May 9, Saturday. 1 day. Our journey continues towards the village of Mednoye, Tver Region, where we were very interested in an Italian farm, where a real Italian has been producing original Italian cheeses for many years.

But there was another reason to look into this place: one of my friends recently learned that her grandfather, who died during the Great Patriotic War and was considered missing, was buried in a mass grave in the village of Mednoye in the Tver region. Of course, we decided to support her and together honor the memory of all the fallen soldiers. Moreover, today the corresponding date is May 9.

14.20 . We drove 285 km in a day. In the morning, on the way, we stopped at a wonderful place: where we walked through the ancient temple complex to the sound of bells and even witnessed a small miracle.

After that, we continued our route along the M10 highway through Tver and soon turned towards the village of Mednoye. A few kilometers later, passing a rural temple,

We saw a memorial to fallen soldiers during the Great Patriotic War.

It was located right at a fork in the road, it was impossible to pass by.

It was a very touching moment when our Katya saw the name of her grandfather on the list of dead soldiers, whose fate and burial place were not known for more than 70 years!

Of course, with great gratitude we remembered not only those who died here during the bloody battles, but also those volunteers who are still, after so many decades, searching for and finding the remains of soldiers. And after that they are buried with honor.

What a blessing that many “missing people” regain their names, and their descendants can restore the history of their family and know where the graves of their ancestors are.

There was a festive mood all around. Village residents carried flowers to the memorial of fallen soldiers. Nearby hung posters with photographs of veterans and a short story about their destinies. Students from local schools set up a stand with their drawings dedicated to Victory Day.

And life was in full swing all around: nature was waking up after its winter sleep. The birds were singing with all their might, a light breeze swayed the soft green leaves of the birches, which looked like airy lace against the blue sky.

A floral aroma spread around. Oh, how nice it is in spring!

Where is the Italian farm?

How to get to the cheese farm - this question remained relevant. As usual, there were no signs on the road. We had a printout from the Internet with strange identifying marks, and it helped!

So, to get to the Italian farm “Little Italy” you need to take the left road from the fork near the memorial to fallen soldiers (the right one leads to the bridge, along which we then returned to the highway). To the left is a concrete fence. After 200 meters there will be an iron gate on the left, next to it there is a sign “Public Reception of the Deputy”. As it turned out, this “deputy” accepts everyone. You can and should safely enter the territory; there will be parking on the right. We arrived!

All around us were gray concrete buildings,

a wooden hayloft, a little further away there were a couple of village houses.

And there's no one around! Painting from the series “We didn’t expect it!” 😛

Well, this is not surprising. To get to the farm and see the farm and production, you need to call in advance and arrange an excursion to the Italian farm. We decided not to do this, since our program was already very busy. Therefore, we went on a whim: we’ll still be nearby, so we’ll see what we can see.

Pietro Mazza and Little Italy

It all started in 1999, when Italian Pietro Mazza came to Russia to meet the parents of his future Russian wife Zhanna. And this trip became a turning point in his life. He did not want to return to his homeland, but decided to create a piece of Little Italy for himself on Russian soil.

What could a hereditary cheese maker do? Of course, cheese production. This is how the Italian cheese farm Little Italy came into being.

It all started very difficult. Pietro had to learn new professions: build buildings and make furniture himself. Yes, and selling products was problematic at first. But gradually, with the development of the economy, the idea came to invite not only buyers, but also agrotourism lovers and other travelers.

Things have gone much better in this direction. Now the Italian and his Russian wife have a huge farm consisting of more than 1000 heads of cattle, which live and graze in different parts of the Tver region, mainly in the Torzhok and Selizharovsky districts.

All cheese production is carried out only using natural and environmentally friendly products. And the cheeses are prepared using ancient Italian technologies that are over 100 years old.

WITH organized excursion you can see other inhabitants of the farm: horses and cows of different breeds, ponies, wild boars, goats, sheep and even ostriches. All inhabitants of the farm are allowed to be fed with special food. Those who wish can ride horses.

After a tour of the farm and stables, travelers are invited to enjoy a cheese plate tasting. And then you can order lunch at the restaurant. And after such a “belly celebration” there is the opportunity to stay here overnight at an inn.

