Candy friendship with cashew USSR. A Brief History of Soviet Candy

Sweets in the USSR were one of the main treats that Soviet children could afford. They were given for the holidays, they were treated to birthdays, on weekends parents spoiled their kids with delicious sweets that were not always easy to get. Of course, the variety of sweets was not as large 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?

Chocolates were considered the main value in the USSR. Interestingly, the first chocolate bar in the world appeared only in 1899 in Switzerland, and chocolate began to be imported to Russia only in the middle of the 19th century. A German from Wurtenberg opened a workshop on the Arbat, which also produced chocolates.

In 1867, von Einem and a partner opened a factory that was one of the first in the country to start a steam engine, which allowed the company to become one of the largest confectionery producers 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. So, the factory of the Abrikosovs received the name of the worker Babaev, the firm "Einem" became known as "Red October", and the factory of the Lenov merchants "Rot Front". But under the new government, problems arose with the production of chocolate, cocoa beans were needed 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 gold and currency, for which raw materials could be purchased abroad, were spent on the purchase of more daily bread. It was only in the mid-20s that confectionery production was restored, the entrepreneurial spirit of the Nepmen played its 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 Krasny Oktyabr, and caramel at the Babaev factory. What sweets were in the USSR, you will learn from this article.

The work of confectionery factories did not stop during the Great Patriotic War, because these were strategically important products, the "emergency reserve" set necessarily included a chocolate bar, which saved more than one pilot or sailor from death.

After the war, the USSR turned out to have a lot of equipment taken from German confectionery enterprises. At the factory named after Babaev, the production of chocolate was increased significantly, if in 1946 they processed 500 tons of cocoa beans per year, then by the end of the 60s it was already 9,000 tons. This was favored by foreign policy supported by the leaders of many African powers, from where this raw material was supplied in large quantities.

At that time, the production of sweets in the USSR was established stably and there was no shortage, at least in large cities, the only exceptions were pre-holiday days. Before each New Year, sweet sets were distributed to all children, due to which most of the sweets disappeared from the shelves.

"Squirrel"

Belochka sweets enjoyed great popularity and love among Soviet kids and their parents. Their main distinguishing feature was finely crushed hazelnuts, which were contained in the filling. The candy was easily recognizable by the label, it depicted a squirrel with a nut in its paws, which referred us to Pushkin's famous work "The Tale of Tsar Saltan".

For the first time, Belochka sweets began to be produced in the early 1940s at the Nadezhda Krupskaya confectionery factory. She at that time was part of the Leningrad Production Association of the confectionery industry. In Soviet times, these candies deservedly became one of the most popular in the country; several thousand tons of them were produced annually.

"Kara-Kum"

In the USSR, they were originally produced at a confectionery factory in Taganrog. They conquered the sweet tooth with a nutty praline filling with the addition of crushed waffles and cocoa.

Over time, they began to be produced at other enterprises, in particular, at Krasny Oktyabr, in the United Confectioners confectionery group.

The candy owes its name to the desert on the territory of modern Kazakhstan, which in those years was part of the Soviet Union. So the manufacturers of sweets cared not only about the pleasure of their consumers, but also to increase their knowledge of geography.

Ballet Gliere

Candies were named in honor of not only geographical objects, but also ... ballets. At least according to the most common version, the Red Poppy sweets owe their name to the ballet of the same name by Gliere, which was first staged at the Bolshoi Theater in 1926.

The history of this premiere is amazing. Initially, they were supposed to stage a new ballet called "The Daughter of the Port", but the theater officials considered the libretto not very interesting and dynamic. Then the plot was revived, and the musical arrangement was altered, 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 are 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. A conflict unfolds between the bourgeois and the Bolsheviks, they try to poison the captain of the ship, and in the finale the brave Chinese woman dies. Waking up before her death, Tao gives others a poppy flower, which was once given to her by a Soviet captain. This beautiful romantic story was immortalized in the art of confectionery so that sweets are still popular.

The delicacy was distinguished by a praline filling, to which vanilla flavors, candy crumbs and hazelnuts were added. The candies themselves were glazed with chocolate.

"Montpensier"

Not only chocolates were valued in the USSR. Everyone who remembers the shelves of Soviet stores can tell you about the candies in the Monpasier iron can. In the USSR, these were the most popular candies.

They were similar in shape to small tablets and had different fruit flavors. These were real lollipops made from caramelized sugar. They had a large number of flavors and colors, some, for example, purposefully bought only orange, lemon or berry sweets. But the most popular was the classic assortment, when you could taste candies of all varieties and tastes at a time.

These sweets were originally produced at the Krupskaya factory. They had a nut filling, which was enclosed in a waffle body.

Confectioners set up their production shortly before the start of World War II, in 1939. "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 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 were threatened with starvation.

The original design of the wrapper, by which today everyone can easily recognize these sweets, was developed by the artist Tatyana Lukyanova. Album sketches, which she performed at the Leningrad Zoo, 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, sweets under this name were produced at various 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 store shelves you can find analogues that differ somewhat in the pattern on the label or in the name, but at the same time they are still easy to recognize.

