Sergey Anashkevich aka aquatek_filips says: “If you remember the festive table of the late 80s, then very often it was quite monotonous both in terms of the set of dishes and “delicacies”, and in the set of alcohol. I remember well how my mother began to prepare for the New Year in advance, purchasing green peas, sprats and mayonnaise in advance... And my father filled the bar in advance with the same Soviet champagne and Stolichnaya vodka.
Some outlandish foreign bottle took pride of place. And it doesn’t matter what could be there - Havana Club rum, Smirnoff vodka or sweet Amaretto liqueur. Foreign - it was already cool... It was later, in the 90s, that shops and stalls were flooded with all sorts of Rasputins, GorbacheFFs, DaniloFFs, PetroFFs and other FFs. But there was also Royal alcohol, melon or lemon Stopka and a lot of other “tasty” things. I can’t even remember all the names. So, remind me..."
(Total 20 photos)
1. An invariable attribute of almost any festive table is Soviet Champagne. Most often purchased were semi-sweet and brut...
2. I have never seen anything dry in our house. Somehow it was not popular in our family.
3. Constant friends and regulars at holiday tables). In the last years of the USSR, vodka in long bottles was increasingly scarce. And even with a screw cap.
4. One of the representatives of wine classics
5. Bulgarian cabernet.
6. Brandy from Bulgaria. As students, for some reason we really liked him. Maybe because of the low price... I don't remember.
7. The same Amaretto. They just drank it)
8. Just like they drank pure rum and Cuban rum. What mojitos are there...
9. Royale alcohol was very popular at one point, often replacing vodka. It was diluted in the required proportion and poured into a vodka bottle.
11. Another 90s classic. Smirnoff was cool. And it doesn’t matter whether it was real or burned. The main thing is the label.
13. The 30-degree Israeli shot glass had different flavors - lemon, melon, something else. I remember September 1, 1996. We celebrated the arrival at the KhAI students' dormitory. A melon stack under a watermelon... For a very long time I could not look at melons or watermelons...
14. One of the many FF-ok...
15. Well, the theme of great power was also very popular
Was there a culture of wine consumption in the USSR? There are different opinions on this matter. Wine specialists say that yes, there was, historians say the opposite. The fact remains: they drank wine in the Soviet Union. Cheap fortified ones were designed for the unpretentious mass taste, while the vintage ones were preferred by the Soviet intelligentsia.
An ordinary fortified wine with a proud Portuguese name "Port wine" can be considered the king of Soviet wines. Not in terms of quality, but in terms of production and consumption volumes - in the USSR they produced and drank many times more of it than dry vintage wines and champagne combined.
Ordinary workers bought cheap port wines "777" , "Agdam", guilt "Solncedar", "Alminskaya Valley", "Fruit and berry" and other similar drinks that cost from a ruble to two and were popularly called “babble”, “gnilushka”, “ink”. These wines were produced by simply mixing low-quality wine material with ordinary alcohol and bottled at enterprises in eleven republics of the country.
You could see it on sale "Azerbaijani wine", "Armenian wine","Georgian wine", "Moldvinprom", "Ministry of Food Industry of the Ukrainian SSR" etc. You can treat the popular Soviet drink in any way you like, but it was made in compliance with sanitary standards, so with moderate consumption, the wine could not cause significant harm to health.
It is worth noting that in the Soviet Union not only cheap fortified wines and ports were produced, but also high-status branded drinks made according to all the rules for the wine-conscious public. As a rule, these were Crimean wines from the South Coast - "Madeira", incomparable ports "Livadia", "Massandra", "Yuzhnoberezhny", "Surozh", as well as Muscat dessert and liqueur wines, which, without exaggeration, can be called the pearls of Soviet winemaking.
In the USSR, brand drinks "Vermouth", essentially related to fortified wines, began to be produced in 1947. Initially, the quality of the product was very mediocre, since the wine materials used were far from the best. Until the mid-70s, red vermouth cost 1.02 rubles, and white vermouth 1.07 rubles. - this price was quite suitable for fans of frequent drinking, but consumers with higher demands were of little interest in this drink.
