It looks like this year Kyivans and guests of the Ukrainian capital will not be able to see traditional barrels with kvass on city streets.

Deputy Head of Central Directorate of Trade Vasyl Pilyavoz said that last year’s audit of the Sanitary Epidemiological Station (SES) showed that such trade does not meet any sanitary standards, so it was decided to stop it. “We will let to sell kvass only in closed containers, for example in bottles or kegs. There will be special stalls (kiosks)”, Pilyavoz says. According to him, Obolon Company has already started to produce kvass in kegs. But nobody knows how much the drink will cost. Last year one liter of kvass has been sold for UAH 1.2. The main producer of kvass in barrels, Rosinka Company, keeps silence. But according to unofficial information, they have already closed the production kvass in large barrels.

The persecution of the barrels began in May last year. Employees of the City Hall along with the SES have conducted a raid and found a lot of violations like the lack of trade permits, dirty and nasty looking sellers and many others. Only 4 out of 14 samples of kvass have met bacteriological standards.

But the people of Kiev, accustomed to quench their thirst with this chilled sweet drink in summer, are not satisfied with the decision of the municipality. “Kvass in barrels is something from my childhood, nostalgic. We’ve got used to it, “- said Sergey from Kyiv. “I think, it will be more expensive in kegs. The technology is more complicated and it will cost more to produce it”, – said Vasyl. But Maryana agrees with this decision: “Kvass salesgirls were often alcoholic and had dirty hands.”

Kvass or kvas, sometimes called in English a bread drink, is a fermented beverage made from black rye or rye bread. By the content of alcohol resulted from fermentation, it is classified as non-alcoholic: up to 1.2% of alcohol.

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