"Creamy toffee"

In the USSR, "Creamy toffee" sweets were produced at the Krasny Oktyabr factory. Their release has been established since 1925, along with other sweets, which are still considered the Golden Fund of the factory. First of all, these are cocoa and chocolate "Golden Label", "Clumsy Bear" (not to be confused with "Bear in the North"), toffee "Kis-Kis".

"Creamy toffee" refers to those who remember it from Soviet times, they say that it was a very tasty candy, small in size and yellowish-white in a greenish-yellow wrapper with splashes of pink. But its release has long been discontinued for an unknown reason.

"Meteorite"

They were also very popular in the USSR. They were produced only in the second half of the 20th century, now they, like the "Creamy Toffee", cannot be found. By taste, they are closest to modern Grillage sweets.

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 gentle. It was surrounded by a thin shell of chocolate that literally melted in your mouth, underneath it was a nut-caramel-honey filling that tasted of shortbread and honey. The sweets were very satisfying, and the filling itself was bitten off very easily, this was their main difference from the "Roasting".

In appearance, the Soviet "Meteorite" sweets resembled small chocolate balls. When they were cut with a knife, a complex filling of seeds or nuts with honey caramel was exposed. The sweets were wrapped in a characteristic blue wrapper the color of the night sky. Usually they were sold in small cardboard boxes, but you could also find these sweets by weight.

"Iris"

One of the most popular non-chocolate sweets in the USSR is Iris. In fact, this is a fondant mass, which was formed by boiling condensed milk with molasses, sugar and fat, and both vegetable or butter and margarine were used. In the crushed form in the Soviet Union, it was sold in the form of sweets, which were in great demand.

The sweets owe their name to a French confectioner by the name of either Morna or Mornas, it is not possible to establish for certain now, who worked at a factory in St. 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 icing, sometimes they added a filling. According to the method of production, they distinguished replicated and cast iris, and according to the consistency and structure, the following were distinguished:

• soft;
• semi-solid;
• replicated;
• cast semi-solid (a classic example is the "Golden Key");
• viscous ("Tuzik", "Kis-kiss").

In the USSR, the most popular were the so-called toffees - small sweets that were sold in a wrapper. The process of their production consisted in the successive addition and heating of the ingredients in the digester to the final temperature, when the mixture was still liquid. It was cooled on a special table with a water jacket. When the mixture became non-viscous and thick, it was placed in a special apparatus, from which a toffee mass of a specific thickness came out. Such a tourniquet was sent directly to the toffee wrapping machine, in which it was cut into small sweets and wrapped in a label.

After that, the finished product was cooled in specially designed tunnels, dried (crystallization took place at this time), due to this, the required consistency was achieved. In its form, the iris could be square, in the form of bricks or molded.

In the USSR they enjoyed special love and popularity. Interestingly, these sweets come from Poland, where they appeared in 1936. Their recipe remains unchanged to this day. Traditional sweets "Bird's milk" are made in dessert chocolate with vanilla filling.

In 1967, Vasily Zotov, the minister of the Soviet food industry, in Czechoslovakia was captivated by these delicious candies. Returning to the Soviet Union, he gathered representatives of all confectionery factories, instructing them to make the same sweets without a prescription, but using only a sample.

In the same year, a confectionery factory in Vladivostok began to produce these sweets. The recipe, which was developed in Vladivostok, was eventually recognized as the best in the USSR; today these sweets are sold under the Primorsky brand. 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 over time, production was able to establish throughout the country. At that time, the shelf life of real Ptichye Moloko sweets, 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. Massively used preservatives, 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 Prague restaurant in the capital. Pastry chef Vladimir Guralnik supervised the process, and according to other sources, he created the cake personally.

It was made from cupcake dough, for the layer they used a cream based on butter, sugar-agar syrup, condensed milk and egg whites, which were pre-whipped. In 1982, the "Bird's Milk" cake became the first cake in the USSR for which a patent was issued. For its production, a workshop was specially equipped, which produced two thousand cakes a day, but it still remained in short supply.

Recently, while walking around one of the cities, I stumbled upon a museum of Soviet sweets and, of course, could not pass by. Sweets in childhood loved, I think, everyone. Here they have collected a large collection that will not leave many indifferent.
Let's remember what we enjoyed in childhood.

2. I confess that I did not recognize many sweets and chocolates. Perhaps they are much older than me, or these confectionery products were rare, or maybe I just forgot already, because so many years have passed.
But Alyonka chocolate, I remember, has always been there.

3. Olenka chocolate was produced in Ukraine.

4. There were many confectionery factories in Ukraine.

5. Someone was collecting wrappers from Childish chocolate.

6. There was also a place for unsightly toys at the present time.

7. The chocolates in the boxes were very nicely decorated. Please note that in a box of sweets there were 400 grams and even more, and not 150-200 as it is now.

