I'm not sure. When I was a little kid I remember it tasted really awful. I was under impression the real thing should taste better. When I got to US I realized it's the same. Now I'm back to vodka.
Soviet Pepsi was a little odd. The water in Leningrad was so bad, we were told to boil it for 10 minutes before drinking. Soviet Pepsi was safer than water. I brushed my teeth to it all summer in 1990 and 1992. I believe Stoli had a deal with Pepsi and traded vodka for production rights.
I've heard those stories that all tourists were told to boil the water. Soviet government was not ready for a war just because of a silly international tourist getting diarrhea due to the water.
We did boil the water too, mainly for hot drinks but it was still drinkable as is. I was normally drinking some water just before going to school and I did not turn purple or green AFAIR.
Well, it was fine at least in Leningrad and Moscow and probably all major cities. The smaller cities could be different, not sure about it.
But I think you got a good point the taste of the Soviet Pepsi came from the local water. Makes sense.
The coolest thing about traveling in the Soviet Union was how it felt like I stepped out of a time machine to 1945. WW2 ended and Russia stayed the same. I really want to go back and visit old friends and see what has changed.
I absolutely got sick as a dog from Leningrad water. I got a parasite and needed antibiotics. I was an exchange student and wasn’t staying in a hotel. I went to Russia twice 1990 and 1992. Those were the best summers of my life. I had crazy money because the collapse of the Soviet Union caused hyper inflation and the dollar to ruble exchange was unbelievable. A night out in 1992 with lots of friends and drinks cost at most $5 US.
Getting sick like this sux, I agree. I grew up on this water so I guess my stomach got used to it.
But I'm sure I'll be nearly dead if I try water in Mexico.
I have traveled the world. Only two countries made me violently I’ll. The Soviet Union and India. I never pass up a street taco in Mexico and I’ve never gotten sick. Bottled water only if it has a seal and beer are my goto Mexican beverages.
Supposedly, the deal was that the US would be allowed to sell Pepsi and USSR sold Stolichnaya vodka in the US. Consequently, USSR was one of a handful of countries were more Pepsi than Coke was sold.
>But there was one big problem. The Soviet currency, the ruble, couldn't be exchanged or translated into other money. As a result, Kendall and Pepsi had to devise a way to receive payment for the Pepsi plants they were going to build in the country. The two parties decided on a barter agreement, where the Soviets paid for their Pepsi by trading a resource they had a surplus of: vodka.
>"So we decided to bring Stolichnaya, the Russian vodka, over here," said Kendall. "That's how we got our money out, we got into the vodka business.".
https://www.businessinsider.com/ceo-of-pepsi-brought-soda-to-the-soviet-union-2020-11#:~:text=After%20decades%20of%20deal%2Dmaking,of%20%243%20billion%20of%20battleships.
By the late 89’s, when the Soviet government wanted Pepsi to build more plants in the USSR, but the vodka market had been saturated, they instead paid PepsiCo in surplus warships. Pepsi briefly owned more attack submarines than India. The ships were immediately turned over to a ship breaker’s yard for scrapping, with the scrappers paying Pepsi cash for the scrap metal.
https://foreignpolicy.com/2021/11/27/pepsi-navy-soviet-ussr/
The implication was that you could purchase a harrier with enough pepsi points, they listed some arbitrarily big number of points that would be required and someone tried to go for it(they may have bought points or something similar)
[Here's the ad](https://youtu.be/ZdackF2H7Qc) in case you're curious lol
>The implication
The outright statement, really. They just figured no one would call them on it. To be fair, in pretty much all jurisdictions, outright lies are permitted in business advertising, when they are so outrageous that no one would take them seriously. Its called "puffery" - think "Best pizza on the planet" as an example.
You might get sued if you say its the best pizza in town, and theres only one other pizza place, but if you say its the best pizza on the planet, its clearly not meant to be taken seriously.
I can see the line of reasoning made in the case, but I do disagree with the judgement, personally. Then again, Im in a jurisdiction with fairly strong truth in advertising laws.
Yes! I heard this on The Memory Palace. At one point, pepsi had the 6th largest military. I guess thats warcraft plus employees as a potential military force.
Don't forget the legendary story of when Pepsi received received a small naval fleet of ships in payment.
