'DRIVE AND ENERGY': COMMUNIST PEPSI
The first Pepsi of my life, during the communist era, was an immense pleasure. An almost mystical experience. When I tasted that sublime elixir, I was instantly transported into another world: a world of absolute joy, supreme delight, and freedom in liquid form. For a few minutes, Romania in the 1980s disappeared. The queues disappeared, the empty shelves, the ration cards, the cold in our apartments, and all the wonders of the socialist economy. I was, quite simply, in the West. In our communist world, Pepsi did not exist. Or, more precisely, it existed somewhere, in a parallel universe where things that were perfectly ordinary for others became objects of worship for us.
A bottle of Pepsi was not a drink. It was an event. And if my father managed, through some mysterious combination of connections, luck, and neighbourhood diplomacy, to find someone willing to give him two bottles, our home would instantly acquire the atmosphere of Christmas, New Year’s Eve, and Romania winning the World Cup—all on the same day. But the story of Pepsi in Romania had begun long before my childhood years.
1966: Capitalism Comes in a Bottle
Pepsi-Cola began being produced in Romania in 1966, at a time when Nicolae Ceaușescu’s regime was trying to show the world that socialist Romania could maintain commercial relations with the West. There was, however, a small problem: the Romanian leu was not a convertible currency, and Romania could not afford to spend scarce foreign currency on things that, according to the logic of the planned economy, were hardly a priority. So a perfectly socialist solution was found to a capitalist problem: barter. Donald M. Kendall, the head of PepsiCo, negotiated the supply of Pepsi concentrate, while Romania would pay not in dollars, but in wine. Romanian wine was sold in the West, and the proceeds were used, in one way or another, to offset the cost of the deal. Capitalism had entered Romania. But it had come in the form of wine. In May 1967, at the “Munca” factory in Ovidiu, Constanța, the first bottle of Pepsi produced in Romania was bottled. It was presented as the first facility of its kind in the European communist bloc. A small 250-millilitre bottle. That was all. But sometimes history does not need grand objects. Sometimes, all it needs is a bottle.
Pepsi Was Produced, but the Party Decided Where It Went
Pepsi was manufactured in several Romanian facilities, including the “30 Decembrie” factory in Constanța and the Flora factory on Viilor Street in Bucharest. But production was only part of the problem. Distribution was the other. In a socialist economy, it was not enough to produce something. Someone had to decide where it would go, how much would be sent, who would receive it and, eventually, who would not. Everything was “coordinated.” In other words, it was produced, centralised and allocated. The market was free. Free to wait. Production capacity was limited, while demand had become enormous. For Romanians who saw in Pepsi the taste of the West, that little bottle had acquired a value far greater than its contents. It was refreshing, but that was not what mattered. It was Western. And in a society where almost everything was controlled, such a taste became a small window onto the world beyond.
When Socialism Tried to Copy Pepsi
Demand was so high that, following Pepsi’s success, an attempt was made to produce a home-grown alternative. The principle was simple: It can be done, comrades! If the Americans could make Pepsi, then socialist industry could surely produce something similar. And so Quick Cola appeared. Except that the difference between Pepsi and Quick Cola was roughly the same as the difference between real coffee and Nechezol (surrogate coffee). The colour was similar. Everything else was an adventure. Quick Cola tasted like a planned economy trying to imitate capitalism without importing the ingredients that made capitalism work. It was an unforgettable concoction of straw, a hint of bread, and a little powder, with the faintest suggestion of a soft drink somewhere in the distance. It was Pepsi processed through the Five-Year Plan. A socialist knock-off that demonstrated, once again, that you can copy the shape of a product without being able to reproduce what made it good.
Technology: A Bourgeois Detail
The problems were not limited to taste. There were technological problems as well. Initially, the production of such beverages was carried out without pasteurising the sugar syrup, which meant a cold-processing method and, consequently, a shorter shelf life. In 1970, the Ci-Co soft-drinks factory was built in the Militari district of Bucharest. Production began in 1972, and the beverages were processed through a pasteuriser, allowing them to have a considerably longer shelf life. For a few years, technology did what technology was supposed to do: it produced a more stable product. Then the savings began. Romania had to repay its foreign debt. Everything had to be economised. And in this grotesque form of socialist accounting, even pasteurisation could become a luxury. Less technology. Lower costs. Greater savings. And, of course, the triumph of socialism.
