Mosselprom

The name of Mosselprom has changed over the years ^[2] :

• 1922 - Moscow Provincial Association of Enterprises for the Processing of Agricultural Products
• 1923 - Moscow Association of Agricultural Product Processing Enterprises
• 1925 - Moscow All-Union State Agricultural Product Processing Trust

The Moscow Provincial Association of Agricultural Food Processing Enterprises (Mosselprom) was established in 1921 in the system of the Moscow Council of the National Economy (MNH), which until the early 1920s was in charge of metropolitan food industry enterprises nationalized after the revolution . Since January 1, 1922, state confectioneries, tobacco, flour mills, bakeries, yeast, pasta, breweries, sausages, canneries and factories, as well as wineries and the production of fruit and artificial mineral waters, became part of Mosselprom ^{[3] [4]} .

Among the largest enterprises included in Mosselprom were the confectioneries “ Red October ” (b. “ Einem Partnership ” ), “ Them. P. A. Babaev "( former" Partnership of Apricots and Sons " )," Marat "( formerly" Partnership of Ivanov and Markov " ); tobacco factories "Dukat" ( formerly "Partnership Dukat" ), "Java" ( formerly "Partnership Gabay" ), "Red Star"; Breweries No. 1 ( formerly “ Three-Mountain Partnership ” ) and No. 2 ( formerly “ Khamovnichesky ” ), Mineral and Fruit Water Plant No. 1 ( formerly “Kalinkin Partnership” ), Sausage Factory No. 1 ( formerly “ A. V . Chichkina " ), mill and pasta factory No. 1 ( former" Ding Partnership " ) ^{[3] [4]} .

In the same 1922, the Petrograd branch (from 1924 the Leningrad branch) was opened ( Apraksin Dvor , Instrumental Line , No. 142-146) ^[2] , and later the branch in Nizhny Novgorod (Nizhnenaberezhnaya, 26) ^[5] .

In August 1923, Mosselprom participated in the first All-Russian Agricultural and Handicraft Exhibition in the USSR, held on the territory of the Neskuchny Garden . The eclectic-style pavilion, designed by architect K. A. Greinert ^[6] , was described in Mikhail Bulgakov 's essay The Golden City ^{[7] [K 1]} :

External Images
	Mosselprom Pavilion at the All-Russian Agricultural and Handicraft Exhibition . 1923 [8]

Here he is, Mosselprom. Some kind of mushroom. Under the heading is the inscription "Restaurant".
And from the entrance immediately encompasses the sweet smell of caramel . White caps, snow bathrobes. The caramel mass is crumpled, the machine cuts the caramel cones. On the plates are pots filled. Young lady-spectators are hanging on the fence - a nice pavilion! The 2nd state confectionery factory named after P. A. Babaev , the former famous “Apricot Sons”.
On the walls are diagrams of state yeast number 1 of the Mosselprom plant.
In banks and ampoules, separated yeast , wort, barley and oat malt , yeast culture.
Performance diagrams of the 1st state pasta factory of the same ubiquitous Mosselprom.
In January 1923, pasta - 7042 pounds , in May - 10 870 pounds ^[9] .

In 1923, Mosselprom was allocated an unfinished building on the corner of Kalashny , Nizhny and Maly Kislovsky lanes (a place in the area of ​​the former Kormovye Sloboda was not chosen by chance). By 1924, the "first Soviet skyscraper" was completed. The first floor of the building was reserved for flour warehouses, the administration of grocery stores was also located there. On the upper floors was the board ^[10] .

In the same year, not far from the building, in the premises of the former restaurant “ Prague ” (2/1 Arbat St. ), a dining room was opened for Mosselprom employees, which became part of the Moscow Union of Consumer Societies (MSPO). The institution also worked as a public dining room . Inviting visitors to this dining room, where “it’s fun, clean, bright and comfortable, / Lunch is tasty and beer is obscure,” Mayakovsky wrote:

External Images
	Dining room MSPO . 1920s [11]

Damn it with food
messing around at home
if cheaper
at Mosselprom ... ^[12]

In the mid-1920s, artists of the Blue Blouse worked in Mosselprom beer halls and canteens, performing with compositions and stage plays on topical political themes and satirical programs. According to O. M. Brik , who was attracted by the leadership of Mosselprom to “revive” the programs, “the first performances of the Blue Blouse in the pubs were perplexing, but also interesting,” quickly giving way to disappointment: “The pubs began to complain that the Blue Blouse was turning the beer hall to a campaign point and that visitors are bored. " Later, the program of performances was expanded by dances, pantomimes , ditties and couplets of propaganda content ^[13] .

To decorate the building and develop a corporate identity, Mosselprom turned to the LEF creative association, which brought together avant-garde poets and artists. Advertising texts were commissioned by Vladimir Mayakovsky , design by Alexander Rodchenko ^{[10] [4]} .

