Coughs & colds · restless nights · upset stomachs · aches · cuts & burns

Home remedies for the everyday things you’d rather not take a pill for.

100 Old-World remedies from Russian grandmothers, European pharmacies and beyond, each checked against modern research. No more guessing what’s real: every remedy is labeled Tested, Trusted or Skip, with the medicines it can clash with and the signs that mean “see the doctor.”

Grow it25 plants for US zones 3–9 and Canada, from a windowsill to a backyard bed.
Make itTeas, decoctions, tinctures, syrups and salves, with the ratios Russian pharmacies use.
Know itWhat the research shows, which medicines each herb can clash with, and when it’s the doctor, not the cabinet.

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An older woman's hands pouring herbal tea from a blue-and-white Gzhel teapot, dried chamomile and honey on the table

Illustration

tested, trusted or skipEvery remedy in the book carries one of three labels. No guessing.

By Max Sidorov · 300,000+ health books soldEU herbal medicine monographsOld-World, Soviet & ancient traditionsGermany’s Commission ECochrane reviewsTrials from Europe, Asia and the AmericasSources at the back of the book

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0plants, A to Z, with Russian, English and Latin names

0studies, monographs and official sources cited

0countries and traditions, from Russia to Indigenous North America

0people in the clinical studies we feature

0Soviet-era studies behind the Strength shelf

The tea the Tsar’s police banned, and the remedies the West forgot

Watch the 10-minute story behind the book. Sound on, or read the captions.

A field of pink fireweed at the edge of a birch forest

The tea the Tsar’s police banned · 8:40

A pink wildflower so good at its job, Russia made it illegal

Near the village of Koporye, outside St. Petersburg, peasants picked a tall pink wildflower, rolled its leaves, let them ferment and dried them like black tea. It brewed dark, earthy and caffeine-free, and it sold for a fraction of the price of tea from China.

The tea merchants were not amused. What followed is all on the record:

1816Counterfeiting tea is banned. The cheap local leaf was being mixed into “Chinese” tea.
1833Trading in counterfeit tea is banned too.
1839The Rural Police Charter bans gathering the plant at all, alone or mixed with tea.
1888Two brothers stand trial for making it. One is exiled to Siberia, to Tomsk province, for life.

Today Russians call it ivan-chai again and buy it openly. And here’s the twist for North Americans: the same plant grows wild across Canada and the northern US. Most people walk past it every summer.

Sources: Russian tea-trade history, Gateway to Russia; EU herbal monograph Epilobii herba. Legends we checked and left out are listed in Chapter 2.

Bundles of medicinal herbs drying from a wooden beam in a sunlit dacha veranda

Illustration

Babushka never threw out a “weed” she could name.

Boxes of dried herbs and amber bottles on an old European pharmacy shelf

Illustration

Why store-bought herbal capsules let you down, and what Europe does instead

Walk into a Russian pharmacy and you’ll find boxes of dried herbs with a set way to prepare them. Germany and the EU publish official monographs for herbal medicines, plant by plant. In the US and Canada, most herbs are sold as supplements, and testing has found that the capsule doesn’t always hold what the label says.

medicinal plants in Russia’s official pharmacopoeia. 32 of them aren’t in the European one, and much of the research was never translated into English.

Shikov et al., Journal of Ethnopharmacology, 2014

59%

of herbal products in a Canadian DNA study contained plant species not listed on the label.

Newmaster et al., BMC Medicine, 2013

1 in 5

Ayurvedic products bought online in a US study contained detectable lead, mercury or arsenic.

Saper et al., JAMA, 2008 (20.7% of 193 products)

That’s why Babushka’s answer still works: grow the plant yourself, make it the pharmacy way, and know exactly which ones to skip. The book shows you how, plant by plant.

Does any of this sound like you?

Tap every one that’s true

Know which remedies are proven, which are tradition, and which to skip

Most herbal books treat every remedy the same. This one tells you which ones have been put through clinical trials, which ones rest on centuries of use, and which ones to leave alone.

Tested

Controlled human trials, or a European regulator’s “well-established use”.

Trusted

Long, documented traditional use, often recognised by EU regulators as a traditional herbal medicine. Not proven in trials, and we say so.

Skip

Harmful, or shown not to work. Some are still sold and shared online every day.

Make your guess on each card

Remedies for colds, sleep, stomach, aches, skin and more

The heart of the book is Babushka’s 7 shelves, organized the way her cabinet was: by what’s bothering you. Each shelf lists its remedies with their label, the method, who should skip them and the signs that mean “see a doctor”.

Tap a shelf

Checked against 700+ studies and official sources from 15+ countries

The book draws on studies and regulators from Germany, Russia, Ukraine, Scandinavia, the UK, China, India and the Americas. A few of the findings that surprised us, including the ones that made us drop a remedy:

Grow 25 remedy plants in your zone, even on a windowsill

The book’s garden chapter covers 25 medicinal plants for US zones 3–9 and their Canadian equivalents: spacing, soil, what spreads, what to keep in a pot, and the one plant that’s a listed noxious weed in several states and provinces.

Pick your USDA zone

Pick a zone to see your starter list.

