History indicates Kefir culture
originated some thousands of years ago and there are many
stories which point to the region of the Caucasian mountains
of eastern Europe. For centuries it remained unknown until
travelers took it back to Europe in the eighteenth and
nineteenth century. It has been said that the prophet
Mohammed gave Kefir culture to his followers.
What follows is an
interesting and true story.
The cauliflower like grains of Kefir
culture were thought of as having amazing healing powers as
far back as the eighteenth century, and great care was taken
by the Moslem tribesmen of the Caucasus not to allow any of
it to pass out of their control, for they feared loosing its
healing powers. It was virtually bequeathed from generation
to generation as a source of family and tribal
wealth.
Word of this powerful food/medicine
spread to areas far from the Caucuses, and at the beginning
of this century the All-Russian Physician's Society asked
two brothers named Blandov, who owned cheese manufacturing
factories in the Northern Caucasus town of Kislovodsk, for
help in obtaining the culture grains of Kefir.
One of the brothers, Nikolai Blandov,
persuaded a lovely young employee, Irina Sakharova, to use
her beauty to gain access to the much desired grain. She
therefore traveled to the Caucasus where she attempted to
interest a local prince, Bek-Mirza Barchorov, to assist her
in this plot. When he declined to give up any of the
precious substance she left to return to Kislovodsk, only to
be captured by agents of the prince, who not content with
not giving up the Kefir did not wish to loose the presence
of the lovely Irina either.
Finding herself back in his presence
and facing a proposal of marriage into the bargain she
remained silent until a rescue mission arranged by her
employers freed her. She promptly brought the prince before
the Tsar’s court where she accepted grains of Kefir as the
settlement of her suit for abduction.
In September 1908 Irina Sakharova
brought the first bottles of Kefir to Moscow for sale where
it was at first used for medicinal purposes. In 1973, Irina,
then 85, was sent a letter from the Minister of the Food
Industry of The Soviet Union, acknowledging her great part
in bringing Kefir to the Russian people.
