For international students studying abroad, the familiar taste of home often serves as the most tangible link between their homeland and a foreign country.
Viktoriia Poletaeva, a first-year master's student at Harbin Institute of Technology in Harbin, the capital city of Heilongjiang province, grew up with the aroma of Russian bread baked by her grandmother, and the scent of Russian rye bread has long been etched in her memory since she came to the city in 2022.
"The familiar Russian architecture in the city makes me feel at home," she says. "However, I always yearned for the authentic Russian bread from my hometown."
One day, by chance, she saw Churin lieba (which comes from the Russian word khleb, meaning bread) at a Churin Food store, and the familiar shape and aroma instantly triggered her homesickness.
"With one bite, the crispy crust paired with the soft interior and the slightly sour taste from the hops fermentation," she says. "At that moment, the longing for my distant homeland was gently soothed.
"In fact, Russian bread is generally more sour and harder, while Harbin lieba perfectly blends the rich wheat aroma of Northeast China," she says. "It is solid and chewy, with a long-lasting aftertaste. It retains the traditional essence of Russian baking while cleverly adapting to local tastes, making it a distinctive delicacy rooted in the black soil, combining flavors from both countries."
Poletaeva also visited the Churin Bread-Making Skills Exhibition Hall.
In the center of the hall stands a model of a loaf of Churin lieba sitting on a four-meter-long wooden paddle.
In the experience area, visitors were already lining up.
As the freshly baked lieba was unveiled, its soft interior and steaming warmth were handed to each visitor.
The traditional way to eat it is with butter and jam and another way is to pair it with slices of Russian-style sausage.
"These are authentic Russian ways of eating it," she says. "I'm delighted to see my hometown's food culture so welcomed in Harbin."
In 1900, Russian merchant Ivan Churin brought Russian bread-making techniques to Harbin.
Passed down through five generations of craftsmen, the large round bread, which weighs around two kilograms and has a traditional European flavor, has become a specialty of Harbin and a taste memory etched in the daily lives of local residents.
At 3 am, the fire in the Churin bakery is already lit.
Master Lei, the fifth-generation inheritor of Churin bread-making techniques, carefully records the room temperature.
His keen intuition, honed from years on the production line, allows him to accurately estimate fermentation based on variables like temperature and environment.
He adjusts the water temperature, kneads the dough, and gently awakens the century-old starter yeast.
Every detail affects the traditional flavor of lieba.
After three natural fermentations, manual shaping, and slow baking in a brick oven, the crispy-on-the-outside, soft-on-the-inside Churin lieba is ready, filling the air with the rich aroma of wheat.
"Churin lieba has been passed down through five generations, always using traditional Russian handmade techniques and facilities," says Lei. "Its three major processes are distinctive — using hops to make liquid yeast for fermentation, giving the bread an enticing hop aroma; employing a traditional three-stage fermentation to produce a rich variety of organic acids; and baking with hardwood, creating a slightly charred and crispy crust with a soft and tasty interior.
"Kneading and shaping by hand are the two key steps in the production process," he says. "Kneading by hand is a race against time; it requires speed and ensuring the dough is well-formed."
Lei says he spent over two years mastering the basic skill of kneading.
At the Churin bakery, the average age of the core worker team is over 35. Many of them entered the workshop when young and have been working on the front line for decades.
"In 2007, the Churin lieba-making technique was recognized as a provincial intangible cultural heritage. In 2009, we established the country's first Churin Bread-Making Skills Exhibition Hall," he says."The exhibition hall is not only a simple reproduction of intangible cultural heritage techniques, but also an interpretation from a new perspective."