In the late 60s, better flavored wines appeared "Bouquet of Moldova", "Mountain Flower", "Morning dew", and a little later - vermouth "Extra", produced using original Italian technologies and used mainly for cocktails.
Table wines produced in the USSR
Soviet table wines, natural and high quality, were produced mainly in Georgia, Moldova, Ukraine, and the southern regions of the RSFSR. Given the opportunity to choose, the buyer preferred semi-sweet table wines - vintage or ordinary. The best semi-sweet wines were considered to be the famous Georgian "Khvanchkara"- Stalin’s favorite wine, also popular today "Kindzmarauli", "Twishi", "Alazani Valley", "Akhasheni", "Ojaleshi". Massandra semi-sweet ones were no less in demand. "Muscat", "Aligote", "Aluston".
Dry vintage wines, as a rule, were consumed by gourmets and members of the intelligentsia. In addition to famous Georgian wines "Tsinandali", "Gurjaani", "Mukuzani" and others. Ukrainian products were also distinguished by decent quality "Oksamyt of Ukraine", Moldovan monovarietal "Feteasca", "Riesling", "Cabernet", "Pino", excellent blending "Negru de Purcari".
Although ordinary dry wines were inexpensive, they were not in great demand. People called them “sour” or “cracker” and drank them when there was no choice in the store or when there was a lack of funds for something stronger. It is noteworthy that some wineries in the southern regions of the country worked closely with local state farms and, along with wines, bottled natural juices into glass containers. Among such enterprises, it is worth noting the largest in the USSR and the second in Europe, the Sennovsky wine and juice plant, located in the Krasnodar Territory. He produced grape juices from different grape varieties - cabernet, riesling, traminer, rkatsiteli.
Imported wines in the USSR
Of the foreign wines on the shelves of Soviet stores, mainly products from socialist countries were presented. There was no mass demand for imported wines: they were quite expensive and were drunk on occasion.
Many people remember Bulgarian wines well "Bear's Blood", "Gold autumn", "Tamyanka", "Monastery Hut", Hungarian vermouths and wines "Tokay", "Bull's Blood", "Tsirfandli", Romanian wines "Cabinet", "Old lock", "Kotnari".
Less often, Soviet liquor stores received wines produced by capital countries - Spanish, Portuguese, but usually they did not reach retail, as they were still sold out at the bases. They could be purchased through friends, as they said then “through connections,” with an overpayment.
The same champagne
At the end of a short excursion into the wine past, let’s remember “Soviet Champagne”, an iconic brand of the USSR era, a symbol of happiness and joy, a must-have drink for any festive table. Along with the TV show "Blue Light", Olivier salad, "dry" sausage and tangerines, champagne was one of the obligatory New Year's paraphernalia. Everyone without exception drank it to the sound of crystal glasses and the chiming of the Kremlin chimes, so on New Year's Eve it was difficult to “get” champagne.
Despite the accelerated production technology, different from the original, and the disdainful attitude of experts and specialists, our people have always loved “Soviet champagne”. It was produced in the categories brut, dry, semi-dry, semi-sweet and sweet at different factories. Moreover, the taste of wine of the same type was individual for each manufacturer - it depended on the wine materials used and technological subtleties.
5 interesting facts about wines and winemaking in the USSR
- In 1952, in Soviet Moldova, in the village of Cricova, a unique underground wine storage facility was created, which is still in operation. It is located at a depth of 50-80 m in former shell rock mines. This storage facility is a real underground city with streets with a total length of 113 km, named after wine brands, and even with traffic lights. It contains a private collection of G. Goering wines, captured in 1945 in Berlin, worth 15 thousand pounds sterling per bottle. There is also V. Putin’s own cave in the storage room with a rich collection of wines.
