Not unnecessary, but an unattainable luxury. Industrially produced and available ingredients in Soviet union were a world away from mozzarella, good tomato sauc

Not unnecessary, but an unattainable luxury. Industrially produced and available ingredients in Soviet union were a world away from mozzarella, good tomato sauce and bay leaves you may want for the simplest pizza. If you wanted to get your hands on horrible Soviet salami you had to travel to Moscow, and pepperoni was a luxury few world even know about. Forget about olives, anchovies, even pineapples — it's just something that didn't exist for a regular person.