BUSINESS ABROAD: No Zip in the Zhiguli

The beer that might have made Moscow famous is a light, frothy brew called Zhiguli, which has long been touted as the perfect accompaniment for rak, a Russian crawfish. But for some time, Muscovites —and beer drinkers all over the U.S.S.R. —have noticed that their Zhiguli had lost its zip. Last week they knew why. Up for trial and denounced for his “criminally careless attitude” was V. P. Lisakov, director of Moscow’s biggest brewery. The dark charge against Lisakov, Senior Brewmaster P. D. Kirichek, and eight other brewery officials: watering the Zhiguli.

The scandal got started when the brewers carelessly began washing down their vats with beer instead of water, ignoring leaky valves that spilled out brew until it ran in the gutters. The brewery workers ran up “internal losses” amounting to 2,500,000 gallons of beer worth 40 million rubles—owing in part to on-the-job consumption. In order to make up their quota, they began putting water in the Zhiguli (named for a Volga River beauty spot). Even after a state inspector popped in unexpectedly and found the water content too high, brewery officials and workers kept pouring it in. When a formidable team of ministry investigators moved in, officials tried to get out of the mess by cutting the beer’s aging period from 21 days to 3, using extra malt, juggling the books, rigging scales so that no one could check the output. In despair, Brewmaster Kirichek suggested they puncture the pipes, blame the losses on an accident.

No subterfuge worked. The luckless Zhiguli brewers were hauled in to answer to 40 volumes full of violations. Wrote the Economic Gazette, an official newspaper of the Communist Party’s Central Committee: “Starting with a small violation of state discipline, they ended up deceiving the state.” That, as every Communist knew, was a crime far worse than watering beer. Nonetheless, it would be a long time before Russian beer drinkers again looked on Zhiguli as they once did—perhaps not until a crawfish learns to whistle.