In 1917, the soviet star overpowered the ornate czarist double-headed eagle as russia's dominant brand identity. Today, however, ad-industry nostalgia delivers a muddled mix of history to every shopping bag. A swing through the confectionery aisles of Sedmoi Kontinent, the former KGB supermarket just off Moscow's Lubyanka Square, provokes more than just concerns about carb intake. What to make of a chocolate bar called Prezidentsky, whose label manages to cram into one neat row the Russian tricolor flag, the Krasny Oktyabr (Red October) candy-factory logo, and an elaborate, gold-embossed Czarist double-headed eagle? Or the packaging for a line of Lenten cookies put out for Russian Orthodox fasting days, adorned with a church in the center and the Bolshevik cookie-company logo slapped on the top corner—along with the name of its original, pre-Revolution French owner and its 1855 founding date?
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