Modern Russian Folk Medicine

Anyone who spends at least a few months in Russia and has any sort of meaningful contact with locals will no doubt come across what I call "modern Russian folk medicine" (I think you'll see why). Almost every American I've met who's spent time in Russia has as much trouble accepting these practices as I do. It seems that in the US we have learned largely to rely on proven science to determine the effectiveness of treatments. Russians, however, seem to depend on these folk traditions. This week I came down with a pretty bad cold and subsequently faced a barrage of such folk remedies. Allow me to introduce you to a couple:


Our Russian language professor offered this remedy to get rid of a stuffy nose: "Take a clove of garlic. Place it in one nostril. Hold the other nostril shut with your finger. Take a long, slow breath in through the nostril with the garlic. Do this five times. Then, remove the garlic and put it into the other nostril. Close the first nostril with your finger and take five more breaths. Now don't take more than five breaths, or it will burn the insides of your nose. If you do that the first day of your stuffy nose, I promise that the second day it will be almost gone. And if you do it the second day, I promise that the third day it will be completely gone!"

The same professor also recommended the following: "If you're having problems with your heart, eat apricots. And if you're having problems with your stomach, you need to eat plums."

My friend Rachel passed on these to me:

To remove toxins from your blood: Place a tablespoon of mustard in a sock and put it on your foot overnight. But if you're using a strong mustard, you'll probably want to put a clean sock on between your foot and the mustard-sock or else you could burn the skin.

To help expediate the healing of a bruise: Place a cabbage leaf on the bruise for a few hours. If you're trying the mustard-sock thing, you might as well keep the cabbage on the bruise for the night as well.

To help remove congestion in the lungs (or something): place a few hot cups on your chest for a few hours. You can also put the cups on your back.


My host mother recommended the following to get my temperature down: "You need to place some raspberry varenya (a combination of fruit and water that is boiled and conserved in jars) in a cup and add hot water and drink it before going to bed. During the night, the raspberry varenya will cause you to sweat and as the sweat dries, it will cool off your body and in the morning your temperature will come down."


While I can certainly see the science behind the cooling effect of evaporation, this recommendation came as a surprise to me considering Russians' great fear of WIND. Of course I exaggerate (slightly) when I say that, but I have had countless experiences with Russians who have scolded me for not wearing a scarf. "Ветер дует" they say. "The wind is blowing." And then they tell us that we will get sick if we don't cover up our necks from the wind. My host mom also has repeatedly mentioned to me the dangers of the infamous "сквозняк." Skvoznyak is a crossbreeze that can be created by having multiple doors or windows open in a building. While most Americans would agree that a crossbreeze is generally a good thing, barring cold weather, Russians have an innate fear that even a minimal amount of time spent in a skvoznyak will indubidably result in you getting sick. I quote my host mom: "Even the slightest skvoznyak can cause you to become terribly sick, even nigh unto death."

Despite all of these recommendations, my host mom told me that there was one thing I absolutely had to do. "There's a special drink," she said, "that we always drink when we have a cold or flu. Vitaly (my host dad) will run down and get some from the store. And you need to drink it three times a day until you feel better. We always drink it when we're sick and it always helps." I, of course, met this suggestion with some skepticism, but because my cold was so bad, I was willing to try it. Wouldn't you know, Vitaly comes back from the pharmacy with a few packs of Терафлю, "Theraflu". And wouldn't you know, after two days of regular doses of this Терафлю, I felt almost 100%.

Maybe there's something to this "modern Russian folk medicine" after all.