Russian cheeses at Italian prices

There were signs near the parking lot that said “Tasting Room.” We went in the indicated direction and ended up in a large restaurant. In the hall we were greeted by a huge stove.

There was a real carriage in the corner.

And the huge hall of the restaurant was guarded by an evil step! 😆

It's quite deserted inside. But it was clear that the Pietro Mazza cheese factory was counting on grand receptions for visiting tourists and fans of agritourism.

The rows of set tables spoke of this quite eloquently.

Besides us, there were several visitors in the restaurant hall who were not bothered by the prices of the dishes. According to our provincial ideas, for the price of one plate of spaghetti with local cheese, you can buy several kilograms of pasta, after which you can live easily and satisfyingly for several days. But, as they say, it depends on the taste and color...

The atmosphere inside is very cozy, the room is wonderfully laid out and decorated. There are many paintings and Russian household utensils.

In the background there is a wonderful family cow idyll: a contented mother cow with a small calf and another cow who entertains them.

It’s just that in my understanding, instead of a cow, there should have been a responsible and serious bull-father. Well, local professionals who deal with animals, as they say, know better what a cow’s happiness consists of. 🙂

Tasting in Russian

Near the entrance to the tasting room and restaurant there is a store where you can buy a huge variety of natural dairy products. The prices are quite high, but what can stop true connoisseurs of natural and high-quality products? Something stopped us... We are probably not such amateurs. 🙂

For those interested, you can evaluate the display case yourself in the photograph (the picture can be enlarged). All prices are per piece (not per kilo) as of May 2015.

Having looked at the Russian-overseas dishes, we realized that no one had canceled lunch time. So we went to the backyard of an Italian farm to lay out our own self-assembled tablecloth.

How nice it is to sit on the grass under the warm spring sun, which you are so unaccustomed to during hibernation.

And what is white there in the distance? Oh, miracle! A real milk river flows here! Apparently, the remnants of production flow here, which forms a normal trickle.

True, the fairy tale version does not work here. There are no jelly banks at all. Yes, and milk in the river, too, can only be in a fairy tale, but in our familiar world it very quickly turns sour and acquires the corresponding smell. But in the photograph everything looks almost fabulous. 😆

Having refreshed ourselves, we moved on. After all, today we were waiting for two more wonderful towns in the Tver region: Znamenskoye with the delightful 18th-century estate “Rayok” and Vasilevo, where a unique open-air museum of wooden architecture is located.

I'm a cheese addict. I love cheese in all its forms. And when I found out that near Tver, in the village of Mednoe, there is a farm owned by an Italian, where cheeses are prepared using Italian technology, I simply had to visit there.
Visiting a farm is a whole ritual that begins with visiting a restaurant and watching a presentation about how cheeses are made.

1. Meet the owner himself. They say that in 1999 he bought a half-abandoned farm, took a Tver woman as his wife, and together they began to raise the farm. A few years later they had a restaurant with 10 seats, now the hall can seat more than 100 people.

2. Always smile while viewing slides. Where else can you see cheeses that tell you how they are prepared?

3. An obligatory item is tasting 9 types of cheeses and Italian Cuisine. Cheeses look much more appetizing in person than in the photo - poor lighting for shooting. And what they taste like!

4. This Parmesan is about 8 years old or something. Used as a demonstration for visitors.

5. After a hearty lunch, we “roll out” to the street to meet the inhabitants of the farm and shake off the accumulated calories. What I didn’t expect to see on an Italian farm in the Tver region was the Australian emu.

6. I don’t think it’s worth telling whose patch this is.

7. Horses, and all animals on the farm, welcome guests

8. And this is not surprising, because this is feeding out of turn. Didn't know horses loved bread

9. They love carrots too

10. Dairy cows. I don't know why, but this is my favorite photo from this trip.

11. Cows also enjoy eating bread.

12. Some “portrait” shots with cows

13. Each cow has its own character, and this is clearly visible in the photo. No one is the same.

14. But these cows are for slaughter, that’s why their eyes are so sad. My vegetarian mind was outraged by this. But everyone has their own karma

15. This cow is no longer there either.

16. And my wife nicknamed this representative of ungulates Leontyev, for his hairstyle :)

17. I must say, he deserves this nickname, he rushes around the paddock like an artist on stage!

18. And this is his “more tanned” double

19. If you wish, you can ride a horse, this one, as I understand it

20. I don’t know much about horses, this one is of Arabian blood and is considered a tough breed.

21. It is especially worth noting the signs with names and comments for each ungulate

21. There is also a whole family of identical white dogs living on the farm. They attack tourists and force themselves to comb their hair.

