Victoria Beller Smith
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Taiga is located at 119 Warren St. in Hudson.
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“We never wanted Taiga to feel like a traditional restaurant,” Larvin said. “We wanted it to feel emotional, immersive and deeply personal — almost like stepping into another world for a few hours.” That philosophy becomes immediately apparent the moment dinner begins.
Nearly everything at Taiga is made from scratch by Larvin, from delicate handmade dumplings to traditional blini and seasonal dishes inspired by Russian, Slavic and Central Asian influences. The menu changes frequently and reflects Larvin’s Siberian upbringing near Kazakhstan and Mongolia, where food culture naturally blended European and Asian traditions. Many ingredients are sourced locally from Hudson Valley farms, while certain teas, herbs, honey and spices come directly from the Altai region of Siberia — creating a menu that feels simultaneously rooted in two different worlds.
As someone who grew up around Russian food, I expected familiarity. What surprised me was the emotional accuracy of the experience. The dishes had the warmth and intimacy of home cooking while still feeling refined and modern. Larvin credits his grandmother, who taught him to cook from a young age, with instilling an emotional foundation around food. “In our culture, food was never just food,” he said. “It was love, care, generosity, conversation and connection.” That idea seems to define the entire atmosphere of Taiga.
Taiga is located at 119 Warren St. in Hudson.Provided
Unlike many restaurants designed for quick turnover, Taiga encourages people to slow down. Tables glow under candlelight while guests linger for hours over wine, conversation and shared dishes. The restaurant’s Thursday movie nights further deepen that atmosphere, transforming the dining room into what Larvin describes as a “candlelit cinema,” where carefully selected American, European and Russian films play softly in the background. The effect is surprisingly transporting.
At one point during my visit, I looked around the room and realized almost nobody was looking at their phones. People were talking slowly, laughing, sharing plates and leaning into conversations. That sense of emotional presence is precisely what Larvin hoped to create.
“We want people to slow down, disconnect from the outside world and feel warmth, comfort, curiosity and connection,” he said. “Ideally, dinner at Taiga feels less like going to a restaurant and more like being invited into someone’s home late at night.”
Much of the restaurant itself was restored and designed personally by Larvin and Sirko. Vintage furniture, antique objects and much of the photography throughout the space were collected over years of travel or created by Larvin himself.
For many Americans unfamiliar with Russian or Eastern European culture, Taiga offers an introduction that feels intimate rather than stereotypical. But for Russian-speaking visitors, the experience can feel unexpectedly emotional.
There is something moving about hearing familiar music while eating handmade dumplings in a candlelit room in the Hudson Valley. Something about it collapses distance. For a few hours, Hudson felt connected to another world entirely — one built around hospitality, memory and gathering around a table. And perhaps that is what makes Taiga so compelling. It is not simply serving food. It is creating atmosphere, emotion and human connection in a time when many people seem desperately hungry for exactly that.
Taiga is located at 119 Warren St., Hudson. For menus and reservations, visit
taigarestaurant.com
Flynn Ryan on the Range.
D.H. Callahan
What he got was one heck of a deal.
The owner, who didn’t like seeing the range fall into disrepair, was thrilled that a local kid wanted to revitalize the business. He gave Flynn the first year rent-free, use of all his equipment, a little knowhow and, just like that, the high school junior became a business owner.
That’s where it stopped being easy.
At first, Flynn wasn’t very good at golf. But his personality compels him to dive deep into his interests and make himself an expert. It’s the same drive that pushed him to learn how to trade stocks, futures and cryptocurrency as a teen, spending years failing before turning a profit. That first year on the golf team, he earned the honor of most improved.
The Driving Range is located at 138 Route 44 in Millerton.D.H. Callahan
If you’ve ever been to the range, you know how wonderfully casual it is. It’s the kind of place where nobody cares how good you are. Where people intimidated by the sport can pick up a club and have a great time right next to a seasoned pro. Classic rock pumps through the speakers. There are chairs and a coffee table for people who bring their own picnics and parties. A ragtag collection of clubs invites you to try them out for size. The balls come out of a vending machine. The place is the definition of laid-back.
Flynn’s job seems like the easiest in the world. It is not.
During the warmer months, Flynn gets to the range at 6 a.m., picking up balls in his golf cart. Of course, the back field, where the long balls end up, has to be picked up by hand, one ball at a time. On busy days, that can mean as many as 6,000 balls. Once a week, he mows the whole thing.
It might not sound like all that much, but consider that for most of the year Flynn is working toward a business degree at Old Dominion University in Virginia. When he’s away, his family picks up the slack. His mother, Jennifer, chips balls into the center of the field with a pitching wedge before gathering them up, and his father, Michael, takes care of the mowing. Flynn keeps offering to hire workers, but his parents seem to love working for their entrepreneurial son.
While there’s nothing solid on the books, Flynn dreams of expanding his business with more ranges in the future, as well as hosting events on the Millerton grounds. Until then, he’ll keep the Zeppelin pumping, the ball machine loaded and the grass nicely shorn.
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Scot Galliher at Silver Mountain Hay in Millerton.
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“I bought the farm to prevent that from happening,” he said.
That philosophy still shapes the operation today. For Galliher, farming and land preservation are inseparable. The open fields and rural landscapes that define the Harlem Valley survive only because working farms continue to exist, he argues. Without economically viable agriculture, open land eventually disappears — either overtaken by development or left unmanaged.
That long-term vision is visible across the property, particularly in the massive red barn that has become one of the area’s most recognizable agricultural structures. After the original dairy barn deteriorated, Galliher began studying historic barns throughout the Northeast before working with an architect to design a replacement that reflected both traditional agricultural design and modern functionality. The finished structure includes clerestory windows that flood the interior with natural light, an Olympic-sized indoor riding arena and infrastructure designed for a future equestrian facility. “I wanted to build an equestrian barn,” Galliher said.
Although the scale of the operation is impressive, Galliher speaks about farming in notably practical terms. Much of what he knows about hay production was learned through direct experience.
“Farming is largely learned through experience,” he said. “You learn by doing.”
Silver Mountain Hay in Millerton.Provided
Producing premium horse hay, he explained, requires careful attention to weather patterns, moisture levels, grass composition and timing. A sudden storm can destroy thousands of dollars’ worth of hay in less than an hour.
Galliher approaches haymaking with the precision of an engineer. Moisture levels must be carefully controlled to prevent mold, and different horses require different nutritional profiles. While many horse owners prefer softer second-cutting hay, Galliher noted that first-cutting hay is often nutritionally superior. “It is very difficult to make 50,000 feed-quality bales of hay year after year,” he said. Still, despite the technical demands of the work, Galliher describes farming less as an occupation than a way of life. “Farming is not a job,” he said. “It’s a lifestyle.”
He speaks enthusiastically about the smell of fresh hay after a successful harvest and the satisfaction of watching trailers return to the barn at sunset after long summer days in the fields. And after years spent in finance, he says he does not miss Wall Street very much.
“The reward system here is different,” he said. “I think it’s richer. I think it’s more human.”
Today, Silver Mountain Hay stands not only as a working agricultural operation, but also as a reflection of Galliher’s broader philosophy — that preserving rural landscapes requires more than admiration. It requires active stewardship.
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