8. Colorful candy boxes were used to store small things.

9. Sports theme.

10. Beauty-Moscow. The label suggests that it was a butter cookie. Prices were then printed on labels, in all stores and in different cities they were the same.

11. Candy postcard. From Evgenia Dmitrievna to Elena Ivanovna.

12. I see such a girl for the first time.

13. Assorted chocolate for 37 rubles. Really before 1961?

14. It is also interesting that the storage periods were much shorter than now.

15. More candy.

16. Marmalade "Orange and lemon slices" I remember very well.

17. More candies in jars. Jars were also used on the farm.

18. Dragee was very loved.

19. Creamy fudge and cakes.

20.

22. Wrappers are presented on a separate showcase.

23. When there were no inserts yet, the children collected candy wrappers. Not all, but there were some.

24. "Pineapple" sweets remember.

25.

26. The store-museum "Soviet Sweets" is located in Vladimir, a few steps from Bolshaya Moskovskaya Street. The entrance is free.

27. Now you can buy products of many companies here. It is noteworthy that the assortment mainly includes brands that were still in Soviet times.

28.

29. And yet, "Bird's Milk" then was completely different.

30. You can buy a cake or sweets and sit down to drink tea right there at the table. That's exactly what I did.

31. We have not yet come to the victory of communist labor, but it was nice to remember some moments from childhood.

Tell me what you learned? What do you remember? What were your favorite candies?

Surely many will still be interested in remembering

Sweet memories of childhood and holidays. "... The main producers of sweets in the USSR were the Krasny Oktyabr, Rot Front, Babaevskaya and Bolshevik factories, which were located in the capital of the Soviet Union - Moscow. It was they who set the tone for the rest of the factories, both in quality and in the design of sweet products.

Red October"- this is the former Einem confectionery factory (it was named after its founder, the German Ferdinand von Einem). After the October Revolution of 1917, the factory was nationalized and renamed. And she continued her "sweet" history already in the new, socialist conditions, releasing mainly chocolate and sweets. Among the latter were: "Bear-toed" (appeared in 1925), "Southern Night" (1927), "Creamy fudge" (1928), iris "Kis‑kis

"(1928), "Stratosphere" (1936), "Soufflé" (1936), etc.

In 1935, A. Ptushko's film "The New Gulliver" saw the light of day, which was a huge success with children. After that, Gulliver sweets appeared on the shelves of Soviet stores - wafers covered with real chocolate icing. These were expensive candies, so when they became popular, their cheap counterpart appeared - Crane candies, where the same wafer was covered with soy chocolate. The price is more affordable - 20 kopecks apiece.

Among the chocolate products of Krasny Oktyabr, the "Golden Label" (1926) was the "oldest" brand. But chocolate "Guards" appeared during the war years. In those years, "Red October" produced exclusively chocolate, and one brand - "Cola" - was intended for pilots. And after the war, the production of sweets was resumed.

From the second half of the 60s, the most recognizable product of Krasny Oktyabr was Alenka chocolate (1 ruble 10 kopecks for a large bar and 20 kopecks for a small one, 15 grams). And it arose under Brezhnev, although the idea was born when N. Khrushchev was the head of the country. At the Plenum of the Central Committee of the CPSU in February 1964, an appeal was made to Soviet confectioners to come up with cheap chocolate for kids. This idea was put into practice at the Krasny Oktyabr confectionery factory for two years, until, finally, Alenka milk chocolate saw the light of day. The label showed a little girl in a headscarf. This portrait was found on the cover of the Health magazine in 1962: 8-month-old Lenochka Gerinas was photographed there (the photo was taken by her father Alexander).

Among other products of this factory were chocolate - "Pushkin's Tales", "Flotsky", "Glory" and others; sweets - Cancer Necks, Little Red Riding Hood, Kara-Kum, Truffles, Deer, Soufflé, Tretyakov Gallery, Temptation, Fairy Tale, Come on, take it away, Snowball, Peace, Humpbacked Horse, Raisin, Evening, Chernomorochka, Cow, Golden Key iris, etc.

The main competitor of "Red October" was considered the confectionery factory named after P. Babaev ("Babaevskaya"). Before the revolution, it was an enterprise of the Abrikosov merchants, but after nationalization in 1918, the prominent Bolshevik Pyotr Babaev became its head. True, he did not manage for long - only two years (he died at the age of 37 from tuberculosis), but his name was immortalized in the new name of the factory.

At the Babaevsky factory

Before the war, she specialized in the production of montpensier, toffee and caramel. And immediately after the war, it began to produce chocolate products, and very soon chocolate became the main brand of this factory. Among her most popular brands of chocolate were Inspiration (elite chocolate), Babaevsky, Special, Guards, and Lux.

Among the sweets were such as "Squirrel", "Bear in the North", "Shuttle", "Golden Field", "Orange Flavor", "Pilot", "Spring", "Petrel", "Marine", "Chamomile", "Truffles", etc.; in boxes - "Squirrel", "Visit", "Evening Aroma", "Sweet Dreams", etc.

