Did pizza exist in the Soviet Union?

https://ciekawostkihistoryczne.pl/2022/01/14/mieso-a-sprawa-... https://dziennikpolski24.pl/lubelska-zaraza/ar/2799170

>>The Security Service sent alarming reports. "There are still shortages of cold cuts from group IV, shortages of high-quality meat, there is no lard on the market, there are total shortages of: canned fish and imported fish, and the quantities of salted herring are limited (lack of supplies). There is a shortage of full-fat milk, full-fat cheese , fatty cottage cheese, bryndza cheese. There are limited quantities of hard cheeses. Moreover, there are shortages of semi-durable bread (including gryam [sic!], breadcrumbs, there is no real honey, cubes and liquid spices, and there are full restrictions on delicatessen products. ..."

Rumours about "Train full of meat on its way to Soviet Union welded to the rails by Railway workers" at the time of moscow Olympics didnt help.

This lead to full Martial Law a year later https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martial_law_in_Poland

>>The official reasons for imposing martial law were the deteriorating economic situation of the country, the manifestations of which included, among others, lack of supplies in stores (including food), rationing (from April to October 1981, many important goods were again covered by the so-called food card system, e.g. meat, butter, fats, flour, rice, baby milk, etc.)

Soviets tried to quench the unrest by sending meat from military reserves ... in coal wagons. Rumours quickly spread about coal wagons full of rotten dirty meat from moscow.

TLDR: No Pizza because no meat, thats why we ate toasted mushroom sandwiches.

A variety of classic Soviet recipes was designed for use of local ingredients and industrial scale production, making pizza unnecessary.

> Arguably, a calzone is just a pirogi anyway

And why would you need pizza when the world of pirogi is arguably bigger?..

https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%9F%D0%B8%D1%86%D1%86%D0%B0

Of course. Polish pizza has to have cabbage.

We made it in a rectangular tray in the oven and it used pita-like spongy dough. My mom got a better recipe using dough mixed with cheese made from maturated farmers' sheep's cheese that is found in the Balkans, at farmers' markets. There's a dry or a creamy version and looks like this:

https://www.etsy.com/listing/1258003877/mihalic-cheese-natur...

The dryer version is minced and kneaded like dough to obtain the cheese that you mix in the dough.

One would pre bake the dough and then put ground meat mixed with ground tomatoes or tomato slices or thick tomato stock, mushrooms and maybe some spinach for something green. Then you'd bake the whole thing.

Actually pizza was originally shepards' pie, but the Italians also put tomato sauce on it, their cheese was mozarella and spiced it with basil, of course. They took it with them to the US and the Americans loved it. So contemporary pizza is an Italian American food, because it got really popular in the US. Just like spaghetti alla carbonara, where the US soldiers stationed in Sicily during WW2 would eat their ham and eggs mixed with pasta for breakfast, then went along their business bombing Axis countries using the B17 Flying Fortress.

It's alluded to in the answers, but Khachapuri comes closest imho

There were some bistros-like places, where menu was simplified and there were no waiters. We call them Milk Bars, you know, pierogi and soup. It's actually sad there is a shortage of such cheap places nowadays.

Larger work places often had their own cafeterias with basic food for employees. Schools often as well. You didn't really go to a restaurant just to eat. There had to be a reason.

They handled shortages by connections, cheating and poor quality.

Can't really tell who used restaurants as I was too young, but recall official events like wedding parties were a thing. Party members, politicians, priests and crooks had to drink somewhere as well. I recall it was customary to do business using vodka as well, more than modern sales dinners - get shitfaces and yell at each other before shaking hands. It was a thing also after communism, but less so. If you had a deal to make, it was almost expected to discuss that with way too much vodka. Normalization of alcoholism is a stench that we still try to wash off.

I don't miss those times, I still can smell those cheap cigarettes that everyone smoked EVERYWHERE. No-one cared if children were there. Not having money was less of a problem, empty stores were. If you didn't knew a lot of people, you had nothing. You had disgusting green bathroom with tiles like a hospital, for 30 years. Yet you were happy, at least they delivered tiles that one time and your friend told you quickly.

The economy was like 20-40 ministries, formed like Korean chaebols -- with many in-house services to compensate for their poor public counterparts. Like kindergartens. Or own housing -- to get an apartment (for rent) from the municipal authorities, you'd be in a long queue with some people more equal than others, and corruption, and normally you'd get one by retirement. So enterprises built it for their workers, in some exchange with the construction enterprises (idk which ministry they'd belong, probably dispersed among many entities).

You probably can imagine a huge Google -- where departments can't trade on a free market with each other -- but with a lot looser control and more corruption, which created some black market.

For example, I suppose, restaurants must have belonged to the retail ministry. Under the minister himself, there was the republican department with its manager, the regional, and the municipal one, and only down there was a "Restaurant #5 <<Sunflower>>" (#5 in the retail department of city X), and its director. This made him like CEO, but in reality it was like small group manager in a big hierarchy.

Just as in any big capitalist corporation, such a manager is risk averse, because failures lead to being fired, but sudden big profits go in the corporation pockets, not manager's.

But if you add some corruption, you could be an entrepreneur in a way: make good services (expensive) => be popular among the elites => have some high-profile friends to protect in case of turf wars (e.g. city's Communist party 1st secretary (president) is your friend => city's retail department can't fire you) => exchange some services/goods/commodities beyond the counter (as it was said "from the back door of the shop"). (Black market prices were high, so you could easily sell something elsewhere and put the nominal amount of cash in the box.)

Regarding the shortages issue, they existed for the buyers at the front door of public retail. Retail & restaurants managers exchanged the stuff (they were supposed to sell to the public) between them to fill the gaps.

Here a humorous sketch from a 1980 comedy Miś by Stanisław Bareja criticizing living conditions under Iron Curtain.

Milk mar 'Apis' https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U-viM9WyGss

Milk bar https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bar_mleczny

>Polish cafeteria which during the Communist era provided government-subsidized traditional Polish cuisine at low cost. The name comes from cheese cutlets, which were often sold when meat was rare.

Recipes aren't movies, or books, nobody's was going to go to prison for sharing one, and they have no problem spreading virally. But when core pizza ingredients aren't available, you bake a pirog.