And finally, here it is – the coveted SIP of ice cold soda, delightfully biting at his nose!
Carbonated water was loved by the citizens of the Soviet Union in the 1930-ies, when to purchase a portion of a cold drink was only possible from the seller. And already then – long before Khrushchev’s course for automation – domestic engineers struggled with the creation of a “mechanical trader” soft drinks. The first machine was developed in 1925 and patented in 1928. It was an electromagnetic device that operated with closed coin contacts: coin activated the machine, opening the tap and pouring the liquid resulted in the movement of water metering arrow, whereby at the right moment the faucet is closed.
In 1932, the engineers of the Leningrad plant “Vienna” M. E. Agroskin and A. P. Isakov, developed the first Soviet saturator – a device which was prepared by the soda flowing through the water of the compressed carbon dioxide. The design was a metal table with a tap, the column, special pump and tank for mixing water and gas. If you believe the message of “Evening Moscow”, the first one of this type was installed in the canteen of the Smolny1. In the 1930s – early 1940s for inventions related to retailer fluids, which was issued more than 40 patents – it was a deliberate work of people’s Commissariat2. Most of the inventions, various modifications of the apparatus of the street selling water: hot and cold, sparkling and simple, with syrup and without. Was such that he rinsed the dishes under running water – the idea, which received wide application in the late 1950s,3.
a thrilling attraction for Muscovites became machine-snack bar, which opened on Dzerzhinsky square (now Lubyanka) in the autumn of 1937. Here you can not only drink carbonated water with syrup by dropping a coin in a hitherto unseen device, but also to eat a hot dog or a sandwich and even drink beer and wine. However, machines with alcohol and appetizer were not as Autonomous: they take tokens, which first had to be purchased at the box office from a living seller. So the greatest excitement, especially among local children, was caused by the soda machines. “I went to Dzerzhinsky square in the jukebox-diner, drank water with a syrup, – November 9, 1937, recorded in the diary of a schoolboy from Moscow, Oleg Chernevsky, and yesterday when we went, I accidentally poured one syrup is delicious-it was!”4.
In January 1938, the technical progress has reached and Leningrad – where the first café-machine Langonnet opened on the site of the legendary bakery, Filippov on Nevsky prospect, 45. Twenty-five machines with snacks and beer worked from tokens, and only three coins are spilled soda. Experimental automation was curled up with the beginning inwar governing dozens of projects have remained on paper. But as soon as life returned to a peaceful course, interest in the “mechanical sellers” in the Soviet Union erupted with new force.
the twentieth Congress of the CPSU on 25 February 1956 decided in the sixth five-year plan “to maximize pre-packing of goods for sale to the public, to develop a network of stores and trade through vending machines that will greatly improve customer service, reduce labor costs in the manufacturing and reduce costs”5. To implement this ambitious plan was connected to the design Bureau of Kharkiv, Kyiv and Perovsky plants sales engineering. And in 1958-1959 it began serial production of vending machines for sandwiches and snacks, matches and cigarettes, notebooks and pencils, milk and butter and, of course, soda. First began to bottle the hissing water glasses faceted machine at-2 (like vanity), rakotomamonjy at-14 and similar to a red refrigerator at 26 “Kharkiv” – the one who refreshed the student Shurik in the Comedy Gaidai “Operation y…”.
based On the most recently created, all subsequent modifications of street machines. Was, by the way, the machines equipped with disposable cups, but they are not particularly caught on, because paper containers of adequate quality had to be imported,6.
Before the currency reform of 1961 machines accept coins 15-cheap-esteem, and the price of the sodas ranged from 30 to 75 cents depending on the cost of the syrup. Oh, just to quench your thirst, you had to have a 2-5 coins. The price of other goods automated trading has been above. Thus, for a consumer technical innovations have resulted in the need to carry a trifle handful. The solution to this problem came out of the box: in 1956-1958 by order of the Ministry of trade of the Leningrad mint were minted from a new alloy coins of a large denomination – 50 cents, 1, 2, 3 and 5 rubles specifically for use in vending machines. However, the turnover of “automatic” money has not been received from the simultaneous treatment of two categories of coins were abandoned in favor of reforms, made usable old thing.
