That time Pepsi owned the sixth largest military in the world...
Кому нужен вызов пепси, если вы можете сокрушить своих соперников огневой мощью?
What to do when you’ve gots to get your cola but you’ve got no hard currency?
In 1989, the Soviet Union paid for a whopping $3b worth of Pepsi with 17 submarines, a cruiser, a frigate and a destroyer.
Had Pepsi chosen to re-operationalise their newly acquired military hardware, they’d have been the 6th largest military power in the world and the 4th largest submarine power.
Bonus Bubblegum
Because the rest of the world didn’t trade in Soviet rubles, the cash-strapped USSR traded using its most readily available commodities. Before they flogged off their surplus military might for scrap, the Soviet Union used to pay for their Pepsi with vodka - with Pepsi becoming the exclusive distributor of Stolichnaya vodka.
So how did the USSR acquire such a thirst for Pepsi?
In 1959, then-Vice President Richard Nixon hosted ‘The American Exhibition’ in Moscow. Rumour has it that Nixon and Khrushchev became engaged in a heated argument about the virtues of communism vs capitalism.
The Vice President of PepsiCo intervened and offered them a delicious Pepsi and the rest was history. Although really, the whole episode was staged from the beginning as soon as Pepsi learned that Coca-Cola wouldn’t be attending.
But I think we know which ideology won the Pepsi Challenge at the end of the day!
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Image credits: Goran Patlejch
