farming finally took root within the Russian Empire, this time in Crimea. The construction of a railroad to the region made it possible to transport fresh oysters efficiently throughout the Empire and even to other European countries. Specialized refrigerated railway carriages, a technological innovation of the era, ensured their quality during transit.

Some Crimean oysters rivaled those imported from Western Europe. Oysters cultivated near Sevastopol were even served to the Romanov family. Interestingly, Alexander III himself does not appear to have shared the enthusiasm of Peter I or Catherine II. He favored simple Russian fare: cabbage soup, boiled potatoes with fish, porridge, and buckwheat kasha.

Yet the coronation table reflected imperial luxury. This sauceboat from our collection, part of the same service as the oyster dish, was likely used to pour sauce or lemon juice over the oysters. Its gold rim and imperial black eagle mirror those of the dish.

The Rise, Fall, and Return of Russian Oysters

Oyster farming in Russia declined during the First World War and disappeared entirely in the years that followed. Attempts to revive the industry in the Soviet Union during the 1960s were unsuccessful, largely due to the spread of shell disease. In recent decades, however, interest in oysters has returned, supported by advances in aquaculture and transportation technologies.

Today, objects like this imperial oyster dish serve as tangible reminders of a once-thriving gastronomic culture, one that connected imperial taste, technological innovation, and global trade at the Russian table.

Footnotes: 

[1] Original letter by Peter I to Cornelius Cruys about sending a ship to bring oysters from Flensburg. August 3, 1719. Available at the Digital Library of Historical Documents: https://docs.historyrussia.org/ru/nodes/328984.

[2] Catherine II, On the Greatness of Russia: Selected Works (Moscow: Eksmo, 2003).