title: Introduction Identity
abstract: Abstract After laying out the principal arguments, the introduction surveys the history of wine consumption from Kievan Rus in the tenth century to the Soviet embrace of Georgian foodways and wine toasting in the twentieth. It highlights the role of Peter the Great, who encountered fine European wine during travel abroad, and who forced the Russian aristocracy to adopt European modes of consumption. By the early nineteenth century, European wines were common fixtures on elite Russian tables, and