Muscovites Endure Shivers for Chance to Buy Snickers

Bundled against the cold to keep her sweet tooth from chattering, 15-year-old Lena Malakhova waited for two hours along with thousands of other Muscovites today for the chance to buy American candy bars.

Mars Inc. put more than 23 tons of Snickers, Milky Way, Mars and Raider candy bars on sale for rubles for the first time in the Soviet Union.

Due to advance notice that the candy would go on sale starting today at one site only, hundreds of people gathered at the doors of the huge bread and confectionery store for its 9 a.m. opening.

At midday, more than 400 people were lined up along busy Kalinin Prospekt, two doors down from a theater where the American movie “Gone With the Wind” is playing. And frankly, many didn’t give a damn about the 12-degree temperatures and steady snowfall as they waited.

“We were waiting for about two hours,” Lena said as she and a giggling friend secured their candy bars and rebuttoned their winter coats. “Probably in the United States, you don’t wait as long.”

Lena, who had not tasted the chocolate yet, said the candy bars “are very beautiful. . . . I have no words. We have never seen such candy in the Soviet Union.”

But Lydia Lisovaya, 58, was more critical, as were other older shoppers who said the American candy bars had too many additives.

“It’s nothing special. It tastes pleasant,” said Lisovaya, chewing a Milky Way, “but it’s much worse than Soviet chocolate. It’s not pure chocolate.”