The phrase “Nowhere except in Mosselprom” , which became the advertising slogan of the trust, arose in one of the first texts written by Mayakovsky at the request of Mosselprom. (Initially, it sounded: “There is no place except in Mosselprom.”) ^[14]

The building was painted on a brick wall according to the project of artists Alexander Rodchenko and Varvara Stepanova . The painting represented the font and graphic composition in bright colors - on the end, from the side of the courtyard, where there was an entrance to the semi-basement-warehouse, there was a vertical inscription “ Mosselprom ” along the entire height of the house and plywood panels with images of the trust’s products, separated by horizontal inscriptions repeating three times repeating Mayakovsky's slogan. On the side facades were inscribed "Mosselprom" and " Ministry of Agriculture » ^{[10] [4]} .

The image of the building of the trust and the slogan of Mayakovsky became one of the main elements of Mosselprom advertising, repeated on all advertising products ^[4] .

Constructive artist Alexei Gan developed a folding machine with a tray for street trading ^[16] .

The uniform for Mosselprom sellers was designed by Alexander Rodchenko , an element of the corporate identity was the inscription “Mosselprom” on blouses and caps ^{[18] [19]} .

The enterprises that were part of Mosselprom produced a wide range of food products by industry, which was their specialization before the revolution. Trust positioned strict product quality control. The price list of Mosselprom confectionery for 1927 was accompanied by an article by organic chemist F.V. Tserevitinov , describing the work of scientific chemical laboratories created in factories that are engaged in the study of "all raw materials ... somehow: oils, sugar, molasses, flour, cocoa, paints , essences, etc. ”, as well as“ the scientific study of the processes of confectionery production in order to improve production methods and develop standards for finished products ” ^[20] .

Explaining to the consumer the “special danger” of artificial paints and essences, the professor emphasized that “only harmless natural paints are used in the factories of Mosselprom”: “All products are prepared on beet sugar and only a small amount of starch syrup is added to some products” ^[21] .

The article provided tables of the chemical compositions of the products, also talked about the materials recommended by the People's Health for packing confectionery products.

... The Scientific Medical Council acknowledged that only pure tin foil can be used for wrapping confectionery products, and that tin foil containing more than 1% lead , or a foil consisting of lead coated on both sides with tin (overlay foil), is unacceptable for this goals, since lead is extremely toxic from such foil and into chocolate. In view of this, the factories of Mosselprom use only pure tin foil (which is always checked by analysis in the laboratory) or aluminum foil, which is completely harmless ... ^[22]

"Mosselprom" also owned a number of auxiliary industries for wholesale and retail trade - a cardboard box factory, art workshop, printing house, etc. Retail trade was carried out in company stores, stalls , tents, from mobile carts and trays ^{[1] [23] [4 ]} . Wholesale orders were accepted on the board of the trust ^[5] .

In 1923, the share of products sold by Mosselprom to cooperatives increased from 11.5% to 21.5% . By 1925, the share of private traders in the Moscow Region market dropped to 69.5% from 81.5% in 1923-1924 ^[24] .

Wholesale and retail trade was conducted by Mosselprom inside the USSR and abroad ^[1] .

Mosselprom was liquidated in 1937 ^[1] .

The first half of the 1920s

Being in a state of competition with private trade during the NEP period, from the very beginning of its activity, Mosselprom attached great importance to advertising products and related services ^{[3] [27] [4]} .

One of the first ads in the animation genre was created in 1923 by order of the Trekhgorny Brewery . The author of the “stunt advertisement” idea was directed by Dziga Vertov . According to the plot of the cartoon, a boy running along the street scatters powder - everything he gets on increases "to extraordinary sizes": "Small dogs grow to the size of buffaloes , horses - to the size of mammoths , people become giants." Powder was taken from the boy, the dough was kneaded, and “bread the size of a house grew. “Magic powder” is the yeast of the Mosselprom Trekhgorny brewery ” ^[28] .

One of the creators of poetic advertising for Mosselprom was Nikolai Aseev . In 1924, Mosselprom published his pamphlet “What is candy made of”, which tells about a man who bought products from a private factory, resulting in a stomach ulcer ^[4] .

