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Russia’s biggest Eastern sweet cream-cheese paskha delivered to Crimea from Rostov-on-Don

SEVASTOPOL, April 20, /ITAR-TASS/. Russia’s biggest paskha, or Easter sweet cream-cheese dessert, weighing about 500 kilograms was delivered to Sevastopol as an Easter present to Sevastopol and Crimean residents from farmers of Russia’s southern Rostov-on-Don region on Sunday.

“We have brought this paskha to our brothers in Crimea as an expression of our gratitude and as present on the occasion of the reunification with Russia, the historic motherland,” Anatoly Kantemirov, the director general of a dairy company which made this Tsar Paskha, told Itar-Tass. “It is a charity action and we invite all to try our Tsar Paskha.”

It took about 300 kilograms of farmers cheese, 100 kilograms of powdered sugar, 30 kilograms of raisins, 60 kilograms of butter, chocolate glaze and cinnamon to make this paskha molded as a truncated pyramid about one metre tall. Its four sides were decorated with Orthodox crosses. The paskha had been kept in a refrigerator for about one day before being taken to Sevastopol.

Rostov-on-Don cooks made their first Tsar Paskha in 2011, when it was entered into the Russian Book of Records.

Paskha (the word that literally means Easter), a molded Easter cheese dessert, is typical Russian, Ukrainian, Lithuanian and Polish cuisine. Easter in a Russian Orthodox home isn't complete without kulich (Easter cake) and paska blessed by the parish priest.

This no-bake dessert is traditionally made into a round ball or in a pyramid-shaped mold, known as pasotchnitza and originally made of wood but now often made of plastic, with the symbol of the Orthodox cross and other religious symbols in relief. Paskha tastes somewhat like cheese cake without the crust and is often spread on slices of kulich.

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