Baikal (drink)

A bottle and glass of Baikal

Baikal is a Russian non-alcoholic beverage of dark-brown colour. The beverage's basis is water, but it also contains extracts of natural herbs, sugar, citric acid, carbon dioxide. Baikal's production started in 1969. It was developed as a Soviet counterpart of Coca-Cola. After the beginning of Pepsi Сola production in the USSR in 1973, the formula was revised.[1]

In Moscow in the 1990s, it was nearly impossible to find Baikal; nevertheless, in Saint Petersburg the beverage's production was continued by the "Polustrovo" factory.

In 2009, a Dutch photographer who spent nearly two decades in Moscow relaunched the production of the drink in Germany having changed its design, taste and tradename. The new drink's trademark is WOSTOK (which means 'East' in Russian).

However, there still exist generic carbonated soft drinks with guarana extract containing caffeine under the name Baikal made by various companies – for instance SLCO GmbH (Siberia Group) in Germany. The degree of their similarity to the original Soviet Baikal drink is unknown.

References

  1. ↑ Zykov, N (1973). "Квас, ситро и «пепси-кола»". Nauka i Zhizn. 8: 30–32.


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