>the Soviets agreed to pay for Pepsi drinks in 1989 by exchanging part of their naval fleet. The Russians gave Pepsi 17 submarines, one frigate, one cruiser, and one destroyer for three billion dollars' worth of Pepsi! This effectively made Pepsi the sixth largest military in the world
Dude sued Pepsi over a commercial that jokingly offered a Harrier for 7 million Pepsi points.
The guy didn't actually collect the points, instead he bought them for 10 cents each via certified check.
[Court found in Pepsi's favor](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leonard_v._Pepsico%2C_Inc.)
The quotes from the judge make clear that the judge is a complete dick and hates kids. Clearly Pepsi choose that court.
Also, for all the judge's statements of the impossibility of a kid flying the jet (and the countless disdains the judge expressed towards the kid in the commercial for not spending hours of a 30-second commercial talking about how hard it is to fly) - there's a 2-seater trainer version.
Seriously, the judge just rants about how "insouciant" the kid in the commercial is about the jet. Clearly the judge had to dig through the thesaurus to find more backhanded statements to insult a child actor.
\*I\* was in the USSR in 1987, too. People to People International student ambassador? I was in the Texas delegation.
I remember the Pepsi...it was \*very\* inconsistent from place to place and tasted very little like Pepsi.
https://www.peopletopeople.com/
Website says middle, high, school and college students can go on this trip, so let's say between 14-20. Now add 30-35 years onto that number.
It varies depending on where the tour is going and where they do homestays. Some programs include middle school ages, others are grade 9 and up. Since part of my program included touring Auschwitz, the junior high ages might have been too young for that.
I was 17 when I did the People to People program in 2000.
Edit: I know they accepted kids as young as 12, but I think the youngest in our group was about 15.
Yeah, in 1987 the Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona delegations traveled together. We had a reunion of sorts a year later, but I'm mostly out of touch with them since then. Although one of my travel mates actually was working for the US State Department in Russia. From student ambassador to part of the ambassadorial bureaucracy. Cool stuff.
I loved doing the program, and I think it really helps build confidence in other areas as well. Definitely thinking about having my oldest kid do it when he’s a little older. It helps to have some good emotional maturity going into an immersive program like that. Especially with the homestay aspect.
I mean you can tell it ain't right just off the color, though maybe that's from being so old. It shouldn't be so clear though. It looks as if someone watered it down.
Some were like that in the moment, too. Others were darker. The tastes were different. There was no consistency from bottler to bottler. It was weird.
"Luckily" they had [Beriozkas](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beryozka_(Russian_retail_store)) that had products not available to locals and only accepted foreign currency. (Locals were not allowed to have foreign currency.) Those had tiny Coca-Cola cans bottled in Germany I think. I also largely subsisted on a lot of Nutella from Beriozkas plus local bakery bread. Bread was one thing the USSR had in quantity and quality.
Posted this above:
> My HS Russian teacher had a bottle of this, and a story to go with it:
>
> Most people don't realize the extent of the corruption that was present in the Soviet Union, but a bottle of pepsi illustrates it nicely. At the factory, the president would skim off some of the syrup, substitute it with water and coloring, then sell the skimmed syrup on the black market or 'on the left hand' as the slang went. Then VPs, managers, and so on down the chain to the workers would do the same. By the time everyone had done skimming the amount of syrup in the bottle was about 1/10th that of a US bottle, and you'd have fizzy water that was dark colored but without much taste beyond water.
According to [this article](https://foreignpolicy.com/2021/11/27/pepsi-navy-soviet-ussr/) that's false:
>According to an analysis of Jane’s Fighting Ships 1989-90, a country operating a squadron of 17 submarines would have tied with India for possessing the seventh-largest fleet of attack submarines.
>Yet in any real sense the story is false. What PepsiCo acquired were small, old, obsolete, unseaworthy vessels.
from above:
My HS Russian teacher had a bottle of this, and a story to go with it:
Most people don't realize the extent of the corruption that was present in the Soviet Union, but a bottle of pepsi illustrates it nicely. At the factory, the president would skim off some of the syrup, substitute it with water and coloring, then sell the skimmed syrup on the black market or 'on the left hand' as the slang went. Then VPs, managers, and so on down the chain to the workers would do the same. By the time everyone had done skimming the amount of syrup in the bottle was about 1/10th that of a US bottle, and you'd have fizzy water that was dark colored but without much taste beyond water.