In the first years of its existence, Mosselprom collaborated with the LEF association, mainly by Vladimir Mayakovsky and Alexander Rodchenko. Mayakovsky carried out orders for Mosselprom from October 1923 to March 1925 ^[29] . He took this work seriously, in his autobiography “I myself” noted: “Despite the poetic hooting, I consider“ Nowhere except in Mosselprom “poetry of the highest qualification” ^[30] . In addition to the well-known Mosselprom slogan, he created many texts for posters , signs, announcements, leaflets, wrapping packages, a series of texts for caramel labels, etc. ^[29]

“Attention to the working masses” was offered: table oil (“three times cheaper than cow’s, more nutritious than other oils”); cheap bread ("in all the shops and kiosks of Mosselprom a stone's throw from any home"); “The most delicious pasta and noodles”; sweets (caramel "Red Moscow", "Our industry", "New weight", "New measures", "Red Army star", "Montpensier", etc.); chocolate; cookies that are “not stale” and “more nutritious, more profitable than bread” (“Red October”, “Zebra”, “Red Aviator”, “Predredovskoe”, “Roman Alphabet”, “Peasant”, “Tea”, “Vienna mixture” ), biscuits; Trehgorny and Khamovnichesky beer; spices, "what you need - from mustard to marinade"; hams and sausages, the “best choice” of which is “nowhere except ...”; mocha"; fruit water, which is “good for hot and cold weather” and dry kvass, which “must be in every home”; “Completely harmless” cigarettes (“Ira”, “Mosselprom”, “Red Star”, “Joke”, “Chervonets”, “Prima”, “Leda”, “Arabi”, “Ambassadorial”, “Cinema”, “Trust” , “Thais”, “Basma”, “Selam”, “Dukat”, “Lux”, “Record”, “Herzegovina Flora”, “Maksul”, “Yantar”, “Trio”), “Jeviz” pipe tobacco ^{[31 ] [32]} . Often, along with the text, Mayakovsky created outline sketches of posters ^[33] .

Some texts were not accepted by Mosselprom. “Because of the <...> non-pedagogical nature”, the option of advertising the “Ambassadorial” cigarettes was rejected: “Even the children / having parted with the nipple / smoke /“ Ambassadorial “”. Posters promoting home delivery of lunches were not issued, as the trust decided to refuse this service ^[34] .

Almost all of the Mosselprom promotional products of this period were made by Mayakovsky and Rodchenko ^{[33] [K 3]} . A single corporate-style graphic system was developed - for the main building, retail outlets, advertising posters and packaging. Defining Rodchenko’s advertising style as “business,“ signaling “”, art critic A. N. Lavrentiev singles out “through techniques” in the Mosselprom series ^[35] :

... Exclamation marks and arrows as signs: “Attention!”, A chopped block font woven into the overall geometric structure of the composition, a conditional, schematic image of the product, elementary color combinations: black, red, green, yellow and blue ^[35] .

A characteristic feature of the characters of constructivist advertising of the 1920s L. Piskunova notes aggressiveness and assertiveness - as a rule, they "act as heralds - shout from the posters that ... Mosselprom candies are sold":

All taken together elements of constructivist advertising merged into a single visual message of "increased power" ^[4] .

An advertisement calling for the purchase of Mosselprom goods was placed in newspapers and magazines, on street banners, signboards for shops and kiosks, posters on billboards and display cases, and was printed on packages, labels, inserts, etc. ^{[35] [4]}

In April-October 1925, the Mosselprom poster created by Rodchenko and Mayakovsky “Cigarettes Ira”, “Three-Mountain Beer”, “Red October Cookies”, cigarettes “Chervonets”, candy wrappers “Our Industry”, “Red Moscow” and “New Weight” »Exhibited at the World Exhibition of Decorative and Industrial Arts in Paris. For these and other works Mayakovsky and Rodchenko were awarded silver medals of the exhibition ^[36] .

Second half of the 1920s - 1930s

In the second half of the 1920s, Mosselprom stopped contacting Mayakovsky and Rodchenko with orders. Under the trust, an own advertising workshop was created, led by the painter Konstantin Yuon . The artist was guided by the continuity of the traditions of pre-revolutionary Russian advertising, representing the product in a "picturesque" manner, close-up, with an increase in the proportion ^[4] .

The artists Dmitry Tarkhov, Mikhail Bulanov, Boris Takke , Alexander Zelensky were involved in the work. The style of Mosselprom advertising has changed. Ethnographic and ornamental motifs, plot images appeared, the social types of consumers were indicated in the advertisement (red scarf on the character of the poster B. Takke “Demand confectionery of state-owned factories Mosselprom”, branded clothing of the character of the poster M. Bulanov “Mosselprom. Tobacco products”). The poster also presented the range of products of the trust ^[4] .

At the end of 1926, Mosselprom employed the pre-revolutionary method of “surprise” advertising - “company” calendars for 1927 were put in cigarette boxes. The idea has spread - a similar advertising campaign launched the Leningrad "Tabakotrest" ^[4] .

Each artist introduced his artistic features into Mosselprom’s advertisement: M. Bulanov’s work was distinguished by humor (“Smoke cigarettes“ A pack ”,“ “Everyone smokes a Box” ”); D. Tarkhova - a detailed drawing of architecture and a diverse set of fonts ("Mosselprom", "Nowhere except in Mosselprom"); B. Takke - picturesqueness of the image (“Chocolate with Mosselprom milk”); A. Zelensky - the grotesque and harmonious colors (a series with a toddler in a checkered cap - “Baker's Yeast”, “Kryushon”, “Morse”) ^{[37] [4]} .

