Sweets in the USSR were one of the main delicacies that Soviet children could afford. They were given for the holidays, they were treated to on their birthdays, on weekends, parents indulged their kids with delicious sweets, which were not always easy to get. Of course, the variety of sweets was not as great as it is now, but the most famous and successful brands have survived to this day and are still popular. Let's talk about some of them.
How did chocolate appear in the USSR?
The main value was considered chocolates in the USSR. Interestingly, the first chocolate bar in the world appeared only in Switzerland in 1899, and chocolate began to be imported to Russia only in the middle of the 19th century. A German from Würtenberg opened a workshop on Arbat, in which chocolates were also made.
In 1867, von Einem and his partner opened a factory, which was one of the first in the country to start a steam engine, which allowed the company to become one of the largest confectionery products in the country.
After the October Revolution, all factories passed into the hands of the state, and in 1918 a decree was issued on the nationalization of the entire confectionery industry. Thus, the Abrikosov factory received the name of the worker Babaev, the Einem company became known as Red October, and the Lenov merchants factory Rot Front. But only under the new government there were problems with the production of chocolate, cocoa beans were necessary for its manufacture, and serious difficulties arose with this.
The so-called “sugar” regions of the country for a long time remained under the control of the “whites,” and the gold and currency for which raw materials could be purchased abroad went to purchase more urgent bread. Only in the mid-20s, the confectionery production was restored, the entrepreneurial streak of NEPMans played a role in this, but with the launch of the planned economy, the production of sweets in the USSR became strictly regulated. Each factory was transferred to a separate type of product. For example, chocolate was produced at Red October, and caramel was produced at the Babaev factory. What sweets were in the USSR, you will learn from this article.
The work of the confectionery factories did not stop during the years of World War II, because it was a strategically important product, a set of “untouchable stock” necessarily included a bar of chocolate, which saved more than one pilot or sailor from death.
After the war, the USSR turned out to be a lot of equipment exported from German confectionery enterprises. At the Babaev factory, the production of chocolate was increased several times, if in 1946 500 tons of cocoa beans were processed per year, then by the end of the 60s there were already 9,000 tons. This was favored by the foreign policy of the USSR. The Soviet Union supported the leaders of many African powers, from where this raw material was supplied in large quantities.
At that time, the release of sweets in the USSR was stable and there was no shortage, at least in large cities, exceptions were only on holidays. Before each New Year, all the children were given out sweet sets, because of which most of the sweets disappeared from the shelves.
"Squirrel"
Sweets "Squirrel" were very popular and love among Soviet babies and their parents. Their main distinguishing feature was the finely crushed hazelnuts, which were contained in the filling. It was easy to recognize the candies by the label, it depicted a squirrel with a nut in its paws, which referred to Pushkin's famous work "The Tale of Tsar Saltan."
For the first time, Squirrel sweets began to be produced in the early 1940s at the Nadezhda Krupskaya confectionery factory. At that time, it was part of the Leningrad production association of the confectionery industry. In Soviet times, these sweets deservedly became one of the most popular in the country; several thousand tons were produced annually.
"Kara-kum"
In the USSR , Kara-Kum sweets were initially produced at the confectionery factory in Taganrog. They conquered the sweet tooth with walnut praline filling with crushed waffles and cocoa.
Over time, they began to be produced at other enterprises, in particular, at Red October, in the confectionery group United Confectioners.
Candy owes its name to the desert on the territory of modern Kazakhstan, which in those years was part of the Soviet Union. So, candy manufacturers cared not only about the pleasure of their consumers, but also increased their knowledge in geography.
Gliere's ballet
Candies were called in the Soviet Union not only in honor of geographical objects, but also ... ballets. At least, according to the most common version, “Red Poppy” sweets owe their name to the Gliere ballet of the same name, which was first staged at the Bolshoi Theater in 1926.
The story of this premiere is amazing. Initially, they were supposed to stage a new ballet called "Port Daughter", but theater officials considered the libretto to be not very interesting and dynamic. Then the plot was revived, and the music was redone, so the ballet "Red Poppy" appeared, which gave the name to the popular Soviet sweets.
The storyline of the new work really turned out to be rich and exciting. Here and the insidious head of the port of Hips, and the young Chinese woman Tao Hoa, in love with the captain of a Soviet ship, and brave sailors. There is a conflict between the bourgeois and the Bolsheviks, they are trying to poison the captain of the ship, and in the final the brave Chinese woman dies. Having woken up before his death, Tao gives the people around the poppy flower that the Soviet captain once handed to her. This beautiful romantic story was immortalized in the art of confectionery so that sweets are still popular.
The delicacy was distinguished by a filling of pralines, to which vanilla flavors, candy crumbs and hazelnuts were added. The candies themselves were glazed with chocolate.
Montpensier
Not only chocolates were appreciated in the USSR. Anyone who remembers the shelves of Soviet stores can talk about sweets in the Montpasier iron can. In the USSR, these were the most popular lollipops.
In their form, they looked like small tablets and had various fruit flavors. These were real candies that were made from caramelized sugar. They had a large number of tastes and colors, some, for example, purposefully bought only orange, lemon or berry sweets. But the most popular was still the classic assortment, when at one time it was possible to taste candies of all varieties and tastes.
"Bear in the north"
These sweets were originally produced at the Krupskaya factory. They had a nut filling, which was in a waffle case.
Confectioners arranged their release shortly before the start of World War II, in 1939. “The Bear in the North” was so fond of the inhabitants of Leningrad that even during the blockade, despite all the difficulties and difficulties of wartime, the factory continued to produce this delicacy. For example, in 1943, 4.4 tons of these sweets were produced. For many of the besieged Leningraders, they became one of the symbols of the inviolability of their spirit, an important element that helped to hold out and survive, when it seemed that everything was lost, the city was doomed, and all its inhabitants face starvation.