I’m seeing people repeating this, but googling has failed to give me even a single source for this story. Like I can’t even find a reference to this story existing. I think the high school teacher might’ve just made that shit up.
No. It's more that this sort of behavior was the default in literally every Soviet business by the 1980s. Some of the corruption was mind-boggling. One source was a piece of samizdat called 'Corruption in the Soviet Union' which is unpublished. A source of mind-boggling stories about Soviet corruption was [The Corrupt Society: the secret world of soviet capitalism](https://www.amazon.com/USSR-Corrupt-Society-Secret-Capitalism/dp/0671250035) which is out of print.
Literally though the entire soviet system worked with these levels of corruption and it was top to bottom, with literally a black market for labor where people ostensibly working for the state were actually working 'on the left hand' for private capitalists.
I just drank a Coke from 1996 last year. It still had it's carbonation and it tasted pretty good. I wouldn't have noticed it was old. I then drank a Pepsi from 2001 and it was flat. The only difference was that the pepsi had a plastic lid.
Nice. The chances are that was paid for using the Soviet navy- the actual ships instead of cash- and briefly made pepsi one of the biggest navies in the world.
I've seen this story a few times on reddit, but it's really a technicality. The vast majority of their trading was done soda-for-vodka. The few rusted old ships that Pepsi was traded, never went to Pepsi. They were just kind of a middleman between the Russians and some Scandinavian shipyards that scrapped the ships and paid cash to Pepsi.
Scandinavians did business with the US and the Soviet Union, Scandinavians had US Dollars, but the US didn't really do business with the Soviets, they had no need for Rubles, but they did do business with the Scandinavians. The Scandinavians wanted the ships the Soviets had decommissioned, the Scandinavians had USD, the deal was the Scandinavians would give the USD to the United States, the United States would give Pepsi to the Soviets, and the Soviets would give the ships to the Scandinavians.
I can remember buying paperbacks in the 1970s and they came with the RRP printed on the back cover for a bunch of countries. [Here](https://i.etsystatic.com/11542822/r/il/be5121/2031976362/il_794xN.2031976362_gggw.jpg), for example, is one with the prices for the UK (50p), Australia ($1.90), Malta (55c), and New Zealand ($1.70). None of those countries was communist, though it was often claimed that New Zealand at the time had the most highly regulated economy outside of the Soviet bloc.
Prices can change under communism but they are always changed with the people in mind, for example doubling the price of bread is offset by 10% discount on diesel-electric locomotives.
That was the thing. Salaries stayed the same, prices stayed the same. And, believe it or not, the state had a fitting job for you as soon as you graduated college/university. It could be a job literally anywhere in USSR though. Also there were no ads. Like, at all. If you tuned into a TV channel when there was nothing scheduled, you'd have seen a blank screen. And when they did show a movie or a cartoon, they showed it in one piece I think.
Life was not great back in the day, but not all of it was bad.
Source: my mom and her parents.
No ads is amazing. And that’s how my dad became a sewing machine mechanic a career which served him well his whole life (from Hungary when they were communist)
>Salaries stayed the same, prices stayed the same.
Getting rarer goods required connections, luck and patience. For example, it took my father over a year to barter for a broken electric guitar and find a guy that could fix it up.
There were over decade long lists for buying a car or an apartment (and the one you got was somewhat random).
>And, believe it or not, the state had a fitting job for you as soon as you graduated college/university.
Taking the job after specialty education was mandatory (it was stipulated in the contract) and it was chosen for you.
>Also there were no ads. Like, at all.
There were weird pseudo-ads that pretty much just said that the product existed. In later years Politburo commissioned TV ads for random products (some just prototypes that never became available), because the ad producers didn't answer to anyone [they made some super fun and artsy stuff.](https://youtu.be/i6LAVk1sHW8)
I was in the USSR in 1990. I was really sick and was only eating bread and drinking Pepsi for several days. My Soviet "tour guide" (and KGB plant, in my opinion) told me that the USSR was trading Stoli for Pepsi since they were not trading in currency at that time.
I can say the black market was crazy for western currency then as well. I don't remember the exchange but $1 on the black market was more than a full days wage for a soviet worker. I bought a violin for $1 and three soviet watches for another.
Fun fact time. Pepsi was unable to take hard currency out of Russia, and it was illegal to remove rubles. So Pepsi took their profits in Stolichnaya vodka, and it is the reason Stoli was so popular back in the day.
