Historically, Russian cuisine did not emphasize the seasonality, or the freshness of its ingredients. People made use of whatever was available at any given time. Each ingredient was incorporated into the dish not because it was at it's peak at any particular month but because people were able to get any of it at all. Starting about 18th century, the cuisine of upper classes was influenced by the classic French "high" cuisine and it's heavy sauces which intentionally overpowered the meat or the fish they were served with. This worked out well since the meat was cooked to well-done and the fish was generally not very fresh. The cuisine of peasants and other population with similar income was based on inexpensive grains and root vegetables. Soviet cuisine of the 20th century was a combination of peasant cuisine of grains and root vegetables and already mentioned derivative heavy sauces designed to accompany meat dishes (e.g. chicken Kiev, beef Stroganoff, etc.). There weren't more than two or three state sponsored cookbooks people could refer to so the creativity factor was very limited. If I had to recommend some dishes to a person going to a random Russian restaurant this is what I think the majority of these restaurants would get right: Some cold smoked and hot smoked white and red fish platters for appetizers and maybe salad Olivier. Smoke meat platters (usually pork based), are usually worth trying also. Feel free to order some sort of soup. It does not have to be borsht. Maybe with some pierogis to accompany the soup, stuffed with beef, sauted cabbage or potatoes, though most of the pierogis I ate had too much dough and not enough filling. For the main course, I strongly suggest skipping fish or any other kind of seafood and getting one of the central Asian influenced lamb, beef, or even some of the pork dishes. Fish and other seafood degrades quickly if it's not very fresh. As I mentioned before, freshness of ingredients is not considered as important as fancy, sometimes over-the-top presentation and the sauce served with the dish, which leads me to recommend meat. Lamb shich kebab is the most classic of these meat dishes, though pork sish kebab or other lamb dishes are usually at least OK if not better. Beef stroganoff, Sibirean pelmeni (or soup inlcuding some), "tabac" flavored smoke Game Hen (or however they choose to translate it) are usually pretty good also. Some other things to try: Bliny (crapes) usually stuffed with meat, cream cheese and raisins, or cherry preserves. Also vareniki (dumplings) stuffed with meat, sour cherries or potatoes and sauted onions. I don't have any suggestions for dessert. I do recommend trying some Kvass with your meal, which is a yeast based non-acoholic brew, though a lot of places do serve some inferior versons. Champagne with caviar is not really a Russian tradition. Vodka with caviar, or with pretty much anything is though 
.
.
