Firlapalooza

My place of business is currently getting a thorough cleaning, which has allowed some interesting objects to emerge.  One surprising item which I came across pre-dates the end of the Cold War, clearly indicated by the words ”Made in USSR” marked upon it:

This historical curiosity is actually a simple cardboard box with dimensions 11″ x 13″ x 13″, which has been used around this office for the storage of old files, but whose apparent original purpose was to contain twelve 750 mL bottles of Moskovskaya Vodka.  I was aware that the Soviet Union had previously exported many raw materials to the capitalist west such as coal, oil, steel, and timber, but I didn’t know that actual finished products had come all the way from the old communist empire - even to actually end up in an LCBO store here in Sudbury, Ontario.  Well, as I learned, there is an interesting bit of background to this. 

Usually, the planners of the U.S.S.R.’s command economy would determine what products they had a surplus of from year to year, and then export that excess for revenue, rather than try to create an export industry.  However, with respect to vodka, the presence of this Russian brand in a western nation dates back to an agreement in 1970’s détente days.  In 1972, PepsiCo made an agreement with the Soviet government that the company would handle the distribution and marketing of Stolichnaya Vodka (of which Moskovskaya Vodka is a sister brand) in North America in exchange for the right to sell Pepsi products in the U.S.S.R.  See this article by William F. Buckley, dating back to 1988, which provides some interesting insight into this exchange.  Pepsi was one of the first (if not the first) western product to be sold in Soviet Russia since the start of the Cold War. 

The cyrillic letters on the side of the box, СПИ, are the acronym for the company which owns the two vodka brands, Soyuzplodimport or SPI, currently in an ongoing legal dispute about ownership of these Soviet legacy vodka companies, which in total sell more in the world than any other.  Some more in-depth history of SPI’s involvement with selling the product (dating back to the end of the 19th century) on the worldwide stage is here; just to show how closely this company’s products is linked with the make-up of Russian culture, be sure to take a look at this recent commercial by SPI over at YouTube; it is accompanied by stark Soviet-era imagery, and what sounds like the Red Army Choir voicing a patriotic hymn of the past (something I’ve discussed previously here, with musical samples).

I never would have thought that a cardboard box could be so interesting.

This entry was posted on Saturday, April 12th, 2008, and is filed under Uncategorizable. You can subscribe via RSS 2.0 feed to this post's comments. You can comment below, or link to this permanent URL from your own site. I reserve the right to delete inappropriate comments.