22. Sandy nose

23. And then there will be shots taken in the Tver region on the way to the farm.

24. Stairway to nowhere

25. The weather was just super! We used GPS to take the shortest route :)

26. There is something in this...

27. The dome of this church amazed me. I've never seen a blue dome!

28. Unfortunately, not all churches are restored

29. And further photographs were taken on the outskirts of Tver. You can’t tell from them that 2011 is just around the corner.

30. Game frozen in frame

31. And again the GPS advised us not the most successful route - some kind of road, but even that ended :)

32. And finally, I wish everyone the best!

Former fighter against the Italian mafia Pietro Mazza left sunny Calabria and set up cheese production in the Russian outback. Now tourists go to his farm in the Tver region for Italian exotica.


Text: Dinara Mamedova


A short, gray-haired man of about sixty phlegmatically lights a cigar. "Russian entrepreneurs want to invest money in the morning and make a profit in the evening - tomorrow it will be too late. In agriculture this is impossible, so there is no competition in our business,” he says.

Pietro Mazza is Italian. In Russia, he owns the cheese farm La Fattoria "Little Italy" ("Little Italy"). And in his homeland he worked as a policeman all his life. Sixteen years ago, Pietro and his wife started producing cheese and agrotourism in the Tver region and now receive about 12 thousand tourists a year. Visitors come here for tours and tastings of Italian cheeses and dishes, and Pietro even opened a hotel for them. Chairman of the Association for the Development of Agricultural Tourism Taras Astakhov says that today in Russia approximately 3.5 thousand rural enterprises operate in this industry. Typically, such farms receive 30-40 visitors per day; on average, one company sells goods and services for approximately 600 thousand rubles. But “Little Italy” broke all records both in terms of the number of tourists and revenue.

Under the toe of the boot


The outskirts of the village of Mednoye, 180 km from Moscow. At the entrance to Little Italy there are no gates or barriers - only Italian and Russian flags greet tourists. There are about ten rather old buildings here. The hotel building has not yet been plastered, and you have to move along paths. Doesn't smell like manure: Mazza keeps his cows on another property.

I enter a gray one-story building - this is a tasting room. In the hallway there is a stove with a huge cauldron in which cheese is cooked, and in two adjacent rooms there is a display case with cheeses and souvenirs. Right here banqueting hall, designed for 400 people. Somewhere music is playing - Italian hits from the 1980s-1990s.

Pietro Mazza appears from behind the screen hiding the kitchen and utility rooms and says in a drawn-out Russian: “Hello.” “Italy is beautiful only in pictures, it is impossible to work there, there is strong competition and strict government regulation,” he continues in Italian, explaining why he settled in Russia. His words are translated by his wife Zhanna, a tall, energetic blonde. And he adds on his own: “Europe is in crisis, soon there will be nothing to eat there.”

Pietro was born in southern province Calabria is the “toe” of the Italian “boot”. Three generations of his family were involved in cheese production, but Pietro chose a more courageous profession: he worked as a policeman in Rome, in the anti-mafia department. In 1992, in one of the Roman cafes, he met a 19-year-old Russian student who was studying in Moscow to become a catering technologist. Pietro and Jeanne got married and stayed in Italy. In the late 1990s, the family, along with their two-year-old daughter Jessica, came to the Moscow region to visit relatives. And I decided to stay in Russia.

Pietro was then amazed by the huge abandoned fields - in Italy, where every piece of land is used, you will not find this. In 1999, using savings and benefits received after retirement, Signor Mazza bought an abandoned sausage factory in the Tver region for several hundred thousand rubles. The plant raised cows on 16 hectares of land; Pietro also inherited the old workshops and cowsheds. The village of Mednoye is located next to the Moscow-Petersburg highway, the writer Alexander Radishchev stayed here. The future farmers thought the place was good.

