Herbal Tea Rooms Serve to Soothe

If the conventional doctor-to-patient refrain in the West is "take two aspirin and call me in the morning," in Russia it's probably closer to "take whatever you want and don't call me, ever." In a country where medical care has a dubious reputation at best, Russians have long been proponents of the noble home remedy -- prescribing, brewing and faithfully consuming all range of herbal concoctions.


Moscow is changing, of course, and people don't always have as much time as they used to for standing and stirring bubbling pots of elixir on their stoves at home. But thanks to the growing prominence of the neighborhood fito bar, Russians can still enjoy piping-hot home remedies without having to stay home.


Fito bars, a fragrant cross between a drug store and an herbal tea cafe, have been a traditional feature of other countries in eastern europe, offering steaming cups of curative teas and balsams and a wide, nature-friendly variety of medicinal cremes, tablets and roots. The methods aren't new to Russians, but the setting is: The first Fito Bar opened in Moscow just eight years ago, on Ulitsa Musorgskogo. Now there are close to 30 spread throughout the city, usually working in conjunction with more chemically-oriented drug stores.


Finding a fast, inexpensive cup of regular tea in Moscow is hard enough, so cups that can soothe stomachs or calm rattled nerves have proved an especially big draw. One Fito bar, located on Dmitrovsky proyezd in northern Moscow, does a booming business. Airy and clean, with a large stained-glass window and pretty wooden tables inlaid with tiles decorated with herbs and flowers, the bar is a busy neighborhood stopover, and its staff, primarily comprised of pharmacology students from the Moscow Medical Academy, is friendly and professional.


"The thing about it is that it's so simple," said Viktor Ananin, a graduate student who works at Dmitrovsky proyezd. "You come in. You say what you want and they mix it up for you. It's affordable. It works. You don't have to do anything yourself, so you don't have to worry about making a mistake. People should make a point of stopping in here every morning before they go to work."


The bar's prices are far from prohibitive. Cups of tea are 200 rubles apiece, and curative extras like mint, wild rose, dill, honey or "Moskoviya" balsam -- a hit with hangover-sufferers -- cost between 100-200 rubles apiece. There are also "9 Strengths" cranberry drinks for 300 rubles, "oxygen cocktails" for 400, and glasses of "sunshine" for 500.


Customers can pick out a new pair of eyeglasses while drinking their tea, or stock up on anything from gelatin nail strengtheners to birch-tree mushroom tincture to "Kordis," a mixture of 12 herbs and seeds that helps treat everything from nervous collapse to tachycardia. There is also a standard range of Western toothpastes, baby bottles and cotton swabs, and on the far wall, as a last-resort method, a glass case filled with the hard stuff -- prescription drugs from England, Poland, Hungary and Russia.


Ananin looked at them and sighed. "Chemicals have a more antagonistic relationship with the body organism," he said. "Bodies simply take to herbs better. Of course, you have to know how to take a systematic approach to both. Folk medicine is good, but in order to ultimately cure yourself, you probably have to take on science a little."





The Fito Bar at 8/1 Dmitrovsky proyezd is open Monday through Friday from 9 A.M. to 7 P.M. and from 10 A.M. to 6 P.M. on Saturdays. Tel. 976-3474. Nearest metro: Dmitrovskaya.