Life & Leisure

Spanish goat cheese, a recipe for success in Russia

By Ignacio Ortega

Moscow, Mar 10 (efe-epa).- In a snowy farm in northern Moscow, Andres Aquesolo makes goat cheese using a traditional Spanish technique.

After 10 years of hard work and a significant financial outlay, Aquesolo is starting to set the bar high in Russia.

“We started 10 years ago with three goats and now we have about 450. We make rustic cheese and distribute it in the capital,” he tells EFE, while petting one of his goats.

“The market asks us for a product with good quality. It is selling very well,” he adds.

Cheese is one of the products that has benefited the most from the Russian sanctions on Western foods, and Aquesolo is taking advantage of the situation to create a gastronomic culture hitherto unknown in the country.

Aquesolo, son of Jesus, a Spanish railway engineer, and Galina, a Russian woman, spent much of his childhood in his farm. When the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, he asked the authorities for a piece of land to fulfill his dream.

“I was surrounded by cows and mushrooms,” says Aquesolo, who was born in Moscow in 1954.

The doctor-turned-entrepreneur has become fond of cheese thanks to some of his Spanish friends.

“I do not know whether to call it a hobby or a passion. I was taught how to make cheese one day when I was in Spain,” he says.

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