Feeding the fifteen.

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Our friday excursion this week was something slightly different. We walked in double file half an hour from the obshezhitie, to the Z.A.O-Hleb bread factory on ulitsa Chaikovskovo.

Industry is a huge business in Russia; every type of juice, milk, meat or bread that is not imported arrives in supermarkets from factories in little-known industrial towns, many in Siberia and to the east.

First we went upstairs to leave our coats and bags, and to get kitted out for the trip to the factory floor. No blue plastic-bag shoes were needed this week, but each of us was handed a light blue knee-length cotton smock and a blue shower cap, to be worn at all times.

A warm, cheerful blonde lady showed us around. She greeted us with a big loaf of brown bread - fresh and hot from the oven - in each hand, which she gave to us to break pieces off for ourselves. It was a type of black bitter bread that is served in every restaurant, but lighter and even tastier. She was in a hurry as she was expected in a meeting 45 minutes after we arrived so we dashed from room to room for half an hour, sampling each product as we went along.

It has been the biggest bread factory in Tver for 76 years but it is a modern building, like a hospital or primary school in parts. Of course there is the smell of fresh bread everywhere, even in reception. It is separated into five rooms, with different machinery to make and package each type of bread.

In the centre of one room was a huge machine. Cream coloured lumps of dough are squirted onto the end of a conveyor belt, then as they move towards the oven in the centre a zig-zag pattern is pressed into the top of them. The dough goes underneath a giant grill and comes out dark brown and firm, then rolls on to another machine that packs it into clear bags with the Z.A.O logo on. From there factory workers put the new loaves into baskets and wheel them into stock rooms. It is the most popular bread in all shops in Tver, and is also exported to other parts of Russia as well as Europe. As English translation of the handout leaflet states, "We make tasty, aromatic, peaceful bread.... that is the subject of amazement abroad". The process is certainly a source of amazement among the Finns.

As soon as the brown loaf had been sampled it was time to move onto the biscuits. There was a similar machine upstairs, only with hundreds of baked round sugar 'pechenye' rolling towards the packaging part. We were allowed to take some off the conveyor belt while they were still hot, and nibble them as we walked around the top floor.

Christa, Mirka, Yenu and myself needed a coffee afterwards to soak up all the bread, so we found an underground kofeiniya on the way home.

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