5 rare Soviet products that not everyone could afford

Shortages were so common in the Soviet Union that they were no longer something unusual. However, people who had money and connections could still afford to buy products of higher quality than others.

FoodOboz decided to find out what the Soviet elite ate and what premium products were available back then.

Hard cheese

Most cheeses that ordinary citizens could buy were processed, but hard cheese was considered a real delicacy. Parmesan, Camembert, or cheddar were rare even for officials. Ordinary people bought only Gollandsky, Yaroslavlsky, and Russian ones.

Seafood delicacies

Only a select few could taste such sea delicacies as mussels and shrimp back then. In the best of times, they could also eat sea urchins, oysters and shrimp. Others didn't even know what they looked like. Ordinary people had access only to herring. And the most common types of fish were pollock, perch, and trout.

Ready-to-eat food

At that time, convenience foods were just beginning to gain popularity in the West. And in the USSR, they were available only to a select few. Some semi-finished products were also available for sale, but the quality of the products was so low that it was almost impossible to eat them.

The only semi-finished product that could be eaten was potato sticks. This is the ancestor of modern French fries. At the same time, there were entire catalogs of food for the elite that could be ordered individually.

Sweets

There were a lot of sweets in the USSR, but they didn't taste very different. Children dreamed of foreign chocolate bars, but they were available for sale only to the elite.

The most favorite sweets among children from ordinary families were melted burnt sugar on a stick, usually sold in the shape of roosters. The cakes sold in stores were prepared with huge amounts of sugar and butter and consisted of sponge cakes and buttercream.

Alcohol

Alcohol was available for sale in the USSR, but it was not very impressive. As a rule, it was mostly beer and vodka. In rare cases, champagne and cognac were available. The quality of the latter was very low, but people were still happy when they managed to buy these alcoholic beverages.