Spokane helped bridge Cold War tensions by welcoming a massive Soviet delegation during Expo ’74 — including chefs

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Northwest Museum of Arts & Culture photos

The Soviet Pavilion on opening day; the map of USSR was made of aluminum and weighed two-and-a-half tons.

Today, Spokane is a hub of Russian and Slavic culture. The city has more than a dozen Russian-language churches and several Slavic grocery stores. Russian is the third most-commonly spoken language, behind English and Spanish.

“It’s very common,” says Vinson Eberly, who recently retired after spending years as a Russian translator in Spokane. “You go someplace, you hear someone speaking Russian,

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