"Meat-Free No Longer Bourgeois" is the headline in a Moscow article today.

When Ekanga Davova decided to become a vegetarian in 1993 in an effort to cleanse her body, it made her the odd one out in her social circle.

Davova, an Uzbek native who was then 25, recalls her friends' extreme wonder and disbelief with her "new" lifestyle, which excluded meat, fish and poultry.

"It was hard to keep up with it then because there were no other vegetarians around me," she said. "I struggled to find inspiration."

Davova, now 42, works at Cafe Ganga, a vegan restaurant in Moscow, with a staff of about 30 other vegans and vegetarians, and she said the environment for those abstaining from meat is blooming.

Read full article on the Moscow Times