Factory "Rot Front" produced sweets of the following brands: "Moscow", "Kremlevskie", "Rot Front" (bars), "Little Red Riding Hood", "Rillage in chocolate", "Golden Field", "Caravan", "Autumn Waltz", "Lemon" (caramel), "Peanuts in chocolate", "raisins in chocolate", etc.

Factory "Bolshevik" was popular for its cookies: oatmeal and "Jubilee". However, we will talk about cookies a little lower.

In general, sweets in the USSR were divided into cheap and expensive. The first included various kinds of caramel, the second - chocolate products. The vast majority of Soviet children most often indulged in "caramels", and various kinds of chocolate "sweets" passed through their hands a little less often due to their relative high cost.

Naturally, chocolate sweets have always been valued in the children's environment much higher than caramel ones. And, if possible, they were consumed with enviable regularity, for which almost every child knew how to “beg” money from their parents specifically for chocolate “sweets”.

The most affordable sweets, as already mentioned, were caramels, candies and toffees. The very first Soviet caramels appeared back in the 20s - for example, Ilyich caramel with a portrait of V. I. Lenin on the wrapper. At the same time, other caramels were also popular: "Peasant", "North", "Barberry" and even "Stenka Razin", which were produced by the Babaevskaya factory.

"Stenka Razin" sweets produced by the factory "Moscow"

In the 60s and 70s, the most popular caramels were Goose Feet, Crayfish Necks (both with coffee fillings), sour Snezhok, and milky toffee Korovka. True, the latter was expensive for constant use - 2 rubles 50 kopecks per kilogram, since it was made from whole condensed milk and butter.

Much more accessible were caramel "Duchess", the same "Barberry", "Petushki" on a stick (5 kopecks apiece), as well as toffees "Kis-kis" and "Golden Key", which were also cheap - 5-7 kopecks per 100 grams. Unlike caramel "Montpensier" in a metal box - those were in short supply. Like another caramel - "Vzletnaya", which almost never went on sale and was distributed to passengers making air travel in order to relieve their nausea.

Among the expensive sweets are "Kara-Kum" and "Squirrel" (chocolate, with grated nuts inside), "Bird's milk" (delicate soufflé in chocolate), "Roasting", "Koltsov's Songs", "To the Stars". The latter could be sold both by weight and in boxes - 25 rubles per box.

What other sweets were there: "Arktika", "Toys" (caramel), "Caravan", "Strawberry with Cream", "Little Red Riding Hood", "Come on, take it away", "Nochka", "Snowball" (caramel), "Terem-Teremok", "Southern Liquor" (caramel), "Zoological", "School", "Golden Field", "Milk Bar", "Pineapple".

There was a lot of chocolate, but the most famous was, of course, "Alenka" (1 ruble 10 kopecks for a large bar and 20 kopecks for a small one - 15 grams).

In addition to Alenka, there were other names of chocolate in the USSR: Road (1 ruble 10 kopecks), Merry Fellows (25 kopecks), Glory (porous), Firebird, Theatrical, Circus, Lux, Pushkin's Tales, etc.

And here is what we managed to find from other people's sweet memories on the Internet:

Masha Ivanova: “In the USSR, chocolate tasted of scarcity. More often it was bought not to eat, but to give. In the USSR, only pilots and polar explorers could gobble up a chocolate delicacy without a twinge of conscience. They were given a high-calorie product "according to the charter." Well, the schoolchildren also got it. In Soviet times, before exams, children were given small tiles each - to "recharge their brains."

Often the sweets were very tasty, but the decoration was limping. The greater was the contrast. Indeed, such a luxury was wrapped in a miserable candy wrapper! .. Confectionery GOSTs strictly followed the recipe. Soviet chocolate was in no way inferior in quality to the same Swiss one. And it was cheaper only because most of the cocoa supplier countries were among the allies of the USSR. Any interruptions in the supply of the necessary confectionery components were reflected in production.

Candy boxes were never thrown away in the Soviet Union! - they passed from hand to hand, like a victory banner. Under the brand name of the box, sweets were bought by weight and neatly laid out in the package. And if you managed to buy a new one, unopened, they opened it very carefully, so that, God forbid, not to scratch it ... "

Larisa: “How often I remember those moments when, on the eve of the New Year, my mother and I went to the best confectionery in Kharkov “Vedmedic” and, having stood in line at several counters at once, we, happy, carried chocolates home! And what a pleasure it was to string them by the tails on a string to decorate the Christmas tree later. These were sacred candies, I did not touch them until the moment of decoration.