After the price adjustment of 10:1, the machines started to accept coins in denominations of 1, 2 and 5 cents.
a Course for automation of Soviet trade was finally embodied in the programme of the Communist party of 1961, which promised universally to establish cultural trade and the wide use of “progressive forms of service of the population”7. Then began the real “automatic” boom. In the capital alone by the end of 1961, 8 of the thousands of vending machines sold soda, matches, cigarettes, notebooks, Cologne, and some packaged goods8. Revived Dov��tary Metropolitan cafe machines Narpit and opened a new, earned shop-machine “Progress”.
“Inhuman” trade has been recognized not only progressive, but also economically viable, as the released labour and increased profit. In particular, it has been estimated that in 1962 Kiev “Fruit Minotor” implemented through 592 vending machine for soda water so many portions, “how many would have sold 900 sellers serving saturatornye truck”9. In the warm season of street machines worked around the clock. By 1965, the USSR had 39 slots machines 10010.
vending Machines soda water was installed in the Central streets, in parks, near the subway entrances and train stations, shopping pavilions and Department stores 2-5 in a row or a ring. They were connected to the city mains and the water received in the reservoir, cooled, and fed into the glass gazirovanye and mixed with syrup. So the price for glass is empty of soda was symbolic – 1 penny, for the syrup (20 ml per 1 serving) took the other two. The range was very diverse, the most popular was cream soda, Duchess, lemonade, orange, tangerine, plum, tarragon. Less through vending machines was selling juices and kvass.
Met and large complexes of several dozen devices, as a rule, there you can exchange coins. Group installation has justified itself: in the heat in crowded places mechanisms failed, quickly ran out of syrup and was gone thick glasses (about their glorious history “homeland” in detail told in # 9 2019) – near the machine often revolved fans “to think on three”. Suffered machines and from vandals, prinorovilsya drink soda for free – problem solved hit in the region of the coin slot. And the young scammers trying to “pay” the purchase of steel washers, peeling off beer caps and other foreign objects. Mechanics do not have time to serve points of failure were eliminated for a long time. But because in the early 1960s was a very popular verses V. P. Rudakov and Nechaev.
Fruit water
Four days
Without interruption
Sells the machine.
the Coin is not stuck,
the Glasses are in complete
When the mechanic
the reverse side!..
the First time technical innovations caused among the inhabitants of the crazy hype, but once it subsided, it became clear that automation is not always had practical sense. Shops machines remained an attraction for guests, and vending machines, snack bars, early in the morning selling beer and wine by the glass for 15-20 cents, from institutions of high culture of service quickly turned into a haven for a certain contingent. There in the 1960s was born a slang term for machines – “autodrinking”.
Well �� vending machines with carbonated water proved to be really successful project of the Khrushchev automation. They loved the citizens, caught on and became the hallmark of Soviet trade till the end of 1980-ies.
Here’s to the booth with soda water,
All of the machines minion haughty,
the Mysterious kid modern
Fits like a clockwork toy.
Then, presumptuous fiction
the Coin wet it down in the crack,
And the gentle splashes of substituting the cheek,
the Glass catches the pink fountain…
And dark machine soul
Gazing with old-fashioned kindness,
Like the woman that the hand is cold
will Give the traveler to drink from the bucket.
Bella Akhmadulina,
1960
Automated trading was presented as a sure remedy against fraud and embezzlement of socialist property, but in the middle of 1980-ies the country was shaken by the case of Kiev “Avtomattorg”, figures of which (over 200 people!) made a fortune, years negalima consumers of beer, wine and soda through vending machines. To hide the fraud, the Association has purchased and used thick glasses with a thick bottom.
Today, enjoy a soda from the machine of the present Soviet in Moscow’s Gum and Museum of Soviet arcade machines in St. Petersburg Museum of water, in Talitsky steam Museum and Sennaya square in Nizhny Novgorod.
1. Evening Moscow. 1932. April 16.
2. Counted for the electronic database of patents www.patenton.ru.
3. Epstein, J. B. Street device for home drinking water and washing used mugs this. 31.10. 1932-10-31. Patent SU28118A1.
4. Chernevsky O. V. Diary //https://prozhito.org/note/229226.
5. Directives of the twentieth Congress of the CPSU for the sixth five-year development plan of national economy of the Soviet Union in 1956-1960 years. Moscow, 1956.
6. Tikhonova I. Less foam//the Russian newspaper. 2017. 23 September.
7. The program of the Communist party of the Soviet Union. M., 1961
8. The large stores of Moscow, Moscow, 1961. P. 244.
9. Makarova M. F. Vending machines. // The issues of economic development and trade in the USSR. M., 1965, P. 78.
10. Ibid.
