Kvas is It? Coca-cola Bids to Bottle the 'coke of Communism'

It is seen as a quintessentially Russian item, on a par with vodka, felt boots and troikas. But now Coca-Cola, the ultimate symbol of western capitalism, is to start producing kvas, the Russian drink made from fermented bread which is sometimes called "the Coke of Communism".

The soft drinks giant is in talks with beverage companies in Moscow over bottling the drink, a murky concoction that is often sold from tankers in the street.

Kvas, which can contain berries, fruit or birch sap, has been supped by peasants since the middle ages.

For some older Russians, Coca-Cola's muscling in on the kvas market may be hard to stomach, bearing in mind the company once symbolised the great cold war enemy, the United States.

A popular Soviet anecdote has Russian astronauts calling their leader, Leonid Brezhnev, to tell him they have reached the moon and painted it red. A month later the astronauts call back in despair, saying "the Americans have brought white paint and written Coca-Cola on it".

Until the end of the 1980s kvas was sold flat and unfiltered but Russian soft drink manufacturers were forced to produce a carbonated version to compete with the influx of fizzy western drinks after the fall of the Soviet Union.

Coca-Cola plans to make the drink on the premises of a beer or kvas producer because it does not have its own fermentation facilities, Russian media reported. It will then gauge sales before embarking on large-scale production.

Nikita Volkov, marketing director of Deka, one of the country's biggest producers of kvas, said he was unfazed by the new competition. "If their kvas is sold alongside Coke it will improve its image among young people and raise the whole sector," he said.