I remember the beautiful labels of sweets “Marusya Boguslavka”, “Merry little men”, “Come on, take it away!”, “Ice-cream tubes” ... It was the end of the 60s - the beginning of the 70s. I folded wrappers between the pages of books and they kept the unique aroma of the holiday for a long time. Where are they now, these books? And why did my children never collect candy wrappers? Something is wrong with our children…”

Sweets Come on take it away! Photo: www.kudvic.ru

Dad often went to Kyiv for work and brought “Kiev” cake to all the neighbors, I don’t know how he managed to go shopping there, but he always carried out orders. And when I flew on business trips to Moscow, I always brought a bunch of sweets, my mother hid them, before the holidays, my brother and I found them and often pulled them out one at a time, and when the holidays came ... then there weren’t enough sweets, for this we often got hit))))

Often they argued with my brother who would go to donate bottles, because 5 bottles is a ruble, and for a ruble you could go for a walk - both to the movies and to an ice cream parlor. In May, summer cafes began to work in the city, and the whole class went there after school, the Summer cake cost 15 kopecks, and ice cream without syrup cost 20 kopecks, with syrup 22 kopecks. Beauty!!!"

Lyudmila: “Oh, sweet notes of childhood… Everyone has just an abyss of sweet memories. I want to remember curly marmalade. Such big bears, bunnies, Dunnos in sugar... Nothing special in taste, but bite a little bit, then suck delicious gummies in your mouth... They dragged out the pleasure. Another gray (sunflower) halva ... Small squares of milk chocolates 11 kopecks each: "Pushkin's Tales", "Krylov's Fables" ... "

The assortment of chocolate in the USSR was truly huge. From all the variety it was possible to choose products for every taste and material wealth, not a single holiday could do without this delicacy, and not only for children. In Soviet times, Christmas trees were decorated with chocolates for the New Year. The treasured bar of chocolate in Soviet times was put in any gift. Do you know everything about this sweet product? For example, do you know the name of the chocolate manufacturer Alenka in the USSR, and how did chocolate production appear in Russia?

It seems to us now that chocolate has always been around. Well, it is impossible to imagine that there was once no chocolates in this world. Meanwhile, the first chocolate bar appeared only in 1899 in Switzerland. In Russia, confectionery production until the beginning of the 19th century was, for the most part, handicraft. Foreigners also actively mastered the Russian confectionery market. The history of the emergence of chocolate in Russia began in 1850, when Ferdinand von Einem, who arrived from the German Wurtenberg in Moscow, opened a small workshop on the Arbat for the production of chocolate products, including sweets.

In 1867, Einem and his companion Geis built a new factory building on Sofiyskaya Embankment. According to information from the history of chocolate in Russia, this factory was one of the first to be equipped with a steam engine, which allowed the company to quickly become one of the largest manufacturers of confectionery in the country.

After the revolution of 1917, all confectionery factories passed into the hands of the state - in November 1918, the Council of People's Commissars issued a decree on the nationalization of the confectionery industry. Naturally, the change of owners led to a change of names. The factory of the Abrikosovs received the name of the worker Petr Akimovich Babaev, chairman of the Sokolniki district executive committee of Moscow. The company "Einem" became known as "Red October", and the former factory of the Lenov merchants was renamed "Rot Front". True, the ideas of Marx and Lenin, the revolutionary spirit and new names could not affect the technology for the production of confectionery. Under both the old and the new government, sugar was needed for the production of sweets, and cocoa beans for the manufacture of chocolate. And there were serious problems with this. The "sugar" regions of the country were under the rule of the whites for a long time, and the currency and gold, for which it was possible to buy overseas raw materials, went to buy bread. Only by the mid-1920s, confectionery production was more or less revived. The NEP helped this, the entrepreneurial streak and the growth in the well-being of urban residents made it possible to quickly increase the production of caramel, sweets, cookies, and cakes. The planned economy, which replaced the NEP, left its mark on the confectionery industry. Since 1928, the production of sweets was strictly regulated, each factory was transferred to its own, separate type of product. In Moscow, for example, caramel was produced by the Babaev factory. The chocolate manufacturer in the USSR was the Krasny Oktyabr factory, and the biscuits were Bolshevik.

During the war years, many confectionery factories were evacuated from the European part of the country to the rear. Confectioners continued to work, releasing, among other things, strategically important products. The "emergency reserve" set necessarily included a bar of chocolate that saved the life of more than one pilot or sailor.

After the war, under reparations from Germany, the USSR received equipment from German confectionery enterprises, which made it possible to establish the production of chocolate products in a short time. Chocolate production has grown every year. For example, in 1946, a chocolate manufacturing company in the USSR named after Babaev processed 500 tons of cocoa beans, in 1950 - 2,000 tons, and by the end of the 60s - 9,000 tons annually. Foreign policy indirectly contributed to this impressive growth in production. The Soviet Union for many years supported various regimes in many countries of the world, including African ones. The main thing for these regimes was to swear allegiance to communist ideals, and then help in the form of weapons, equipment, and equipment was provided. This support was practically gratuitous, the only way Africans could somehow pay off the USSR was raw materials and agricultural products. That is why confectionery factories were uninterruptedly supplied with raw materials from distant African expanses.