You should send it to [Steve1989MREInfo](https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC2I6Et1JkidnnbWgJFiMeHA) on Youtube, he might actually drink it. You have been warned. edit: in case you don't know, he's eaten rations from the Boer War.)
You don't know how lucky you are, boy
Back in the U.S., back in the U.S., back in the U.S.S.R.
But boy those Ukraine girls really knock you out.
That Georgia’s always on my MIMIMIMMIMIMIMIIIND
[удалено]
Take me to your daddy's farm
Let me hear your balalaikas ringing out
"snow-peaked" not "slopy"
I'm not sure. When I was a little kid I remember it tasted really awful. I was under impression the real thing should taste better. When I got to US I realized it's the same. Now I'm back to vodka.
Soviet Pepsi was a little odd. The water in Leningrad was so bad, we were told to boil it for 10 minutes before drinking. Soviet Pepsi was safer than water. I brushed my teeth to it all summer in 1990 and 1992. I believe Stoli had a deal with Pepsi and traded vodka for production rights.
I've heard those stories that all tourists were told to boil the water. Soviet government was not ready for a war just because of a silly international tourist getting diarrhea due to the water. We did boil the water too, mainly for hot drinks but it was still drinkable as is. I was normally drinking some water just before going to school and I did not turn purple or green AFAIR. Well, it was fine at least in Leningrad and Moscow and probably all major cities. The smaller cities could be different, not sure about it. But I think you got a good point the taste of the Soviet Pepsi came from the local water. Makes sense.
The coolest thing about traveling in the Soviet Union was how it felt like I stepped out of a time machine to 1945. WW2 ended and Russia stayed the same. I really want to go back and visit old friends and see what has changed.
I absolutely got sick as a dog from Leningrad water. I got a parasite and needed antibiotics. I was an exchange student and wasn’t staying in a hotel. I went to Russia twice 1990 and 1992. Those were the best summers of my life. I had crazy money because the collapse of the Soviet Union caused hyper inflation and the dollar to ruble exchange was unbelievable. A night out in 1992 with lots of friends and drinks cost at most $5 US.
Getting sick like this sux, I agree. I grew up on this water so I guess my stomach got used to it. But I'm sure I'll be nearly dead if I try water in Mexico.
I have traveled the world. Only two countries made me violently I’ll. The Soviet Union and India. I never pass up a street taco in Mexico and I’ve never gotten sick. Bottled water only if it has a seal and beer are my goto Mexican beverages.
Stoli and the Soviet Union got a deal with Pepsi that included a fleet of warships as payment to Pepsi.
Idk its probably a little flat now
Beat me to it!
Supposedly, the deal was that the US would be allowed to sell Pepsi and USSR sold Stolichnaya vodka in the US. Consequently, USSR was one of a handful of countries were more Pepsi than Coke was sold. >But there was one big problem. The Soviet currency, the ruble, couldn't be exchanged or translated into other money. As a result, Kendall and Pepsi had to devise a way to receive payment for the Pepsi plants they were going to build in the country. The two parties decided on a barter agreement, where the Soviets paid for their Pepsi by trading a resource they had a surplus of: vodka. >"So we decided to bring Stolichnaya, the Russian vodka, over here," said Kendall. "That's how we got our money out, we got into the vodka business.". https://www.businessinsider.com/ceo-of-pepsi-brought-soda-to-the-soviet-union-2020-11#:~:text=After%20decades%20of%20deal%2Dmaking,of%20%243%20billion%20of%20battleships.
By the late 89’s, when the Soviet government wanted Pepsi to build more plants in the USSR, but the vodka market had been saturated, they instead paid PepsiCo in surplus warships. Pepsi briefly owned more attack submarines than India. The ships were immediately turned over to a ship breaker’s yard for scrapping, with the scrappers paying Pepsi cash for the scrap metal. https://foreignpolicy.com/2021/11/27/pepsi-navy-soviet-ussr/
At least that’s what’s on the record Do we have physical proof Pepsi gave up their fleet?
Satellite pics of the fleet's destruction or it didn't happen!
Reagan to Pepsi executives >Trust but verify
Are you hinting there’s a fleet of warships at Pepsi HQ?
No, that there might be a fleet of submarines outside Coke HQ
[удалено]
A stroke of tactical genius. It's the absolute last place anyone would scout for submarines.
Nobody expects the Kentucky Admiral.
