In 1936, the leader of the Soviet Union, Joseph Stalin, sent the minister of the People’s Commissar of the Food Industry Anastas Mikoyan to America. Russia had been late to industrialize in the nineteenth century, and the Soviet Union was still playing catch up in the 1930s. Their economy was still struggling to shift from small-scale cottage industries and hyperlocal economies to mass production including the mass production of food. So Mikoyan went to visit the home of mass-produced food: the United States. After two months, he brought back not only recipes but American machinery and equipment. Soviet food scientists went to work creating foods that would fit Soviet tastes, and one of the resulting creations is still beloved today: the ice cream treat plombir.

An ad for plombir ice cream. “Buy Glavkhladoprom ice cream”, 1952.

While frozen dairy desserts have been around since at least the sixteenth century, ice cream didn’t become inexpensive and popular until the mid-nineteenth century. Advances in refrigeration and the perfection of the commercial freezer in the 1920s meant that the commercial mass production of ice cream could begin. Ice cream novelties like Klondike bars in the U.S. and Choc Ice in England became very popular. Even before the invention of plombir in the Soviet Union, Eskimo pies, chocolate-covered blocks of ice cream similar to Klondike bars were already popular.

Eskimo Pie (Эскимо-пай) genericized trademark was adopted by the Soviets, along with the technology and equipment, in 1932. The product name was soon reduced to just eskimo.

These Eskimo Pies should not be confused with Alaskan ice cream made by the Alaskan Athabaskans, Iñupiat, and Yup'ik peoples. Though it has many names and variations, Native Alaskans make it from whipped fat or tallow, berries, and meat either from fish, caribou, or moose.

Yupik people preparing akutaq with whitefish, blueberries, crow berries, and Crisco as a substitute for seal oil.

So what is plombir, and why was it so beloved? Anastas Mikoyan took special care in developing a superior ice cream recipe for the USSR. Indeed, Stalin once joked of Mikoyan, “You, Anastas, care more about ice cream, than about communism.” The Soviet Union created national standards for all types of food called GOST, an acronym for Gosudarstvenny Standart. These were technical standards which listed ingredients and proportions required for various foods including for ice cream. Plombir had a higher fat content at 20% than most U.S. ice creams which had a minimum of 10% fat. This change created a creamier texture and richer flavor.

Plombir ice cream, which is still produced using carefully preserved Soviet-era equipment, 2013.

The first plombir was produced in 1937 with an additional ice cream factory opening in Kyiv by 1940. It came in a variety of flavors from vanilla and chocolate to berry and cornflower. Even after the fall of the Soviet Union in the 1990s, plombir production continued. It is available for purchase in some specialty food shops. We tried a vanilla cone for ourselves from a nearby Russian gourmet grocer recently and can confirm that it is absolutely delicious!