Kvass Tradition

Kvass is made by fermenting rye bread, or rye malt, with water, sugar and yeast for a day or two, which gives a dark sour-sweet drink with a very low alcohol content - usually under one percent, enough that it is treated as a soft drink and sold to anyone. It has been made in the East Slavic lands for a thousand years and was for centuries the ordinary daily drink of the population. The summer image is the barrel: a yellow tank on wheels parked at a street corner from May, with a queue and a seller filling plastic bottles and jugs that customers bring. Bottled industrial kvass exists and is mostly a different product, carbonated and sweetened, sometimes not fermented at all. Kvass is also a cooking ingredient, most visibly in okroshka, a cold soup of chopped vegetables, egg and meat with cold kvass poured over it, which divides opinion sharply among visitors.

What you actually see

• The street barrels - yellow tanks on wheels with queues, from May onward.
• The rye base - fermentation of bread or malt over a day or two.
• Okroshka - cold soup with kvass poured over chopped vegetables and egg.
• The industrial version - bottled, sweeter, carbonated and often not fermented.

When to go

May to September, when the barrels appear. Ten minutes.

Honest expectations

Barrel hygiene varies and glasses are often shared or rinsed briefly; bringing your own bottle is normal. Bottled kvass tastes little like the barrel product. It is sour and bread-like, and many visitors dislike it on first taste. Okroshka in particular is an acquired taste.

Nearby

Markets in any city sell it alongside the street barrels in summer.