In those years, there was no competition between chocolate producers in the Soviet Union, in the traditional sense. Confectioners could compete for awards and titles, such as “best in the industry”, for awards at exhibitions, for the love, after all, of consumers, but not for their wallets. Problems with the sale of sweets and other sweet products could be with absolutely negligent and "tasteless" manufacturers. But there was no shortage, at least in large cities. Of course, from time to time the names of sweets in the USSR, like "Belochka", "Bear in the North" or "Karakum" disappeared from the shelves, and "Bird's Milk" rarely appeared on them at all, but usually Muscovites, Kievans or Kharkovites could buy, albeit not in every store, their favorite treats. The exception was holidays. Each pre-New Year's children's performance in the theater or matinee ended with the distribution of sweet sets, which is why the most popular varieties of sweets disappeared from the shelves at that time. Before March 8, one could hardly find candies in boxes, which, together with a bouquet of flowers, made up a “universal” gift for the holiday that did not require serious thought from men.

What kind of Soviet-era chocolate and sweets were in the USSR, what were they called (with photo)

The main producers of sweets in the USSR were the Krasny Oktyabr, Rot Front, Babaevskaya and Bolshevik factories, which were located in the capital of the Soviet Union - Moscow. It was they who set the tone for the rest of the factories, both in quality and in the design of sweet products.

"Red October" is the former confectionery factory "Einem" (it was named after its founder, the German Ferdinand von Einem). After the October Revolution of 1917, the factory was nationalized and renamed. And she continued her "sweet" history already in the new, socialist conditions, releasing mainly chocolate and sweets. What sweets in the USSR were especially popular? Of course, “Clumsy Bear” (appeared in 1925), “Southern Night” (1927), “Creamy Fudge” (1928), “Kis-kiss” iris (1928), “Stratosphere” (1936), “Soufflé” (1936) and others.

In 1935, A. Ptushko's film "The New Gulliver" saw the light of day, which was a huge success with children. After that, Gulliver sweets appeared on the shelves of Soviet stores - wafers covered with real chocolate icing. These were expensive candies, so when they became popular, their cheap counterpart appeared - Crane sweets, where the same wafer was covered with soy chocolate. The price is more affordable - 20 kopecks apiece.

What was the name of the chocolate produced by this manufacturer in the USSR? Among the chocolate products of Krasny Oktyabr, the "Golden Label" (1926) was the "oldest" brand. But chocolate "Guards" appeared during the war years.

Here you can see photos of Soviet chocolate from various factories:

Chocolate "Cola" in the USSR and other chocolate products

In the twenties of the last century, Krasny Oktyabr produced exclusively chocolate, and one brand - Cola - was intended for pilots. And after the war, the production of sweets was resumed.

Such sweets in Soviet times as “Bear in the North”, “Bear-toed Bear”, “Red Poppy”, “Tuzik”, “Come on, take it away!”, “Karakum”, “Bird's Milk” and, of course, “Squirrel”, were the dolce vita of a Soviet person, the quintessence of chocolate happiness of a gourmet, a quasi-uno-fantasy of confectionery craftsmanship, sweet symbols of the era ... “The taste of our childhood” - these words begin almost every second tele- or a newspaper report about chocolate products or the work of confectionery factories. This phrase, from frequent use, has long turned into a worn out stamp.

In addition to "Alenka", there were other names of chocolate in the USSR: "Road" (1 ruble 10 kopecks), "Merry guys" (25 kopecks), "Glory" (porous), "Firebird", "Theatrical", "Circus", "Lux", "Pushkin's Tales", etc.

See photos of chocolate in the USSR and other Soviet-era chocolate products:

What is the name of the chocolate manufacturer "Alenka" in the USSR

This section of the article is devoted to the name of the Alenka chocolate company in the USSR, and what other products were produced at this factory.

From the second half of the 60s, the most recognizable product of Red October in the USSR was Alenka chocolate (1 ruble 10 kopecks for a large bar and 20 kopecks for a small, 15-gram one). And it arose under Brezhnev, although the idea was born when N. Khrushchev was the head of the country. At the Plenum of the Central Committee of the CPSU in February 1964, an appeal was made to Soviet confectioners to come up with cheap chocolate for kids. This idea was put into practice at the Krasny Oktyabr confectionery factory for two years, until, finally, Alenka milk chocolate saw the light of day. The label showed a little girl in a headscarf. This portrait was found by Alenka chocolate producers in the USSR on the cover of the Health magazine in 1962: 8-month-old Lenochka Gerinas was photographed there (the photo was taken by her father Alexander). In 1964, Krasny Oktyabr decided that the new Alenka chocolate needed an original wrapper with a corporate portrait. At first, the Alenka chocolate company in the USSR produced this delicacy with different images. There was an idea to use Vasnetsov's "Alyonushka" for decoration, but the artist's work "bypassed" the portrait of Elena Gerinas.

