I apologize to anyone else who suffered through studying Wallace Stevens in high school. But I found this post on EnglishRussia, sort of a history of ice cream in a nutshell, with a focus on Soviet ice cream. Ice cream appeared in the USSR in 1937, and was actually made on American equipment. "Quite exciting, this frozen-dairy magic," thought the USSR equivalent of the FDA at the time, and demanded ice cream be mass-produced and sold at reasonable prices to the citizenry. A state standard for ice cream was created in 1941--one of the strictest in the world, even compared to today's standards--and Soviet ice cream became popular both inside and outside of the Soviet Union. Unfortunately, by 1980, they had changed to the trade standard, producing a lower-quality product. They started importing ice cream in 1990, and this was of an even lower quality. The article also mentions that some regions had some...special ice cream flavors. Tomato ice cream in the Urals, and Muscovites enjoyed themselves some wine ice cream.
The article, as per usual for EnglishRussia, is full of neat pictures from the early 20th century--snapshots and posters advertising ice cream. I can't tell if they're advertising specific brands or just the concept of ice cream; both of them seem equally likely for the USSR. My favorite snapshot is this one, though. Never too cold for ice cream!
Link to full article for moar pictures.
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