No traveller’s tale of Novgorod would be complete without a run-down of the regional delicacies.

I always find the best way of collecting recipes in Russia is to find some inept Olga (not difficult) and then have her cook something while you write up the method.

As you know, all Olgas like attention and you can get them really whistling as they work while you say ‘oh that’s interesting’ and do helpful little things like rescue their bleached strands, false fingernails, eyelashes and other stuff that always tends to fall in the sauce.

Spicy Carrot Oblongs may sound like a really exotic dish but in fact it’s just a variant of Pirozhki. Basically, Russian cuisine is all about wrapping whatever comes to hand in pastry and then dropping it in boiling water. So you can use any exotic filling you like.

The ‘haute methode Novgorodoise’ , however, is quick and dirty. It’s quick because you can buy a plastic bag of ready-mixed yeast dough in the market. And it’s dirty because that’s the way the carrots are around here. (See foto) Novgorodians insist: the dirtier the vegetable, the fresher it must be.

Interesting aside. In Kaliningrad, the new Armani-tailored mayor, Georgy Boos, banned street sellers because he thought they lowered the tone of the neighbourhood. In Novgorod, however, you’ll find grubby Babushkas selling muddy carrots at almost any bus stop.

Well, I know your mouth is watering already so I’ll get on with the recipe.

1. Grab a plastic bag of ready-mixed dough from the market. (Or make some pastry).

2. Shred some carrot and saute in butter until soft. Spice it up a bit. Ground red pepper should disguise the carrot taste almost completely. If you have time on your hands, you can chop in a bit of onion or green pepper to relieve the monotony.

3. Flatten the pastry and cut into 3 - 4 inch rounds or squares. Put a heaped spoonful of sauteed carrot in the middle.

4. Get an inept Olga to fold the pastry around the filling into irregular oblongs.

Actually you can cook oblongs any way you like. If you use a yeast dough, then you should really deep-fry or oven bake. But using ordinary pastry, you can simply drop them in boiling water for fifteen minutes and enjoy that white, anaemic, uncooked look - like that of pelmeni or manti - or brown them later in a pan for a few extra minutes.

If all this sounds like too much trouble, there’s a fast oblong counter in the cafe outside Novgorod’s Kremlin park, to the left of the Lenin monument. The Olgas here are pretty cool at pastrymaking but, downside, they don’t stop to chat.