Among other products of this chocolate manufacturer in the USSR, in addition to Alenka, there were Pushkin's Tales, Flotsky, Slava and many others.

Look at the photo of sweets from the times of the USSR produced by the Krasny Oktyabr factory:

These are Crayfish Necks, Little Red Riding Hood, Kara-Kum, Truffles, Deer, Soufflé, Tretyakov Gallery, Temptation, Fairy Tale, Come on, take it away, Snowball, Peace, Humpbacked Horse, Raisin, Evening, Chernomorochka, Cow, Golden Key iris, etc.

Chocolate manufacturer in the USSR - Babaevskaya factory

The main competitor of "Red October" was considered the confectionery factory named after P. Babaev ("Babaevskaya"). Before the revolution, it was an enterprise of the Abrikosov merchants, but after nationalization in 1918, the prominent Bolshevik Pyotr Babaev became its head. True, he did not manage for long - only two years (he died at the age of 37 from tuberculosis), but his name was immortalized in the new name of the factory.

Before the war, she specialized in the production of montpensier, toffee and caramel. And immediately after the war, it began to produce chocolate products, and very soon chocolate became the main brand of this factory. Among its most popular products in the USSR were such names of chocolate as "Inspiration" (elite chocolate), "Babaevsky", "Special", "Guards", "Lux".

Here you can see a photo of Soviet-era chocolate produced by the Babaevskaya factory:

Chocolate and other sweets from the times of the USSR (with photo)

Among the sweets were such as "Squirrel", "Bear in the North", "Shuttle", "Golden Field", "Orange Flavor", "Pilot", "Spring", "Petrel", "Marine", "Chamomile", "Truffles", etc.; in boxes - "Squirrel", "Visit", "Evening Aroma", "Sweet Dreams", etc.

"Rot Front" produced the following brands of sweets: "Moscow", "Kremlevskie", "Rot Front" (bars), "Little Red Riding Hood", "Rillage in Chocolate", "Golden Niva", "Caravan", "Autumn Waltz", "Lemon" (caramel), "Peanuts in Chocolate", "Raisins in Chocolate", etc.

The Bolshevik factory was popular for its cookies: oatmeal and "Jubilee".

In Leningrad, there was a confectionery factory named after N. K. Krupskaya, which was opened in 1938. For a long time, its trademark (or brand in today's way) was the Mishka in the North sweets, which appeared on the shelves of Soviet stores even before the war - in 1939. This factory produced both chocolate and sweets, among which the Firebird sweets (praline and cream) were very popular.

Like chocolate in the USSR, sweets were divided into cheap and expensive. The first included various kinds of caramel, the second - chocolate products. The vast majority of Soviet children most often indulged in "caramels", and various kinds of chocolate "sweets" passed through their hands a little less often due to their relative high cost. Naturally, chocolate sweets have always been valued in the children's environment much higher than caramel ones. In those distant years (60-70s), the most popular caramels were Goose Feet, Crayfish Necks (both with coffee fillings), sour Snowball, and Cow milk toffee. True, the latter was expensive for constant use - 2 rubles 50 kopecks per kilogram, since it was made from whole condensed milk and butter.

Much more accessible were caramel "Duchess", the same "Barberry", "Petushki" on a stick (5 kopecks apiece), as well as toffees "Kis-kiss" and "Golden Key", which were also cheap - 5-7 kopecks per 100 grams. Unlike caramel "Montpensier" in a metal box - those were in short supply. As well as another caramel - "Vzletnaya", which almost never went on sale and was distributed to passengers making air travel in order to relieve their nausea attacks.

Among the expensive sweets are “Kara-Kum” and “Squirrel” (chocolate, with grated nuts inside), “Bird's milk” (delicate soufflé in chocolate), “Grillage”, “Koltsov's Songs”, “To the Stars”. The latter could be sold both by weight and in boxes - 25 rubles per box.

What other sweets were there: "Arktika", "Toys" (caramel), "Caravan", "Strawberry with Cream", "Little Red Riding Hood", "Come on, take it away", "Nochka", "Snowball" (caramel), "Terem-Teremok", "Southern Liquor" (caramel), "Zoological", "School", "Golden Field", "Milk Bar", "Pineapple".

As you can see in the photo, chocolates in the USSR “with white filling” could perhaps be singled out in a separate class:

There were more expensive sweets - “Pilot” (the wrapper is so interesting, a piece of paper with a blue and white stripe, in the middle - foil), “Citron” (the filling is white and yellow, with lemon flavor, the wrapper wrapped only on one side), “Swallow”. Waffle is cheaper - "Our brand", "Clumsy bear", "Tuzik", "Spartak", "Pineapple", "Torch". "Torch", sold loose, without candy wrappers. He held out until the very end. When the country ran out of chocolate, they began to make "Torch" from soy chocolate.

