Everyone who lived in the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics remembers the vending machines that sold delicious soda with and without syrup. Whole queues always lined up in front of them, but the glasses from which these drinks were drunk were few - one, maximum two. And what is most interesting - this fact did not frighten anyone away or embarrass.
Soda water vending machines were very popular.
These vending machines are rightfully considered a symbol of an era long gone. They were installed everywhere - in department stores and grocery stores, airports and train stations, cinemas and hotels, in squares and streets. Many people still have not forgotten the taste of this sparkling water and its cost. It should be noted that these machines were extremely popular. Only for our contemporaries they would not be entirely clear. The fact is that they had to drink from one faceted glass for all.
And one soldier in the field, or how to drink from one glass to everyone
It is believed that in the Soviet Union, its first saturator appeared in the thirty-second year of the last century. As reported in the Vechernyaya Moskva newspaper, Agroshkin, an employee of the Vena plant in Leningrad, came up with an interesting hardware device.
In Moscow in the mid-50s, the number of machines was more than 10 thousand units.
It can be used to produce soda in almost every store. By the end of the fifties, a huge number of them had been installed in the capital alone - about ten thousand units.
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The assortment included simple soda and syrup.
The vending machine was engaged in bottling carbonated water without syrup for only 1 kopeck per glass, and with syrup - for three kopecks. At the same time, the syrup was offered in an assortment - "cream soda", "barberry", "bell", "pear" "tarragon" and others. Later added to traditional flavors and others, such as Fanta and Pepsi. Naturally, they were much more expensive.
On the streets, these devices functioned from May to September. With the onset of cold weather, they closed. For this, metal boxes were used. The operating principle of the machines was simple. The coin had to be lowered into a special hole, then the taste was selected, a glass was substituted under the stream. Its contents were drunk without leaving the machine, and the glass returned to its original position.
The rinsing system often substandard soap glasses without removing even traces of lipstick.
The device also had a specially designed socket, at the bottom of which there was a grate so that the glass could be washed. It turned upside down and was pressed all the way. A jet of water rinsed the container from the inside. The fountain was insignificant. Often, even the lipstick from the previous user remained on the glass.
These machines were serviced from time to time. All glasses were washed with hot water and soda solution. But we understand that the procedure was not carried out hourly or even daily. The question arises, were there epidemics in the USSR? Naturally, a lot. Only here is the paradox - for the entire period of operation of the machines, nowhere was it recorded that it was they who became the source of the spread of infection.
Was there an opportunity to get infected from a common glass?
It should be noted right away that in the Union, for the most part, statistical data on the number and type of diseases were not disclosed. For a number of pandemics, this information remains unavailable today. This applies, for example, to the H1N1 flu strain, which has been called "Russian flu". The problem came to the state from Southeast Asia in 1977. Mostly at risk were people between the ages of twenty and twenty-five.
Sharing a glass could provoke a massive infection with influenza, ARVI, herpes.
In theory, the glasses, of course, could also provoke an outbreak of infection. Infections transmitted through common household appliances include acute respiratory infection, influenza, the same herpes infection, says E. Utenkova, professor at the Department of Infectious Diseases of the Kirov State Medical University.
But at that time no one was interested in how a person caught the same flu or SARS. Accordingly, they did not find out what was the cause - contact with a sick person, unwashed or poorly washed hands or a common glass from which the sick person also drank. And the most amazing thing is that there were no crises in the Soviet healthcare system at all. Moreover, it was considered the best in the whole world.
Many people understood that drinking from a common dish was unhygienic, and even composed horror stories about automatic machines.
Did people in the USSR know that using one glass for everyone can be dangerous, at least it is very unhygienic? Some understood this well. It was these citizens who had a personal glass with them, which was always carried in a bag. There were also those who did not buy carbonated water from vending machines and forbade their children to do so.
Among the people, there were absolutely fantastic legends that using one glass, there is a possibility of contracting even venereal diseases, for example, syphilis. One of these legends received a ticket to life during the 1980 Olympics in Moscow, when there were a large number of citizens from other countries in the Union. The horror story was that infected African Americans wash their genitals in glasses at night.
Despite the absurdity of the story, it acquired more and more details and conveyed massive concerns about sanitation. This is the opinion of A. Arkhipova, the head of a group of researchers called "Monitoring of Actual Folklore" of the RANEPA. Syphilis was chosen as a very indecent disease, and the foreigner was in the lead role because of the fear of the citizens of the country before the "strangers". The horror story was just super. As a result, the people began to call the apparatus "syphilizers". Although, if we were to scare the people, it was necessary to have hepatitis, which in this way could actually be picked up. It is impossible to get sick with syphilis on a daily basis.
End of an era
No horror stories could "kill" the soda machines. Time and the collapse of the Soviet Union made it.
"Torgmontazh" - an organization that was engaged in the installation, operation and maintenance of machines, in the nineties stopped doing this.
In the nineties, the service of vending machines ceased.
Since the maintenance system disappeared, the machines also ceased to function. Over time, they simply became unnecessary junk, and carbonated water began to be sold in all commercial-type stalls. This was told by a senior employee of VNIHI, who developed automatic machines in the USSR, David Gershzon.
Inflation has made the use of soda machines unprofitable.
The deputy director of Avtomattorg No. 3 of that period, A. Barannik, explained that one of the fundamental reasons for the disappearance of devices is inflation in the post-Soviet period. Given the rate of inflation, it was simply not cost effective to completely change the coin changer every few months.
