Most of these foods are not bizarre to anyone but BuzzFeed.

I see a bunch of pics here... is this an episode of "Guess that Glop" ?

I think so. I'm wondering what the pink cake is.

Pink cake is "Herring Under Fur Coat" an awesome layered dish with herring, onions, carrots and beets on top mixed with enormous quantities of mayo (the real russian super high fat mayo). 

Usually served around New Year parties and it takes the whole summer to unclog the arteries:)

Ha! Looking at it again I can see it's not cake.

Thanks for the explanation. Are there any other notable items above?

#1 is red caviar or fish eggs. Was unavailable, when I was growing up, unless... My grandpa was WWII veteran and had special privileges to get some of it on national holidays.

The #4 from the top is famous russian salad, which is called oliv'e  salad in russia. 

No true russian party can happen without it. It's basically american potato salad with tons more stuff added including meat, pickles and canned green peas.

As usual, mayo is the key to success:)

I did not realize that mayo is so important to Russian food!

I thought beets and potatoes were staples, but I had no idea Russians were into olives:

Those are olives, you say? What kind of meat is in it?

No, there is no olives. For whatever reason russian salad in russia is called oliv'e, which is more like french pronunciation of french name Olivier. Nobody knows, why it has this name. 

It has the name because it was named after a man named Olivier:

The original version of the salad was invented in the 1860s by Belgian Lucien Olivier, the chef of the Hermitage, one of Moscow's most celebrated restaurants. Olivier's salad quickly became immensely popular with Hermitage regulars, and became the restaurant's signature dish.

The exact recipe — particularly that of the dressing — was a jealously guarded secret, but it is known that the salad containedgrouse, veal tongue, caviar, lettuce, crayfish tails, capers, and smoked duck, although it is possible that the recipe was varied seasonally.

The original Olivier dressing was a type of mayonnaise, made with French wine vinegar, mustard, and Provençal olive oil; its exact recipe, however, remains unknown.

At the turn of the 20th century, one of Olivier's sous-chefs, Ivan Ivanov, attempted to steal the recipe. While preparing the dressing one evening in solitude, as was his custom, Olivier was suddenly called away on some emergency. Taking advantage of the opportunity, Ivanov sneaked into Olivier's private kitchen and observed his mise en place, which allowed him to make reasonable assumptions about the recipe of Olivier's famed dressing. Ivanov then left Olivier's employ and went to work as a chef for Moskva, a somewhat inferior restaurant, where he began to serve a suspiciously similar salad under the name "Capital Salad," (Russian:Столичный, "Stolichny"). It was reported by the gourmands of the time, however, that the dressing on the Stolichny salad was of a lower quality than Olivier's, meaning that it was "missing something."

Later, Ivanov sold the recipe for the salad to various publishing houses, which further contributed to its popularization. Due to the closure of the Hermitage restaurant in 1905, and the Olivier family's subsequent departure from Russia, the salad could now be referred to as "Olivier."

One of the first printed recipes for Olivier salad, by Aleksandrova, appearing in 1894, called for half a hazel grouse, two potatoes, one small cucumber (or a large cornichon), 3-4 lettuce leaves, 3 large crawfish tails, 1/4 cup cubed aspic, 1 teaspoon of capers, 3–5 olives, and 11⁄2 tablespoon Provençal dressing (mayonnaise).

As often happens with gourmet recipes which become popular, the ingredients that were rare, expensive, seasonal, or difficult to prepare were gradually replaced with cheaper and more readily available foods.

Wow, I feel like I learned something new.

Wow, good job uncovering the mystery. I think, I've heard about chef Olivier before, but never heard the whole story. 

Sergey, what's the food with the cherries?

That's cherry vareniki or cherry dumplings. This is actually more Ukrainian food, I do not remember eating these growing up. Some russian restaurants serve these here.

I wonder if the BuzzFeed woman who made the list of 17 foods knows the difference between Russian food and Ukrainian food.

I found this cherry vareniki recipe:

http://letthebakingbeginblog.com/2013/02/cherry-dumplings-cherry-vareniki/

They look delicious!!