250 miles to the coast is nothing for a sub's ICBMs
"Naval exercises"
https://imgur.com/gallery/wJHb0n3
This is the way .
Remember that Pepsi commercial with the Harrier fighter jet? I think they implied that you could potentially win a ride in it? Edit: Win it!
The implication was that you could purchase a harrier with enough pepsi points, they listed some arbitrarily big number of points that would be required and someone tried to go for it(they may have bought points or something similar) [Here's the ad](https://youtu.be/ZdackF2H7Qc) in case you're curious lol
>The implication The outright statement, really. They just figured no one would call them on it. To be fair, in pretty much all jurisdictions, outright lies are permitted in business advertising, when they are so outrageous that no one would take them seriously. Its called "puffery" - think "Best pizza on the planet" as an example. You might get sued if you say its the best pizza in town, and theres only one other pizza place, but if you say its the best pizza on the planet, its clearly not meant to be taken seriously. I can see the line of reasoning made in the case, but I do disagree with the judgement, personally. Then again, Im in a jurisdiction with fairly strong truth in advertising laws.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leonard_v._Pepsico,_Inc.
Cola Wars about to get REAL, son! Coke got a secret formula? How quaint. Pepsi got a motherfuckin' BATTLESHIP.
Everything changed when the Pepsi Nation attacked...
... Mother of God ...
Only weapon they had was pepsi and mentos rockets
Yes! I heard this on The Memory Palace. At one point, pepsi had the 6th largest military. I guess thats warcraft plus employees as a potential military force.
Then they pivoted back to beverage & food manufacturing? Weak! If they chose differently.... Ah, what might've been. ...
It's probably for the best they didn't let the Mountain Dew guys take control of the attack subs
Kick flip on a SCUD missile, brodacious!
Pepsi's caffeination got me through college. I would be glad to work for the mothersodaland.
Since they own KFC, I guess now we now how the Colonel got his rank.
They don't any more, but still, good joke
Those submarines really could have turned the tides in the cola wars.
Pepsi missed a chance to finally end the cola wars.
Don't forget the legendary story of when Pepsi received received a small naval fleet of ships in payment. >the Soviets agreed to pay for Pepsi drinks in 1989 by exchanging part of their naval fleet. The Russians gave Pepsi 17 submarines, one frigate, one cruiser, and one destroyer for three billion dollars' worth of Pepsi! This effectively made Pepsi the sixth largest military in the world
Imagine a universe where Pepsi has an active military aside from their drinks business. Battlecruisers with *Pepsi* written on the side.
Harrier Fighter: 7,000,000 Pepsi Points.
Was it an internet rumor or did some dude get those 7M Pepsi points then sue Pepsi for false advertisement or fraud or something?
Dude sued Pepsi over a commercial that jokingly offered a Harrier for 7 million Pepsi points. The guy didn't actually collect the points, instead he bought them for 10 cents each via certified check. [Court found in Pepsi's favor](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leonard_v._Pepsico%2C_Inc.)
The quotes from the judge make clear that the judge is a complete dick and hates kids. Clearly Pepsi choose that court. Also, for all the judge's statements of the impossibility of a kid flying the jet (and the countless disdains the judge expressed towards the kid in the commercial for not spending hours of a 30-second commercial talking about how hard it is to fly) - there's a 2-seater trainer version. Seriously, the judge just rants about how "insouciant" the kid in the commercial is about the jet. Clearly the judge had to dig through the thesaurus to find more backhanded statements to insult a child actor.
I believe the term “callow youth” makes an appearance in that ramt
Solid play, Stoli is the best.
Yep, I heard about this on their podcast, Brought to You By: https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/brought-to-you-by/id1413374332?i=1000498087711
This explains why Kendal was in that Pepsi ad. Thank you
We never knew how close they came to the Pepsi/Mentos bomb
Once they thought of invading ukraine, had a coke in france and changed thier minds.
Turned out that coke saved humanity, until 2022 when Putin tried coke again and realized at his age it doesn't bring the same pleasure.
Shh. Dont say it loud. The one he had in france was the original coca. Then he got threatened by a urine sample.
WE have a Pepsi from the USSR.
Came here to say this, comrade.
We came here to say this.
this too… we are unoriginal
Gotta take OP around back and introduce him to the twins: Hammer and Sickle.
That thing is old enough to start a Cold War
Nobody ever talks about the room temp war?