- Joseph Stalin's favorite wines were Georgian wines "Khvanchkara", "Majari" and "Kindzmarauli". The production of grape wines in the Georgian SSR was carried out by the Samtrest enterprises, which united exemplary state farms: Mukuzani, Napareuli, Kvareli, Tsinandali in Kakheti and Vartsikhe in western Georgia. The champagne wine factory produced Soviet champagne and grape wines. In the GSSR, by the 1960s, 26 brands of wine were produced: 12 of them were dry table wines, 7 semi-sweet, 5 strong, 2 sweet dessert.
- In 1937, the construction of the first factories began in the USSR for the production of champagne not in traditional bottles, but in hermetically sealed tanks. The method was called “reservoir”, and for its development prof. Frolov-Bagreev received the USSR State Prize in 1942.
- After the war G.G. Agabalyantsev proposed a method of champagneization in a continuous flow, for which the scientist was awarded the Lenin Prize. This technology made it possible to significantly reduce the cost of champagne. It is curious that the license to produce sparkling wine in this way was purchased by Argentina, Greece, Italy, the USA, Germany, France, Chile, Switzerland - not the last countries in the wine industry.
- A. Dorozhinsky, a well-known world authority in winemaking, after visiting the USSR, was shocked by the country’s success in wine production. In his book “Le livre du vin”, published in 1968 in Paris, among the main achievements of Soviet winemakers, he noted a unique three-week method for producing champagne; new developed grape varieties; the use of scientific achievements in the production of wine, in particular, ultrasound to accelerate the aging process of wines, electronic devices for assessing the taste of wine.
Throughout the last week, the social network has been in a fever with a flash mob in memory of the 90s. Social network users posted their photos from 20 years ago or more. Medialeaks I decided to devote the material to one of the most striking phenomena in the modern history of Russia - the emergence of a free alcohol market.
Everyone loved the joyful, nostalgic photos. It is noticeable that in many photographs the characters are a little (or quite a lot) tipsy. We remembered ten iconic alcoholic drinks of the first half of the 90s. Where did they come from, why were they popular, what did they taste like and what were they used with? We did not include well-known Western brands here (with the exception of Smirnoff), since they were not available to most at that time. We did not write the price of drinks, because in 92-95. hyperinflation occurred and price tags changed almost every day.
Royal alcohol 96%
Origin: alcohol for technical needs from Holland. According to rumors, it was mainly produced in Poland, like many other illegal products, where the term “scorched” came from.
The secret of popularity: During Prohibition, alcohol became one of the shadow currencies; they even tried to extract it from denatured alcohol. By the beginning of the 90s, the rules were relaxed, but there was a catastrophic shortage of vodka in the country; it was sold using coupons. Royal appeared in 1991 and became the first affordable alternative to the products of USSR wine and vodka factories. Due to its cheapness, it remained widely popular until the introduction of excise taxes in 1996.
Organoleptic qualities: The alcohol was diluted in a ratio of 1:2 to obtain a strength of 40 degrees. Without additives and additives, even normal ethanol mixed with water is quite difficult to consume. Not to mention fake alcohol. As a rule, something was necessarily added to this mixture.
Additional Ingredients: At the same time, dry juices became widespread: Zuko, Yupi, Invite. The packet of powder suggested “just adding water.” Naturally, alcohol was also added. Cheap and cheerful.
Homemade fruit liqueurs and vodkas 25-45%
Origin: the marking of the place of origin was arbitrary.
The secret of popularity: The first Russian businessmen realized the magical power of marketing: it’s one thing when the consumer dilutes the powder with water, sugar and alcohol at home, it’s quite another when he buys the same mixture in a beautiful bottle with a bright sticker and some funny name in Latin letters. For example, the recipe for Russian Baileys of that time is known: alcohol, boiled condensed milk, egg yolks. Similar products also disappeared in 1995.