The 1980's: When a Bottle Becomes a Luxury
In the 1980's, Romania was sinking ever deeper into austerity. Energy was being rationed, food was being rationed, shops were emptying, and everyday life was becoming a continuous exercise in improvisation. Pepsi was becoming increasingly difficult to find. When it appeared, it disappeared immediately. There were local alternatives, such as Cico and Brifcor, but for me and for many children of my generation, Pepsi was something else. It was not merely a soft drink. Jeans, cassette tapes, magazines, chewing gum, Coca-Cola or Pepsi—all of these came from a world we knew existed, a world in which things seemed, in some difficult-to-explain way, more normal. But we had ration cards. And rations. And queues. Hence the title.
Dad and the Bottles
One day, Dad came home with two bottles of Pepsi. Two. Not ten. Not a crate. Two. I no longer remember through what miracle he had managed to find them. Probably through some combination of connections, luck, and that extraordinary ability Romanians had developed to discover, in the midst of scarcity, things the state claimed did not exist. But I remember the bottles perfectly. They were 250 millilitres, made of thick glass, with that unmistakable shape. In the refrigerator, the two bottles seemed almost solemn. They were not simply being chilled. They had been placed in the vault. I looked at them. I checked on them. Had I known the concept of national heritage at the time, I would probably have declared them historical monuments. When the moment finally came, Dad opened one. Psssst. That sound... For a child raised under communism, it could stand in for a brass band. He poured a little into a glass. The liquid was cold, dark, and full of bubbles. I took a sip. And for a few seconds, the world changed. I was no longer in our apartment. I was no longer in Romania. There were no more queues, cold rooms, empty shelves, ration cards, or shops where you had to ask whether “anything had come in.” I was in the West. A quarter-litre West. Cold. Fizzy. And extraordinarily rare. I drank slowly, so that it would not run out. Because under communism, even pleasure had to be rationed. At some point, inevitably, I asked, “Is there any more?” The answer was predictable. “No.” And that was probably the most precise definition of communism I could have been given at that age.
Pepsi and the Great Lesson of Scarcity
Today, a bottle of Pepsi is just a bottle of Pepsi. You buy it. You drink it. You buy another one. No one holds a family ceremony. No one puts the bottle in the refrigerator with the solemnity with which you might put the last medicine in the house. But back then, things were different. Scarcity had changed the value of things. What was ordinary for others became extraordinary for us. An orange. A banana. A bar of chocolate. A pair of jeans. A cassette tape. And, above all, a bottle of Pepsi. Communism had achieved the economic feat of transforming a soft drink into a symbol of freedom. Not because Pepsi itself was freedom, but because we knew there was a world in which Pepsi was not an event. And we wanted to know what that world was like.
The Great Joke of the Cold War
Romania was not the only communist country fascinated by Pepsi. In the Soviet Union, Pepsi officially entered the market in 1972. And there, too, capitalism had to learn the rules of socialism. The Americans supplied the concentrate, while the Soviets paid through a commercial arrangement that involved distributing Stolichnaya vodka in the United States. Capitalism in exchange for vodka. Pepsi versus communism. Or, more precisely, capitalism and communism discovered that when it came to trade, ideology could fit quite comfortably inside a contract. Later, the deal reached almost absurd proportions. In an expanded agreement, PepsiCo acquired rights to Soviet military vessels - diesel submarines, a frigate, a cruiser, and a destroyer - before they were subsequently sold for scrap. For a brief moment, the company that made Pepsi had become associated with a Soviet military fleet. The Cold War sometimes had an extraordinary sense of humour. Some had nuclear weapons. Others had Pepsi. And between the two systems, every now and then, there was a commercial contract.
The Taste That Remained
Perhaps that is why I remember my first Pepsi so well. Not because of its taste. Or not only because of its taste. I remember the feeling. The feeling that, for a few minutes, I could step outside the world in which everything was measured, allocated, economised, and controlled. A bottle of Pepsi could not change a regime. It could not fill the shops. It could not stop the queues. It could not heat the apartments. But it could open a window for a child. A small window. Cold. Fizzy. And through it, the West could be seen. Dad had two bottles. I had one glass. And for a few minutes, we too had something that communism had not managed to ration completely: the taste of freedom.
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