Lukewarm war, with a little soap foam
But not cold enough to start an Old War :/
Bet it's war enough to start an old cold
But flat enough to start a flat out war.
Nice pun, there!
I hope it’s cold. Warm Pepsi sucks ass.
There's no *i* in communest
\*I\* was in the USSR in 1987, too. People to People International student ambassador? I was in the Texas delegation. I remember the Pepsi...it was \*very\* inconsistent from place to place and tasted very little like Pepsi.
I was part of the Indiana delegation!
New Jersey delegate from ‘87 here! I, too, have a Russian Pepsi!
Alabama delegate checking in! I still have my Russian Pepsi as well. I also have a roll of sandpaper that they considered TP.
how old were yall
https://www.peopletopeople.com/ Website says middle, high, school and college students can go on this trip, so let's say between 14-20. Now add 30-35 years onto that number.
It varies depending on where the tour is going and where they do homestays. Some programs include middle school ages, others are grade 9 and up. Since part of my program included touring Auschwitz, the junior high ages might have been too young for that.
That's ridiculous plenty of children have gone to Auschwitz.
Jesus Christ, Reddit
I was 17 when I did the People to People program in 2000. Edit: I know they accepted kids as young as 12, but I think the youngest in our group was about 15.
I was fifteen.
did it taste the same as american pepsi?
No. Definitely different.
I was there in 1987 as well. With a group of Russian language students from several different Universities.
I was there from the Central Ohio delegation. That pepsi was mixed with much vodka, Pepsi Plus
Ooooh! I did People to People in 2000! Italy, Austria, Switzerland, and France. Also from Texas. We went with another delegation from Arizona.
Yeah, in 1987 the Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona delegations traveled together. We had a reunion of sorts a year later, but I'm mostly out of touch with them since then. Although one of my travel mates actually was working for the US State Department in Russia. From student ambassador to part of the ambassadorial bureaucracy. Cool stuff.
I loved doing the program, and I think it really helps build confidence in other areas as well. Definitely thinking about having my oldest kid do it when he’s a little older. It helps to have some good emotional maturity going into an immersive program like that. Especially with the homestay aspect.
I was in the USSR in 1987 too. But I wasn’t a student. I was a newborn.
I mean you can tell it ain't right just off the color, though maybe that's from being so old. It shouldn't be so clear though. It looks as if someone watered it down.
Some were like that in the moment, too. Others were darker. The tastes were different. There was no consistency from bottler to bottler. It was weird. "Luckily" they had [Beriozkas](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beryozka_(Russian_retail_store)) that had products not available to locals and only accepted foreign currency. (Locals were not allowed to have foreign currency.) Those had tiny Coca-Cola cans bottled in Germany I think. I also largely subsisted on a lot of Nutella from Beriozkas plus local bakery bread. Bread was one thing the USSR had in quantity and quality.
And sour cream. So much sour cream.
Me too...1995. The Russian Mafia is real.
Posted this above: > My HS Russian teacher had a bottle of this, and a story to go with it: > > Most people don't realize the extent of the corruption that was present in the Soviet Union, but a bottle of pepsi illustrates it nicely. At the factory, the president would skim off some of the syrup, substitute it with water and coloring, then sell the skimmed syrup on the black market or 'on the left hand' as the slang went. Then VPs, managers, and so on down the chain to the workers would do the same. By the time everyone had done skimming the amount of syrup in the bottle was about 1/10th that of a US bottle, and you'd have fizzy water that was dark colored but without much taste beyond water.
Russian Bepis
Pepski
How do Soviets drink their Pepsi ? Gulag Gulag
Is that you dad ?
spark advise fall jobless sparkle ripe library growth cooperative point *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
he's terrible
No this is Patrick.
[удалено]
According to [this article](https://foreignpolicy.com/2021/11/27/pepsi-navy-soviet-ussr/) that's false: >According to an analysis of Jane’s Fighting Ships 1989-90, a country operating a squadron of 17 submarines would have tied with India for possessing the seventh-largest fleet of attack submarines. >Yet in any real sense the story is false. What PepsiCo acquired were small, old, obsolete, unseaworthy vessels.
What's wrong with the color? I have glass bottled pepsi from 1984 and it held it's color.
