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"Cream kumys," which is advertised as a delicacy in America, is a contradiction in terms, it will be seen, as it is made of cow's milk, and cream would be contrary to the nature of kumys, even if the mare's milk produced anything which could rightly pass as such. Fish and fruits are also forbidden, with the exception of klubniki, which accord well with kumys.
About four miles from the town proper, on the steppe, lie two noted kumys establishments; one of them being the first resort of that kind ever set up, at a time when the only other choice for invalids who wished to take the cure was to share the hardships, dirt, bad food, and carelessly prepared kumys of the tented nomads of the steppes.
We said it was natural, when invalids drank from three to five bottles of the nourishing kumys a day, that they should not require much extra food, and that the management provided what variety was healthy and advisable, no doubt; only we would have liked a choice; and what queer steak!
In addition to the daily washing they are well smoked with rotten birch trunks, in order to destroy all particles of kumys which may cling to them. The next step after the milk is obtained is to ferment it. The ferment, or yeast, is obtained by collecting the sediment of the kumys which has already germinated, and washing it off thoroughly with milk or water.
It is very easy for a person unaccustomed to kumys to become intoxicated on this strong quality of milk wine.
This course, however, not only deprives them of medical advice and the comforts to which they have been accustomed, but often gives them kumys which is difficult to take because of its rank taste and smell, due to the lack of that scrupulous cleanliness which its proper preparation demands. There are establishments near St.
Turn where we would in those kumys establishments, we encountered a patient engaged in assiduous promenading, with a bottle of kumys suspended from his arm and a glassful in his hand.
Hence it is that I can never recall the kumys, which is so intimately connected with the name of Samara, without also recalling the famine, which is, alas, almost as intimately bound up with it. St. Petersburg is handsome, grand, impressive.
Moreover, on private estates it is not always possible to observe all the conditions regarding the choice and care of the mares. At our establishment there were several Tatars to milk the mares and make the kumys. The wife of one of them, a Tatar beauty, was the professional taster, who issued her orders like an autocrat on that delicate point.
The effects of kumys are considered of especial value in cases of weak lungs, anaemia, general debility caused by any wasting illness, ailments of the digestive organs, and scurvy, for which it is taken by many naval officers. In short, although it is not a cure for all earthly ills, it is of value in many which proceed from imperfect nutrition producing exhaustion of the patient.
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