Pietro had to remember family recipes: The Mazza bought milk from local collective farms and produced a ton of cheese per day (ricotta, mozzarella). They sold mainly to metropolitan stores and restaurants; in the early 2000s it was easier to negotiate with them than it is now. But they realized that this path was a dead end. “To make cheese, we needed to have our own milk,” says Mazza. “Russian collective farms fed cows with silage, the raw materials turned out to be sour and unsuitable for cheese production. Poor raw materials affected the quality of the final product.”

There were also problems with sales. Soft cheeses are usually stored for two to three days. And due to problems with logistics, they often did not have time to reach the consumer fresh. Pietro and Zhanna came to the conclusion that they needed to sell the cheese locally. To do this, you need to invite buyers to your place.

Visiting cheese makers. At the Pietro Mazza farm, tourists can not only try cheese, but also cook it

Photo: Grigory Sobchenko, Kommersant

Farm tour


In 2004, the Mazza family purchased 60 beef and dairy cows, investing approximately 3 million rubles earned from trading cheese. The premises of the former plant were converted into a barn for animals and a tasting room, and milkmaids and livestock breeders were hired.

Then Zhanna began calling Tver and Moscow travel companies, offered a gastronomic program - an introduction to the cheese traditions of Italy and a tasting Italian dishes. Travel agencies became interested: there was no such service on the market. At first, children's groups from Tver visited the farm. Then, thanks to word of mouth, clients from Moscow arrived - now the farm cooperates with 100 travel agencies.

“We have been working with Little Italy since 2008, the demand is good,” says Tatyana Topolova, manager of the domestic tourism department of the Travel Store tour operator. “Every weekend we send two minibuses from Moscow to the farm.” According to her, a similar offer was made by an entrepreneur from Podolsk; the company took tourists there a couple of times, but then the clients lost interest.

Usually a trip to a farm is not an independent tourist product, but part of a tour of the sights of the Tver region. Guests are taken to Torzhok, Tver, and along the way they are taken to “Little Italy”. The program costs 2-2.5 thousand rubles. per person. Travel agencies do not pay for the services of the Mazza family - the farm makes money only by selling cheese to tourists.

Guests spend approximately two hours at the farm. They are offered to try nine types of cheese (ricotta, provola, caciotta, etc.) and fresh Italian bread for free. Private clients pay 1 thousand rubles for tasting. The owners hired professional tour guides in Tver and trained them. They tell guests how cheese is prepared, what it is served with, etc. The price of the excursion includes lunch. According to Pietro, guests enjoy being treated to home-cooked food, which is important for business.

The tour also takes place around the farm, where ostriches and wild boars live in enclosures. There are also 30 horses that you can ride for money. Once the family bought several animals for their daughter Jessica, then the herd grew.

On weekends, approximately 200-400 people a day come to Little Italy on excursions; on weekdays, much less, mostly children and private visitors. "During May holidays the tourists were stuck in traffic jams for three hours and arrived at the farm angry,” says Zhanna. “I had to treat them to free wine so that people would come to their senses.”

Agritourism in Russia

Agrotourism is mainly practiced by farmers and city dwellers who have become villagers, as well as foreigners who have come to Russia for permanent residence. According to the Association for the Development of Agrotourism, in Russia today there are several types of agritourism enterprises. The most numerous - guest houses, there are 1.9 thousand of them throughout Russia. They offer tourists accommodation, here you can ride horses or take master classes on the production of handicrafts. Agritourism farms also produce agricultural goods and invite guests to taste their products and participate in their preparation. According to the Association for the Development of Agrotourism, there are now about 1.5 thousand such enterprises. In addition, there are also museums, estates, eco- and ethno-villages, a total of no more than 150. They organize corporate events, excursions, and stage theatrical programs.

Collective farm money


Over the past 16 years, Pietro has never been to Italy; he says there is no one to leave the household to. Zhanna communicates with travel agencies, is involved in cheese production and supervises the staff in the tasting room. Pietro and 21-year-old Jessica manage the workers in the fields. The farm employs about a hundred employees, most of them seasonally.