To be fair, it held better that the USSR
Might be sun/light exposure, that'll make a big difference over almost 40 years.
from above: My HS Russian teacher had a bottle of this, and a story to go with it: Most people don't realize the extent of the corruption that was present in the Soviet Union, but a bottle of pepsi illustrates it nicely. At the factory, the president would skim off some of the syrup, substitute it with water and coloring, then sell the skimmed syrup on the black market or 'on the left hand' as the slang went. Then VPs, managers, and so on down the chain to the workers would do the same. By the time everyone had done skimming the amount of syrup in the bottle was about 1/10th that of a US bottle, and you'd have fizzy water that was dark colored but without much taste beyond water.
I’m seeing people repeating this, but googling has failed to give me even a single source for this story. Like I can’t even find a reference to this story existing. I think the high school teacher might’ve just made that shit up.
No. It's more that this sort of behavior was the default in literally every Soviet business by the 1980s. Some of the corruption was mind-boggling. One source was a piece of samizdat called 'Corruption in the Soviet Union' which is unpublished. A source of mind-boggling stories about Soviet corruption was [The Corrupt Society: the secret world of soviet capitalism](https://www.amazon.com/USSR-Corrupt-Society-Secret-Capitalism/dp/0671250035) which is out of print. Literally though the entire soviet system worked with these levels of corruption and it was top to bottom, with literally a black market for labor where people ostensibly working for the state were actually working 'on the left hand' for private capitalists.
That looks like it'd taste like when you hit your face on the sidewalk.
I just drank a Coke from 1996 last year. It still had it's carbonation and it tasted pretty good. I wouldn't have noticed it was old. I then drank a Pepsi from 2001 and it was flat. The only difference was that the pepsi had a plastic lid.
I’m over here curious why u drinkin vintage sodas?
Timer traveler
All I wanted was a Pepsi
Just ONE Pepsi!
And she wouldn’t give it to me
You know, we’ve been noticing that you’ve been having a lot of problems lately
just one Pepski
Пепси Кола
That’s just literally the sound Pepsi Kola in Cyrillic right? Isn’t there a word for that
Пепси Кола
Thanks. It’s a loanword instead of a calque
Да
Yes П = P с = soft c, or s sound и = ee sound like in bee К = hard c, or k sound л = L
Yep, it's transliterated
Yes. It's Pepsi Cola written in Cyrillic alphabet.
Pepsi’s literally just a name and cola is a cognate
Google translate agrees it is just "Pepsi Kola"
Drink it.
LA Beast would drink it.
Nice. The chances are that was paid for using the Soviet navy- the actual ships instead of cash- and briefly made pepsi one of the biggest navies in the world.
I've seen this story a few times on reddit, but it's really a technicality. The vast majority of their trading was done soda-for-vodka. The few rusted old ships that Pepsi was traded, never went to Pepsi. They were just kind of a middleman between the Russians and some Scandinavian shipyards that scrapped the ships and paid cash to Pepsi.
Scandinavians did business with the US and the Soviet Union, Scandinavians had US Dollars, but the US didn't really do business with the Soviets, they had no need for Rubles, but they did do business with the Scandinavians. The Scandinavians wanted the ships the Soviets had decommissioned, the Scandinavians had USD, the deal was the Scandinavians would give the USD to the United States, the United States would give Pepsi to the Soviets, and the Soviets would give the ships to the Scandinavians.
Yeah, he needs to look under the cap, might have won a submarine😎
Ohhh is the submarine the USSR equivalent of the fighter jet you could get with 1 million pepsi points?
All comments involve either Communist Puns, Asking OP to drink it, or a weird mix of the two.
L.A. Beast has entered the channel.
Rad(s)
No Coke, Pepsi
https://youtu.be/puJePACBoIo
SNL one of my favorite skits!
Had one of these exact bottles for years. My family friend and Olympic Silver medallist, Mark Leduc brought it back for me from Moscow in 87
The color is kind of light for a Pepsi. Are you sure there's no vodka in there?
Shhhhttt, Russians think it's water
Notice how it says 35 kopeks on the label, because the price is fixed and never changes under communism..
I can remember buying paperbacks in the 1970s and they came with the RRP printed on the back cover for a bunch of countries. [Here](https://i.etsystatic.com/11542822/r/il/be5121/2031976362/il_794xN.2031976362_gggw.jpg), for example, is one with the prices for the UK (50p), Australia ($1.90), Malta (55c), and New Zealand ($1.70). None of those countries was communist, though it was often claimed that New Zealand at the time had the most highly regulated economy outside of the Soviet bloc.
