Confectionery & Co.

At the end of the 19th century Kharkiv became a centre of confectionery production. The city’s shops sold sweets from local factories and delicacies brought from elsewhere. The exhibition shows photographs, postcards and price lists connected with the history of Kharkiv’s confectionery industry in the 19th and early 20th centuries.

The display cases hold sweets packaging — boxes from the confectionery factories of I. Romanenkov, D. Zhukov, D. Kromskyi, Georges Borman and many imported makers — as well as original documents of workers of the Georges Borman factory in Kharkiv and moulds for making sweets.

In the early 20th century confectioners’ shops, much like today’s cafés, became a fashionable pastime for townspeople. That is why an interior of a vintage café has been created within the exhibition. The display cases show original coffee-making utensils, tea ware from the Kuznetsov factory, ceramic jars for storing tea leaves and more.

In the Soviet period some factories stopped working, while the largest enterprises were nationalised and continued production under new names (“Zhovten” and “The 2nd State Confectionery Factory named after Krupskaya”). The exhibition shows copies of sweet wrappers of the State Confectionery Trust, as well as tin boxes for drinks and sweets of the 1930s–1970s.

In independent Ukraine the confectionery industry is one of the largest. In 2004 the Kharkivianka Confectionery Factory (on the market since 1896) and the Kharkiv Biscuit Factory (since 1935) were united into the “Biscuit-Chocolate” corporation. In 2021 the corporation celebrates the 125th anniversary of the founding of the Georges Borman company’s factory in our city. Boxes from “Biscuit-Chocolate” products, with which it represents Ukraine at international exhibitions, are also shown at the museum exhibition “Confectionery & Co.”.