USSR, 1963. Moscow decided to strengthen its influence in Africa and began to befriend Morocco. King Hassan II had a problem: his citrus fruits were rotting on the plantations, and he was short on money.
The Kremlin proposed a barter. The USSR would send tractors, combine harvesters, nitrogen fertilizers, and glassware to Africa, while the holds of the ships returning to the USSR would be packed with those very Moroccan tangerines. These tangerines were far superior to the Georgian ones—they were bright orange, seedless, sweet, and incredibly easy to peel.
This massive import of fruit gave birth to the main hero of Soviet animation: Cheburashka. Eduard Uspensky came up with the character exactly when the flow of Moroccan cargo was at its peak. In the story, the big-eared creature is found in a crate of oranges, and this was not just the author’s fantasy. At the port of Odessa, dockers frequently found exotic small animals or lizards in crates from Africa that had fallen asleep among the fruit.
The harvest in Morocco took place at the end of November. By the time the ships reached Leningrad and Odessa, it was December, which is when the tangerines appeared on the shelves of Soviet grocery stores (gastronoms). They became the signature scent of New Year’s in the USSR.
