Its mass production started in St. Petersburg 

That’s right – our Venice of the North has been the hometown of mass-produced ice cream in Russia since 1845. That’s when Ivan Izler, a merchant of Swiss heritage, patented an ice cream maker and started to sell the dessert for a wider public. Before that, it used to be the privilege of the highest classes only.

After a while, Ivan Izler opened the first local ice cream shop on Nevsky Prospect. The range of ice cream varieties it offered was rather wide. It included vanilla, coffee, tea, and pineapple flavors, as well as toppings like various nuts and berries.

It used to be a winter treat

This fact might seem surprising at first. But once you think about it, it makes perfect sense. Of course, way in the past, there were no refrigerators. To keep things cool during the warm season, people used cellars, but even they were hardly cool enough to freeze something in summer.

So, the predecessor of ice cream was actually a wintertime dessert. It was made with milk or tvorog and sour cream, put outside in the frost, and combined with honey or jam for sweetness. This frozen mix used to be a popular Maslenitsa treat, as it worked great as a pancake stuffing. 

Soviet ice cream was the best (for a reason)

Ask anyone who’s old enough to remember the taste of ice cream made in the USSR, and you’ll get a lecture on how it was the best. But don’t assume it’s just nostalgia speaking! There are objective reasons why this might totally be true.

In Soviet times, there was a very strict nation-wide standard for how ice cream should be made. It was developed with great precision and required only whole, fresh, natural products for ingredients. So yes, the iconic status of Soviet ice cream is actually well-deserved!

As for the options available today, we recommend trying ice cream and gelato at locations like:

  • Di Neve: Sytninskaya St. 18

  • La Celleta: Fontanka Emb. 30

  • Caffe Italia: Bakunina Av. 5

But don’t let our suggestions stop you from exploring other ice cream spots and trying store-bought desserts. You still have more than two months of summer left to find your own favorites!