From 26 to 28 August, Kaliningrad will host its eighth international street food festival, the Urban Picnic by Kaliningrad Street Food. Traditionally, it will bring together no less than 60 leading street food projects from different regions of Russia.
The Urban Picnic is held every year on the last weekend of summer. It is Russia's largest street food festival, offering both classic street food and trendy and experimental dishes.
In 2020, the Urban Picnic attracted projects from 24 regions, including the Republic of Buryatia, Mari El, Crimea, Yaroslavl Region and Chelyabinsk Region. Some of them brought their regional specialities, others chose global tendencies, so that Karelian kalitki, Buryatian bouzou and Rostov cucumber jam neighboured with Spanish churros, Hawaiian poke and Asian bao buns. This year, projects from Yakutia, Primorsky Krai, Dagestan, Tyumen, Astrakhan, Tula Oblast and other Russian regions were invited to the Urban Picnic.
The annual Urban Picnic by Kaliningrad Street Food is a great chance not only to discover new flavours, but also to be the first to taste the best of Europe. Since 2017, the Urban Picnic has hosted the national stage of the world's largest street food competition, the European Street Food Awards, with the winners representing Russia in the finals. The Russian finalists have twice taken home awards: in 2017, Bykov Bar won in the Best Appetizer category with its Murmansk-style salted cod, and in 2018, the beer-battered pork with horseradish from the Kaliningrad iFry project won Best Main Dish in Europe.