There are already 1 thousand cows in the herd, the farm receives about 2 tons of milk per day. The volumes for private farming are quite large, but, according to the owners, almost all raw materials are used for own needs. “To get 100 kg of cheese, you need to process a ton of milk,” says Zhanna. “And we sell this volume of cheese in half a day. That’s why we rarely sell milk.”

The farm produces 5 tons of cheese of 10 different varieties per month. Retail price - from 500 rubles. up to 1.3 thousand rubles. for 1 kg, approximately the same as in the capital's supermarkets. The owners recently opened an online store. The minimum cost of a basket of cheeses (a little more than a kilogram) is 2,200 rubles, including delivery to Moscow. Once a week, orders are delivered by a farm employee.

According to calculations SF, Little Italy’s revenue from cheese sales is approximately 39 million rubles. in year. Entrepreneurs do not disclose the amount of profit, but, according to Taras Astakhov, the profitability of agritourism is now 25% per year. Pietro and Zhanna invest their income in business development. For example, two years ago they turned a two-story extension into a small inn with 15 rooms. Pietro ordered many things - wrought iron beds, tables, chairs - from local craftsmen. Cost per day - 1.5 thousand rubles. per person, however, guests are still reluctant to stay on the farm overnight. Mazza had the idea to build wooden houses for tourists, but one day there was a fire, and now a charred shed stands on the site of three log cabins.

Cheese spirit


“You ask a typical Russian question: “What is your profit?” says Pietro. “The Russians, until they calculate how much they will earn, will not invest in the business. But I have heard about agricultural projects with investments of half a million dollars, which remained on paper. And we continue to work."

The Mazzas plan to slowly develop the farm so that tourists can spend several days, rather than two hours, here. Recently, “Little Italy” began holding a master class on cheese production for weekday tourists. A group of 12 people, together with the hostess, cooks three types of cheese. According to Zhanna, the master class costs 2.1-2.7 thousand rubles. per person and is in good demand, several groups come to it per month.

Already, the farm is working at maximum capacity: on weekends, travel agencies bring five to six groups a day at specially agreed times so that clients do not crowd at the entrance. Sometimes the tasting room receives 500 people per day, served by 25 people (Zhanna hires assistants in Medny). But Jeanne and Pietro cannot create a branch of “Little Italy” anywhere and delegate authority. “Everything needs to be looked after, in Italy we even have a saying: “The eye of the owner raises the horse,” says Pietro. “Going to a larger scale will lead to the loss of the value of agritourism. Guests come to us to try homemade products.”

The owners plan to leave the business as an inheritance to their daughter, who willingly helps her parents. “She has enough bread and butter,” Zhanna shrugs. If the farm brings in the same income as it does now, Jessica Mazza will have enough to buy more than just sandwiches.

Boris Akimov, co-owner of the project for selling farm products LavkaLavka

In 2010, when we opened our project, people’s interest in agritourism was low. Four years later, I can say that trips to the countryside have become a sustainable trend. True, market development is stalled not because of low demand, but because of the small number of enterprises where you can go. An agrotourism farm must not only produce food, but also have the appropriate infrastructure to receive guests: hotel rooms, restaurant, professional chefs. There are few such farms in Russia. The success of the La Fattoria "Little Italy" farm is due to the fact that its owners initially decided to make money from tourists. The very fact that an Italian emigrant produces cheeses in Russia and introduces people to the gastronomic traditions of Italy already arouses people’s genuine interest in his business.

The Russian history of Pietro Mazza began more than 20 years ago, when a hereditary cheese maker from Calabria married a Russian girl and moved to Russia.

- I was shocked by what I saw - a huge area and no one around. I drove 200 km by car and didn’t meet a single person! This is simply impossible in Italy!– Pietro says with enthusiasm.

In 1996, Pietro and Zhanna founded a cheese factory in the village of Mednoye, Tver Region.


- At first we had 16 hectares of land and 100 cows. The territory was falling into disrepair; it was necessary to repair, restore, and buy equipment. We did everything ourselves, with our own hands, it was a kind of experiment.

