From our correspondents abroad

A lovely addition to my collection of representations of anthropomorphized food -- from Siberia, no less.
I will transliterate and translate. At the top, with the XXI, it says produkty XXI veka, that is, Products of the 21st Century -- so we know we're modern. Just beneath that, arching like a rainbow, it reads Sinior Pomidor, where pomidor is Russki for tomato, as you might have guessed from the not-so-21st-century garbed mustachioed tomato nobleman pictured directly below, a balding Spanish type who is, presumably, Senor Pomidor.

Across his swelled bosom it reads, you can probably almost get this yourselves, ketchup (the ch is just one letter there, the thing that looks like the 4), and arching smilingly below that we learn that this ketchup is shashlychnyi, the adjective form of shashlik, which is a marinated and then skewered kebab grilled meat-like thing. Which is why it's a little weird that Senor Pomidor is eating a drumstick rather than a skewered piece of meat, well, in addition to the chicken being way up the animacy hierarchy and presumably the food chain from the tomato. But with his lacy nobleman's collar, Senor Pomidor is up for eating anything!