Muscovites Run Into Truly Spine-Chilling Shortage: Ice Cream

The Soviet capital, which often boasts of having the world’s best ice cream, has a shortage in these waning days of summer, a newspaper reported today.

Ice cream kiosks on street corners and city parks have been displaying “No Ice Cream” signs, although they continue to sell souvenirs, marshmallows, chocolates and other candies, Komsomolskaya Pravda reported.

Ice cream is still available at foreign outlets, such as the Baskin-Robbins stores in the Rossia Hotel and on the Arbat pedestrian mall, or the Soviet-Swiss joint venture Pinguin.

But lines are long and prices are high for Muscovites who have always taken pride in their own ice cream, which they buy in paper-wrapped slabs or on sticks, rather than in cones.

Komsomolskaya Pravda quoted Mosgortorg, the Directorate for State-Run Trade in Moscow, as saying two of the three ice cream-making factories in Moscow are closed for repairs this summer. One might reopen early next month, it said.