Later they built a rural hotel - an agritourism, and tourists began to come. At that time, such a vacation was new in Russia - people became involved in peasant life, ate natural products, and got acquainted with cheese production.
Things started to improve, and the Mazza family decided to purchase an abandoned collective farm in order to transfer the increased herd of cows there. Later we bought a second collective farm.
Now the family farm has 1,100 animals, more than half of which are dairy cows. Main activity – cheese production.


- We make cheeses according to family recipes that are several centuries old,- says Pietro Mazza, - I brought our traditions with me to Russia. Most cheeses are produced using the pasta filata method, which is typical of the southern regions of Italy.

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Pasta filata– a term meaning “drawn curd” or “strands of paste”, this refers to the process of heating and stretching the curd at the end of cheese making. Once stretching is complete, the melted cheese is given its final shape and cooled.
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Pietro Mazza and his family coat of arms

- I settled on the Sychovo breed, it is similar to our European white and red cow. Their milk is closest to that used to make Parmigiano,- Pietro Mazza shares his experience.

- Previously, Russia fed all of Europe. There is a lot of good land and enough water, unlike Italy. But the Russian problem lies in feeding livestock: the basis of the menu is silage, which spoils the cows, gives rise to high acidity of the milk and a specific smell. The menu of our cows is not similar to the traditional Russian one; it does not contain silage. Only proper feeding can produce suitable milk, and this is very important in cheese production.


It is curious that Tver has a historical connection with Italian cheeses, which was reflected in the gastronomic letter of Alexander Sergeevich Pushkin.
In 1826, the poet wrote to Sergei Sobolevsky:

At Gagliani il Colloni
Order yourself in Tver
Parmasan macaroni
Yes, cook some eggs

Paolo Demyanovich Gagliani and his wife Charlotte Ivanovna brought it into use among visiting travelers and local residents Italian dishes.
In the 21st century, Pietro and Zhanna Mazza produce natural cheeses made using Italian technology, but with a Russian “accent”.
Tender fresh ricotta ideal for breakfast, the aged version will be an excellent dessert in combination with jam, honey or fruit, butirro and burrata are good on their own, but mozzarella has long become a popular cheese with a wide range of uses.

- Our mozzarella must be eaten within 5 days, many chefs do not like this, they ask for an increase in shelf life. But this is a natural product that does not contain preservatives, so it does not last long.


It is worth noting that all Little Italy farm cheeses are made only from natural products without preservatives, dyes or any other additives, so the shelf life of soft cheeses is about 5 days, stretching (pasta filata) - about 10, and only aged cheeses can be stored for 20 days or more. There is an unspoken rule: as long as the cheese is aged, it can be stored for as long. But there are also exceptions.

One of the aged cheeses from Little Italy is called yunkata(or junkata), historically it was made in baskets woven from reed (junka). This herb has a unique property: it secretes natural antibiotics, which extend the shelf life of the product. Usually the yunkata is left in olive oil for a while and then sprinkled with black pepper.

- Many Russians travel around Italy, then come to our farm, try the cheeses, and say that they better than Italian ones, - Pietro says proudly, - and for me this means more than the opinion of professionals.

- On a farm you have to work 24 hours a day, so I haven’t been to Italy once since 1996, I simply don’t have the time. My presence on the farm is needed every day. My wife, like any Russian, of course, wants to go to Italy, but it doesn’t work out when you have a household.


In addition to making cheese, Jeanne and Pietro devote a lot of time to tourist groups. A cozy rural hotel, horseback riding, a restaurant serving dishes made from its own products - cheeses, freshly baked bread, deli meats and hot dishes. For curious visitors, cheese tastings and master classes are held, during which you can get acquainted with the production of cheese and personally participate in the process. Many people get hooked on the idea of ​​making cheese at home and come back again and again to master the technology and ask detailed questions.



- Now that sanctions have been introduced, many people want to be cheese makers, but this is just talk; to make cheese you need to study and work a lot,- Pietro smiles slyly, - The cheesemaker must feel the milk, this is not mathematics, you cannot simply add enzymes to milk and get a quality product.


Cheese production during a master class




- I live in Russia and make cheeses for the Russian consumer. There is a lot of chaos in Russia, but it is my country and I like it. I feel better here than in Italy.