Помимо пиццы мы заказали салат.

Here помимо means besides, apart from, or in addition to.

So Помимо пиццы мы заказали салат means that pizza was one thing ordered, and salad was another thing ordered as well.

A natural English equivalent is:

• Besides pizza, we ordered salad.
• In addition to pizza, we ordered salad.

Because помимо requires the genitive case.

The base form is пицца.
After помимо, it changes to пиццы.

So:

• пицца = nominative, dictionary form
• пиццы = genitive singular

This is very common in Russian: certain prepositions force a specific case, and помимо is one of the prepositions that takes the genitive.

Yes, помимо is followed by the genitive.

Examples:

• помимо пиццы
• помимо работы
• помимо меня
• помимо этих проблем

So if you use помимо, you should expect the next word to be in the genitive form.

Салат is in the accusative case, because it is the direct object of заказали.

We ordered what? → салат

However, for masculine inanimate nouns, the accusative singular looks the same as the nominative singular. So:

• nominative: салат
• accusative: салат

That is why it looks unchanged.

Because the subject is мы = we.

Russian past tense verbs agree with the subject in gender and number:

• я заказал / заказала
• ты заказал / заказала
• он заказал
• она заказала
• мы заказали
• они заказали

Since the sentence has мы, the verb must be заказали.

Yes, Russian often omits subject pronouns when they are clear from the verb.

So both of these are possible:

• Помимо пиццы мы заказали салат.
• Помимо пиццы заказали салат.

The version with мы is a bit more explicit and can add clarity or slight emphasis.
Without мы, the meaning is still clear from заказали, which already shows a plural subject.

Заказали is the perfective past tense of заказать. It presents the action as completed: the order was placed.

Заказывали would be the imperfective past tense and would usually suggest:

• repeated action,
• process,
• background context,
• or a less clearly completed event.

In this sentence, the idea is a simple completed fact: we ordered salad, so заказали is the natural choice.

Yes. Russian word order is flexible, though different orders can sound more or less neutral or can shift emphasis.

This sentence is natural:

• Помимо пиццы мы заказали салат.

Other possible orders include:

• Мы помимо пиццы заказали салат.
• Салат мы заказали помимо пиццы.

The original version sounds quite natural if you want to start with the idea besides pizza.

English relies more heavily on fixed word order, but Russian often uses word order to manage emphasis and information flow rather than basic grammar.

Both can often mean besides or apart from, and in many sentences they are close in meaning.

For example:

• Помимо пиццы мы заказали салат.
• Кроме пиццы мы заказали салат.

Both can mean Besides pizza, we ordered salad.

But there are some differences:

• помимо often sounds a bit more formal or bookish
• кроме is very common in everyday speech
• depending on context, кроме can sometimes sound more like except for, while помимо often leans toward in addition to

In this sentence, помимо clearly gives the sense of in addition to.

A natural stress pattern is:

помИмо пИццы мы заказАли салАт

Notes:

• помИмо → stress on И
• пИццы → stress on the first syllable
• заказАли → stress on А
• салАт → stress on the second syllable

Approximate pronunciation:

• помИмо ≈ pa-MEE-ma
• пИццы ≈ PEET-sy
• заказАли ≈ za-ka-ZA-li
• салАт ≈ sa-LAT

Russian has no articles like a or the.

So пицца can mean:

• a pizza
• the pizza
• sometimes just pizza in a general sense

And салат can mean:

• a salad
• the salad

The exact meaning depends on context. In this sentence, English might naturally say a salad or just salad, depending on the situation.

In this specific sentence, the most natural reading is in addition to pizza, we ordered salad.

While words like apart from or besides can sometimes be ambiguous in English, Russian помимо here strongly suggests that pizza was also part of the order, and salad was added as another item.

So the sentence means:

• pizza was ordered
• salad was also ordered

not:

• pizza was excluded