Sweet wrappers reveal history

An unusual exhibition has opened in the Museum of Contemporary History of Russia in Moscow. Visitors can get acquainted with the country's past through sweets and chocolate wrapping paper.

At the beginning of the 20th century, confectioners invited famous artists to design sweet wrappers. So quite a lot of them are real art objects.

Composers also had their finger in it, writing, say, “The Chocolate Waltz” or “The Fruit Drops Waltz”, which were sold together with the sweets.

Different pictures with views of Moscow and portraits of famous writers also used to decorate chocolate boxes, to say nothing of pictures commemorating historical dates, the launch of the first satellite into space, for one.

No wonder these wrappings have become collectors’ items.