Sunday, June 1, 2008

Sign of summer

Summer is coming. Beside temperature rising up, days getting longer and skirts getting shorter, a reliable sign of the arrival of summer is the barrel of KBAC (pronounce "Kvass") popping up at most of the street corners. KBAC is a drink made with bread and water, which is not as bad as it sounds. It tastes a bit like a beer on its way to become a beer...or something like that. Its alcohol content is near zero, meaning don't buy KBAC only for your Saturday night party, because things could get boring very quickly.
The barrel of KBAC comes with a baboushka, a past middle aged lady who serves the drink and makes faces when you don't have change. Baboushkas have signed an exclusivity contract with the authorities to serve KBAC. Or so it seems...(or maybe drinking lots of KBAC makes aging faster?)
A 0.4 liter glass of KBAC is about 15 roubles ($0.60), which is a fair price for wet bread.


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5 comments:

Chouch said...

On another note: You actually survived one siberian winter! Congrats!

Anonymous said...

Is the bread so bad there they have to market it as cost-effective thirst quencher ?

CO

PS: Yeah,congrats on your survival.
Glad you made it almost intact :/

Ian said...

I love the difference between the frothy delicious mug of KBAC on the tank and the tiny plastic cup of flat urine being poured from a manky hose. I really am becoming more and more inspired to visit Siberia and try these delights for myself.

Bruce Lenorf said...

Bread is not the best around here, that's right, so they serve it from a hose. You should see how they serve the nutella from the sprinklers too.

Anonymous said...

i went to Ukraine for a month and now im hooked.. i brought home 3 dozen bottles in my luggage... the bottled stuff tastes astronomically better than the stuff on the street.. mmm kbac