Mayakovsky's slogan and the image of the building of the trust were preserved on the advertising products of Mosselprom in the 1930s ^[4] .

Being the largest state organization of wholesale and retail trade in the 1920-1930s, Mosselprom was the main customer of advertising in Moscow. The selection by the trust of order executors became not only the history of the brand, but determined the direction of the development of Soviet advertising and the appearance of Moscow in the 1920s and 1930s ^{[37] [38] [39]} .

Mosselprom's advertisement was an attribute of Moscow streets, as a sign of the times it is mentioned in many fiction and journalistic works and in memoirs dedicated to the era of the 1920-1930s ^{[35] [40] [41]} . The main character of the film “A cigarette box from Mosselprom ” ^[38] works as a peddler of Mosselprom ; Mosselprom’s dining room (“the best place in Moscow”, according to Ostap Bender ) “after some persuasion” leads Kisa Vorobyaninov to Lisa in the novel “ Twelve Chairs ” by I. Ilf and E. Petrov ) ^{[12] [42] [43]} ; in Mosselprom's “crappy little shop” ^{[K 4],} Professor Preobrazhensky in M. Bulgakov ’s novel “A Dog’s Heart ” buys “ Special Krakow ” sausage for Sharik , commenting on the purchase: “You will never get such poison like in Mosselprom” ^{[44] [45 ] [45 ] ]} .

The atmosphere of the Mosselprom dining room of the mid-1920s was reflected in the play “About Love” by V. Ya. Tipot , staged at the Satire Theater by D. G. Gutman in April 1926: ““ Afternoon lunch with ideology, evening dinner with a drink ”. During the day, the dining room worked as a “demonstration”, a three-course dinner cost 22 kopecks, but “there is no satiety — one agitation” ” ^[46] .

Mayakovsky's advertising slogan, written for Mosselprom, came into use, became a catch phrase ^[47] . The building in Kalashny Lane , where the trust was located, became known as the House of Mosselprom and became a landmark of Moscow ^[4] .

• Aseev N. N. What candy is made of / Nikolai Aseev; Mosselprom. - M .: Mosselprom, 1924 .-- 16 p. - 10,000 copies.
• Tarakhovskaya E. Ya. About how chocolate came to Mosselprom: Poems for children / rice. Y. Ganfa . - [Ryazan]: Friends of Children, 1925. - 16 p. - 10,000 copies.
• "Mosselprom" M.S.N.KH .: Price list for products of state confectionery factories . - M .: Mosselprom, 1927. - 80 p. - 2000 copies.
• Mayakovsky V.V. Mosselprom: [Advertising ] // Poln. Sobr. Op. : 12 tons / V.V. Mayakovsky; ed. and note. V.A. Katanyan . - M .: State. publishing house "Art. lit. ”, 1940. - V. 5: Agitstichi; Propaganda poems; Poems for children, 1920-1930. - S. 343-379.

• Katanyan V.A. Notes // Mayakovsky V.V. Sobr. cit .: in 12 volumes / ed. and note. V. Katanyan. - M .: State. publishing house "Art. lit. ”, 1940. - V. 5: Agitstichi; Propaganda poems; Poems for children, 1920-1930. - S. 716-724.
• Mosselprom // Moscow : Encyclopedia / Ch. ed. A. L. Narochnitsky . - M .: Sov. encyclical. , 1980 .-- S. 431. - 688 p. - 200,000 copies.
• Uvarova E. D. Variety Theater: Miniatures, Ferris, Music Halls (1917-1945) / Elizabeth Uvarova. - M .: Art, 1983 .-- 320 p.
• Snopkov A., Shklyaruk A. Nowhere except in Mosselprom (on the work of artists of designers of packaging, label and advertising products in the 20-30s of the XX century) // Container and Packaging: Journal. - M. , 2001. - No. 6 .
• Velichko S. Monument to Mosselprom // Science and Life: Journal. - M. , 2002. - No. 8 .
• Savelyeva O. O. Soviet advertising of the 20s as a means of agitation and propaganda // Man: scientific-pop. journal - M. , 2006. - No. 2-3 .
• Lavrentiev A.N. Rodchenko and Stepanova // Our Heritage : Zh. - M. , 2015. - No. 115 .
• Devletov O. U. History of domestic advertising for 150 years (1840-1990) . - M .: Direct Media, 2016 .-- 348 p. - ISBN 978-5-4475-6473-5 .

• Propaganda with taste (neopr.) . Little stories. Date of treatment February 12, 2017.