Organoleptic qualities: One of the recent studies showed that even experts evaluate the taste of wine differently depending on its price: the more expensive the drink, the tastier it seems by default. The same applies to the design: to Soviet citizens, accustomed to the same type of colorless labels, everything bright by default seemed attractive and tasty.
Additional Ingredients: A worthy accompaniment to such a drink were the fruit bubble gums that were widespread at that time: Mamba, Love is, Donald Duck.
Amaretto liqueur 21-30%
Origin: Italy, Poland.
The secret of popularity: in 93-94 in some retail outlets one could find about two dozen varieties of the famous brand. A characteristic feature was a square bottle. Perhaps it was in demand because it was considered a romantic drink and was often purchased for dates. Being sweet and quite strong, it had an effect on women quite quickly. However, it is difficult to understand why exactly the almond taste has become such a reliable tool of temptation.
Organoleptic qualities: dark brown sweet alcoholic drink with a bitter aftertaste and the smell of almonds. Naturally it was counterfeited in huge quantities. It was quite difficult to drink it warm and clean, but that didn’t stop anyone.
Additional Ingredients: The best addition to a bottle of Amaretto was another foreign sweet: a Mars or Snickers bar.
Vodka Rasputin 40%
Origin: Germany.
The secret of popularity: A completely incredible advertisement for that time, which still looks quite good today. The 1993 commercial, in which a “magical” holographic portrait of Rasputin winked at the consumer as proof of the product’s authenticity, became a true classic. However, holography did not save the brand from pirates, which undermined customer confidence in it. It is worth noting separately that the brand still has high recognition in Russia.
Organoleptic qualities: no one remembers, because while drinking it was customary to discuss the winking bearded man.
Additional Ingredients: At the same time, the practice of drinking vodka with lemonade spread. The most famous after Pepsi and Coca for some time was Hershey-Cola.
Origin: USA
The secret of popularity: In contrast to the 10s of this century, in the late 80s and early 90s of the past, the Made in USA inscription was the best advertisement for any product. The name Smirnoff was also captivating because it was a Russian surname, as it were, naturalized and recognized overseas. Surreal advertising also played an important role.
Following this, a lot of vodkas appeared on -off.
Organoleptic qualities: no one paid attention, the main thing was the bottle - a sign of success and new times.
Additional Ingredients: in 1992, an indispensable attribute of a decent drinking session was raw smoked sausage and some exotic fruit, say, pineapple.
Wine “Monastery Hut” and “Bear’s Blood” 10%-11%
Origin: Bulgaria.
The secret of popularity: After the civil war began in Georgia, wine from there practically disappeared from stores, replacing cheap Spanish and Chilean wine at that time. At some point, it was simply impossible to buy something normal: it was either port wine or some kind of swill. Meanwhile, in big cities there have always been plenty of wine lovers. Compared to others, “Monastic Izba” and “Bear’s Blood” stood out favorably in terms of price-quality ratio.
Organoleptic qualities: then it seemed like a pretty decent semi-dry wine.
Additional Ingredients: black tea and guitar songs.
Sangria 7-9%
Origin: Spain, Germany, Bulgaria.
The secret of popularity: The compote-like light alcoholic drink went well among young people, especially among those who liked to sit in company but did not like to get drunk, as an elegant alternative to beer. Another important advantage: a bottle of one and a half liters or even two liters cost the same as the usual 0.7.
Organoleptic qualities: A wine drink with a fruity aroma and minimal hangover effect. Many years later it turned out that this is a Spanish recipe for sweltering heat; fruit and a lot of ice are added immediately before consumption.
Additional Ingredients: grapes, fruits.
Vermouth “Bouquet of Moldova” 16%
Origin: Moldova.
The secret of popularity: Until 1997, fortified wine was represented exclusively by traditional “777” or “Agdam” bottles. At the same time, as it turned out, the unavailable Martini and Campari are the same vermouth, that is, “Bouquet of Moldova” is almost a noble drink. It turned out to be ideal for moderate drinking: it’s not a shame to treat a decent girl and everyone doesn’t get drunk so quickly and gloomily. The place of “Bouquet of Moldova” was successfully taken by Salvatore and other inexpensive vermouths in the second half of the decade.