During the perestroika years, the confectionery industry, like the entire economy, experienced problems. But in general, confectioners survived the collapse of the Union and the transition from plan to market rather painlessly. Someone thanks the old traditions laid down in Soviet times for this, someone believes that the growth in the production of sweet products was facilitated by foreign capital that came to the domestic market. Probably both are right. But most importantly, sweets, cookies and chocolate are always delicious.

Good day!
After listening to my parents' stories about their happy Soviet childhood and everything connected with it, I decided to create a topic about sweets.
In Soviet times, Christmas trees were decorated with chocolates for the New Year. The treasured bar of chocolate in Soviet times was put in any gift. The main producers of sweets in the USSR were the Krasny Oktyabr, Rot Front, Babaevskaya and Bolshevik factories.
Some sweets are still on sale, but they are not the same as they were before, the taste is not the same ... “the taste of childhood”, which you will never forget.
I propose to go back in time and remember those same sweets.

"Bear clubfoot"

Few people know that the bear-toed bear chocolates - a kind of Soviet confectionery symbol - do not come from the USSR, but from Tsarist Russia. Approximately in the 80s of the 19th century, a candy was brought to Julius Geis, the head of the Einem Partnership, for a test: a thick layer of almond praline was enclosed between two wafer plates and glazed chocolate. The factory owner liked the find of the confectioners, and the name “Clumsy Bear” immediately appeared. According to legend, a reproduction of the painting by Ivan Shishkin and Konstantin Savitsky "Morning in a Pine Forest" hung in Geis's office, as a result of which the name was first invented, and later the design of the new delicacy.
The exact date of the appearance of the wrapper "Bears of the clubfoot" is 1913, in 2013 there was the 100th anniversary of the candy wrapper of the legendary candy.

"Squirrel"

This candy can be called a symbol of the era of the twentieth century that has gone down in history. Not a single festive table, not a single New Year's gift was complete without Belochka sweets. Wrappers made of thick paper, on a dark green background - a nimble squirrel, and inside - an incredibly tasty candy. With nuts.

"Bear in the north"

Confectioners of the N. K. Krupskaya factory began to produce these sweets with nut filling on the eve of the Great Patriotic War, in 1939. The residents of the city on the Neva liked the delicacy so much that even during the most difficult period in the life of Leningrad, despite all the difficulties of wartime and the state of siege, the factory did not stop the production of these sweets, although it had to use substitutes for traditional confectionery raw materials. Since 1966, they have become a trademark of the Leningrad factory.

"Come on, take it!"

Popular in Soviet times candy "Come on, take it away!" was released over a hundred years ago at the Einem factory. At first, the wrapper depicted a ferocious-looking boy with a bat in one hand and a bitten Einem chocolate bar in the other. There was no doubt that the boy was ready for anything to finish eating the delicacy.

In 1952, the artist Leonid Chelnokov, creatively reworking and preserving the background of the wrapper, painted a girl in a blue pea dress with a candy in her hand teasing a white dog. It was this image that was preserved in the memory of Soviet children.

Gulliver

It was a super candy, it was associated with great happiness, it was given by adults to children when they came to visit.

"Bird's milk"

In 1967, the Minister of Food Industry of the USSR, during a working visit to Czechoslovakia, tasted Ptasie Mleczko (Bird's Milk, created by Jan Wedel, a Polish confectioner) sweets. Returning to his homeland, the official gathered the confectioners of large enterprises at the Rot-Front factory, demonstrated a box of Ptasie Mleczko he had brought, and gave them the task of inventing something similar to this foreign dessert. The best was the development of specialists from the Primorsky Confectioner factory from Vladivostok under the leadership of Anna Chulkova. She personally finalized the recipe and experimented with the ingredients... Anna Chulkova was awarded the Order of Lenin for developing a unique recipe.

The topic turns out to be large, so I will show a photo of the most famous sweets of the Soviet period.

Cockerel golden comb

Red poppy

Stratosphere

Kara - Kum

Little Red Riding Hood

Do you remember dragee?
Multi-colored round sweets of several types. For 1 ruble 10 kopecks, you could buy a whole kilogram of multi-colored "peas"

A more expensive variety with a soft filling inside.

"Sea pebbles"

The so-called "Sea stones" - glazed raisins (1r70 kopecks per kilogram).

Caramels

Lemons

crow's feet

Barberry

Cancer cervix

And that rooster? It could even be cooked at home. The sweets turned out scary, but quite edible. You could also buy poisonous red or green lollipops in the form of cockerels, horses, bears from the hands of gypsies at the bazaar. Mothers often refused to take these sweets from the unwashed hands of people of unknown origin. Neither prayers nor tears helped.

Montpensier in a round tin.

Most often, they stuck together and it was necessary to tear off a separate “monpasy” with the use of brute physical force. But delicious. Such a tin cost about 1 ruble 20 kopecks, the jar was never thrown away and was used very actively in the household.

Butterscotch
The most famous Kis-Kis and the Golden Key

Lemon and orange slices

Of course, this is not all, I did not find the USSR, and if someone has additions, I will only be glad.
All the best and thank you for your attention.