Русский шашлык | Russian old traditional Shashlik

The word shashlik or shashlick entered English from the Russian shashlyk, of Turkic origin. In Turkic languages, the word shish means skewer, and shishlik is literally translated as "skewerable". The word was coined from the Crimean Tatar: "şış" ('spit') by the Zaporozhian Cossacks and entered Russian in the 18th century, from there spreading to English and other European languages. Prior to that, the Russian name for meat cooked on a skewer was verchenoye, from vertel, 'spit'. Shashlik did not reach Moscow until the late 19th century.[8] From then on, its popularity spread rapidly; by the 1910s it was a staple in St Petersburg restaurants and by the 1920s it was already a pervasive street food all over urban Russia.