The original design of the wrapper, according to which today everyone can easily recognize these sweets, was developed by the artist Tatyana Lukyanova. Album sketches, which she performed in the Leningrad Zoo, and formed the basis for the creation of this image.
It is interesting that now this brand belongs to the Norwegian confectionery concern, which bought the Krupskaya factory. In modern Russia, until 2008, candies with this name were produced at different enterprises, but after the amendments to the law on trademarks came into force, most factories were forced to abandon the production of sweets under the original name and design. Therefore, today on the shelves you can find analogues that are somewhat different in the design on the label or the name, but at the same time they are still easy to recognize.
"Creamy little toffee"
In the USSR, sweets "Creamy little toffee" were produced at the factory "Red October". Their release has been established since 1925, along with other sweets, which are still considered the Gold Fund of the factory. First of all, it is cocoa and chocolate "Golden Label", "Bear-toed" (not to be confused with "Bear in the North"), iris "Kis-kis".
"Creamy little toffee" refers to milk sweets. Those who remember it from the Soviet era say that it was a very tasty candy, small in size and yellowish-white in a greenish-yellow wrapper interspersed with pink. But its release has long been discontinued for an unknown reason.
"Meteorite"
Candies "Meteorite" in the USSR were also very popular. They were produced only in the second half of the 20th century, now they, like the "Creamy little toffee", cannot be found. To taste, they are closest to modern sweets "Grilyazh".
They were produced at once at several factories - Red October, Amta in Ulan-Ude, Bucuria in Chisinau.
At the same time, “Meteorite”, in fact, was very different from “Grillage”, as it was lighter and more tender. He was surrounded by a thin shell of chocolate, which literally melted in his mouth, under it was a nut-caramel-honey filling, which had an aftertaste of shortbread cookies and honey. The sweets were very satisfying, and the filling itself was bitten off very easily, and this was their main difference from the Grillage.
In their appearance, Soviet sweets “Meteorite” resembled small chocolate balls. When they were cut with a knife, a complex filling of seeds or nuts with honey caramel was exposed. Sweets were wrapped in a characteristic blue wrapper of the color of the night sky. Usually they were sold in small boxes of cardboard, but you could meet these sweets and by weight.
"Iris"
One of the most popular non-chocolates in the USSR is Iris. In fact, this is a fondant mass, which was formed when boiling condensed milk with molasses, sugar and fat, and both vegetable or butter and margarine were used. Crushed in the Soviet Union, it was sold in the form of sweets, which were in great demand.
Sweets owe their name to the French confectioner by the name of either Morne or Mornas, which no longer can be reliably established, who worked at a factory in Petersburg at the very beginning of the 20th century. It was he who first noticed that their relief is very similar to the petals of an iris flower.
In the USSR, several varieties of this candy were produced: they were often covered with glaze, and sometimes, filling was added. The production method was distinguished by the circulated and cast iris, and the following were distinguished by the consistency and structure:
- soft;
- semi-solid;
- replicated;
- semi-solid cast (a classic example is the Golden Key);
- malleable ("Tuzik", "Kies-kis").
In the USSR, the most popular were the so-called toffees - small sweets that were sold in a wrapper. The process of their production was the sequential addition and heating of the ingredients in the digester to a final temperature, when the mixture was still liquid. It was cooled on a special table with a water "shirt." When the mixture became inviscid and thick, it was placed in a special apparatus, from which came out a bundle of iris mass of a specific thickness. Such a tourniquet was sent directly to the toffee machine, in which it was cut into small sweets and wrapped in a label.
After this, the finished product was cooled in specially designed tunnels, dried (crystallization occurred at that time), and due to this, the required consistency was achieved. In its shape, the iris could be square, in the form of bricks or molded.
"Bird's milk"
Candies "Bird's milk" in the USSR enjoyed special love and popularity. Interestingly, these sweets come from Poland, where they appeared in 1936. Their recipe remains unchanged to this day. Traditional “Bird's milk” candies are made in dessert chocolate with vanilla filling.
In 1967, the Minister of the Soviet food industry Vasily Zotov in Czechoslovakia was conquered by these delicious sweets. Returning to the Soviet Union, he gathered representatives of all the confectionery factories, giving the task of making the same sweets without a prescription, and using only a sample.
In the same year, the production of these sweets began a confectionery factory in Vladivostok. The recipe, which was developed in Vladivostok, was eventually recognized as the best in the USSR; today these sweets are branded as Primorsky. Their feature was the use of agar-agar.
In 1968, experimental batches of these sweets appeared at the Rot Front factory, but the prescription documentation was never approved. Only with time did production manage to be established across the country. At that time, the shelf life of real “Bird's milk” candies, prepared according to the classic recipe, was only 15 days. Only in the 90s they began to increase it, and at the same time reduce the cost of ingredients, making sweets more affordable. Preservatives were widely used, which increased their shelf life to two months.
A special pride of domestic culinary specialists was a cake called "Bird's milk", which was invented and invented in the Soviet Union. It happened in 1978 in the confectionery shop of the metropolitan restaurant "Prague". Pastry chef Vladimir Guralnik led the process, and according to other sources created the cake personally.
It was made from cupcake dough; a cream based on butter, sugar-agar syrup, condensed milk and egg whites, which were previously whipped, was used for the interlayer. In 1982, Bird's Milk Cake became the first cake in the USSR to be granted a patent. A workshop was specially equipped for its production, which produced two thousand cakes a day, but it still remained in short supply.