Dear Bieve,
I am posted to Astana, Kazakshstan, along with my husband. It's amazing what you can find and NOT find here. K. is a large country east of Russian and considered a part of Asia. Astana is the second coldest capital of the world from what I've been told. Finding cooking products here without speaking Russian is quite an adventure but we're surviving---just don't ever take your well-stocked Western stores for granted any more---ha!! Thanks to Michael FtW I was able to learn that vanilla powder and extract were interchangeable. Spasiba-- rude, crude Russian translation of "thank you"