Not sure? Most of the northern US is zone 4–6; the South is 7–9. Canadians: the book converts the Canadian map for you.

A woman in her late fifties picking orange calendula flowers in a backyard herb garden

Illustration

Make teas, tinctures and salves the right way

Russian pharmacy textbooks have set rules for herbal preparations: which part of the plant gets steeped and which gets simmered, for how long, and at what strength. The book turns them into kitchen steps, and explains why a few plants were only ever handled by pharmacists at a tiny fraction of the usual strength. Those are not home remedies, and the book names every one.

Making calendula salve: infused oil and beeswax in a small double boiler with amber jars

Illustration

nastoy

The infusion

For leaves and flowers. The standard pharmacy ratio, the water temperature and why the lid stays on.

otvar

The decoction

For roots, bark and berries. Simmer times, plus the cold method for the slippery herbs that heat ruins.

nastoika

The tincture

The weight-to-volume method and the simple folk method, how to label them, and who should avoid alcohol extracts.

maz’

Oils and salves

Infused oils, salves and poultices, and the one kitchen-garden oil you must never leave on the counter.

Animation

Most remedies take a kettle, a spoon and 10 minutes

Boil the kettle.
Spoon the herbs into your cup. The book gives the exact amount for each one.
Cover, steep 10 to 15 minutes, and sip. Then wrap up and get cozy.

An herbal expert at your fingertips, any time of night

Your book comes with 30 days of Ask Babushka: like having an herbal expert on call, day or night. It’s built on herbal research and traditional medicine from more than a dozen countries, from Russian pharmacy methods to European regulators’ monographs and clinical trials. Ask what to grow, how to make it, or whether a herb is safe with your medicines, and get a plain-English answer in seconds, with its Tested, Trusted or Skip label.

Asks about your medicines before it suggests any herb
Puts emergencies first: chest pain, trouble breathing or a baby’s fever get “call now”, not a tea
Never tells you to stop or change a prescription

A woman around sixty at her kitchen table with a phone and a Gzhel mug of tea

Illustration

Tap a question to see a real-style answer

Ask BabushkaHerbal expert · demo

Здравствуй! Hello. Ask me about growing, making or safely using any remedy in the book.

What’s inside: 100 plants, 7 shelves, 5 parts

Five parts, about 320 pages, written in plain English. Russian, English and Latin names for every plant. All sources listed at the back.

About Max Sidorov

Max was born in Ukraine and moved to Canada in 1995. He studied kinesiology at York University in Toronto and has coached people on food, movement and health since 2007. He has studied Ayurveda for more than 20 years, trained in wilderness survival in Russia’s Ural Mountains, and lived across Europe, Russia, India, Nepal and Tibet. His health books have sold more than 300,000 copies, and he writes for one reason: to get real, honest health information out to the world.

In 2012, the online fundraiser he started for a bullied New York school bus monitor, a grandmother of eight, raised $703,833 from more than 30,000 people in 84 countries, and made news around the world.

Not another “lost remedies” book

The herbal books selling online today are full of recipes. Few tell you which ones work, which ones clash with your pills, or how to grow the plants where you live.

What you get	The Babushka Remedies	A typical herbal remedies book
An evidence label on every remedy	Yes: Tested, Trusted or Skip	Every remedy sounds equally good
Drug interactions and who must ask first	Yes, on every plant, plus the Interaction Checker	Often missing
Sources you can look up	Yes, at the back	Rarely
Growing by US and Canadian zone	Yes, 25 plants	Usually not
The Russian and Eastern European tradition	Yes, with the Russian pharmacy methods	Hardly ever in English
A 24/7 herbal expert at your fingertips	Yes, 30 days included	No
Guarantee	90 days + the Garden Promise	Often 60 days

Plus 16 guides, free with the book

Nine new guides written for this book, five from the Platinum Preppers Bundle and two from 7 Steps to Health.

Tap any guide to look inside

Everything for $37: the book, 16 guides and 30 days of Ask Babushka

One payment of $37. Instant digital access on any device.

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Yes, send me The Babushka Remedies

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Try it for 90 days, risk-free, plus the Garden Promise

Babushka never let anyone leave her table unhappy. Neither will we.

1. 90 days, no questions

Read it, grow from it, make a few remedies. If it’s not for you, email us for a full refund within 90 days and keep the guides.

2. The Garden Promise

Plant the 7-herb starter bed from Chapter 6 this season, from seed or nursery plants. If fewer than five come up, send us a photo and we’ll give you a full year of Ask Babushka, free.

Questions

What Babushka knew. What science checked. What to skip.

One book, 16 guides and an herbal expert at your fingertips, day or night. $37, one payment, guaranteed for 90 days.

Get The Babushka Remedies for $37

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P.S. The fireweed the Tsar’s police banned is blooming along roadsides across Canada every July. Next summer you’ll know its name, how to make the tea, and what the research does and doesn’t say about it.

P.P.S. Herbs are real medicines. That’s exactly why every plant in this book comes with who should skip it and which drugs it can clash with. If you take any medicine, the Interaction Checker alone is worth the price.