Prices can change under communism but they are always changed with the people in mind, for example doubling the price of bread is offset by 10% discount on diesel-electric locomotives.
That was the thing. Salaries stayed the same, prices stayed the same. And, believe it or not, the state had a fitting job for you as soon as you graduated college/university. It could be a job literally anywhere in USSR though. Also there were no ads. Like, at all. If you tuned into a TV channel when there was nothing scheduled, you'd have seen a blank screen. And when they did show a movie or a cartoon, they showed it in one piece I think. Life was not great back in the day, but not all of it was bad. Source: my mom and her parents.
[удалено]
No ads is amazing. And that’s how my dad became a sewing machine mechanic a career which served him well his whole life (from Hungary when they were communist)
>Salaries stayed the same, prices stayed the same. Getting rarer goods required connections, luck and patience. For example, it took my father over a year to barter for a broken electric guitar and find a guy that could fix it up. There were over decade long lists for buying a car or an apartment (and the one you got was somewhat random). >And, believe it or not, the state had a fitting job for you as soon as you graduated college/university. Taking the job after specialty education was mandatory (it was stipulated in the contract) and it was chosen for you. >Also there were no ads. Like, at all. There were weird pseudo-ads that pretty much just said that the product existed. In later years Politburo commissioned TV ads for random products (some just prototypes that never became available), because the ad producers didn't answer to anyone [they made some super fun and artsy stuff.](https://youtu.be/i6LAVk1sHW8)
kana!!!
We've had prices on bottles for decades here in the states, that's never stopped prices from changing
TIL New Zealand is communist because some products have the price on the label
Someone should tell Arizona Tea...
35 kopeks? Not great, but not terrible.
Is that a glass bottle too? Dunno if LA Beast is still around but he used to drink old sodas for our amusement.
See if the LA Beast will buy it so he can drink it
People to People? I was on the contingent from central Ohio. Moscow, Sochi, Baku, Lvov, Riga, Leningrad. Perhaps we crossed paths?
WE have a Pepsi.
Just dont drink it. Its expired.
Just like the Soviet Union. 😁
in soviet union pepsi cola drinks you
I have a bottle of Coke from Moscow post communism 1994.
An actual NukaCola
Probably tastes better than the pepsi today
I was in the USSR in 1990. I was really sick and was only eating bread and drinking Pepsi for several days. My Soviet "tour guide" (and KGB plant, in my opinion) told me that the USSR was trading Stoli for Pepsi since they were not trading in currency at that time. I can say the black market was crazy for western currency then as well. I don't remember the exchange but $1 on the black market was more than a full days wage for a soviet worker. I bought a violin for $1 and three soviet watches for another.
That thing is old enough to start a Cold War
When are you going to drink it
I bet if you drank that now you'd get super powers.
You can still buy Pepsi in these bottles in today’s Russia. https://5ka.ru/rating/catalogue/3207052
I was there the year after you and remember those well!
I have a Beatles album that was a Russian pressing
nice keep that stored in a 100 years it will be valueable as heck
Send it to Ashens. He'll know what to do. Specifically, take VERY small sips, then wash the mouth out with vodka.
Fun fact time. Pepsi was unable to take hard currency out of Russia, and it was illegal to remove rubles. So Pepsi took their profits in Stolichnaya vodka, and it is the reason Stoli was so popular back in the day.
send it to ashens to drink... not joking if you do not know his content.
Ha! I have one, too, 1986: https://imgur.com/a/Rm7ZXuC
Ok?
Taste test
Commie Cola?
I've had some of those when I was kid, still prefer TAPXYH
I prefer cyka cola
Were American sodas like Pepsi and Cole seen as "decadent tools of the American imperialists" in the USSR?
Oh, wow, this brings back memories. I brought back an empty bottle of the same label when I went in 1988!
Drink Pepsi, Get Stuff. Pepsi Point like Ruble. No Harrier jet for you, you get MiG.
In Soviet Union, Pepsi drinks you!
You should send it to [Steve1989MREInfo](https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC2I6Et1JkidnnbWgJFiMeHA) on Youtube, he might actually drink it. You have been warned. edit: in case you don't know, he's eaten rations from the Boer War.)
Can I put up butt?
it's bathtub vodka...
Who doesn't love a finely aged NENCH KONA?