Organoleptic qualities: a sweet drink with a pleasant herbal taste. Important feature: it was sold in liter containers. A bottle without a snack for two had a guaranteed effect.
Additional Ingredients: fried dumplings, Alenka chocolate bar.
Gin&Tonic 6-7%
Origin: Finland, Poland, Russia.
The secret of popularity: Another important consumer problem of the early 90s was the shortage of light, cheap alcohol. Beer is a man's drink, girls need something more elegant. A jar of juniper soda was perfect for this role. Gin and tonic was the most popular alcoholic cocktail among high school girls long before Yagi.
Organoleptic qualities: carbon dioxide, a slight synthetic Christmas tree smell and a bitter taste, which well concealed the harshness of the alcohol. One can after school was enough to get you drunk, but two more that same day would give you a headache.
Additional Ingredients: long menthol cigarette.
"Baltika" No. 3 and 4
Origin: Saint Petersburg.
The secret of popularity: beer is the holy grail of the late Soviet drinker. Western beer even more so. In the 90s, a can of Tuborg or Heineken was more valuable than a bottle of vodka. After the collapse of the USSR, intoxicating drinks from Europe became available for free sale, but at first they were quite expensive. "Troika", which was not inferior to its foreign analogues, if not superior, became a real revolution and to a large extent laid the foundation for the success of domestic brewing. The second revolution was the Quartet, since before that practically no dark beer was sold in the country.
Organoleptic qualities: The usual Soviet “Zhigulevskoye” usually tasted pretty bad. “Baltika” Nos. 3 and 4 seemed absolutely fantastic at first. The author has recorded cases when the first bottle of this beer was consumed by three people as if it were good cognac.
Additional Ingredients: to dark beer - light and vice versa.
Today it is customary to talk about “alcoholization of the population in the dashing 90s.” But, as statistics show, it was the USSR in the 1970s and 80s that was the country of “everyday alcoholics.” The fact is that it was during these years that alcohol consumption statistics reached their maximum levels. So, how much and why did they drink during the era of stagnation, and what changed during the years of perestroika?
Alcoholization of the population under “dear Leonid Ilyich”
The USSR of the Brezhnev era was a country of drinking people. To verify this, just look at the statistics. Thus, in the 1960s, the average Soviet citizen drank an average of 4.6 liters of alcohol per year, and by the “stagnant” 1970s this figure had almost doubled - to 8.45 liters, and by the early 1980s – this figure reached 10.6 liters.
It turns out that in a year in the early 1980s, the average person drank 53 bottles of vodka or 118 bottles of wine. And this is the “average temperature in the hospital,” because there were people who did not drink at all or who drank very rarely. And if we add to this official figure the consumption of moonshine, homemade liqueurs and non-target liquids like cologne or glass wash, then the real picture looks shocking - the official figure can be multiplied by 1.5 - 2 times.
According to statistics from the same Brezhnev times, 2% of dead men were victims of alcohol poisoning. And not the consequences of many years of alcohol consumption, such as heart attacks, cirrhosis or pancreatitis, but poisoning. 23.7% occurred while intoxicated and about the same number of suicides for the same reason.
In general, 486 thousand people died in the USSR every year due to various reasons related to alcohol, which was quite comparable with the population of the regional city.
Today, many political scientists see the reason for the drunkenness of Soviet people in the state system of that time. The average Soviet citizen sometimes drank simply out of boredom. And what could working people do? You won’t start your own business, you won’t go abroad (except maybe once a year to the Crimea), you won’t earn more than 200 rubles. But you can go to the dacha every weekend and drink there with friends.
In addition, in the society of that time there was extremely high tolerance for alcoholics. Although anti-alcohol posters were hung on the streets and enterprises, drunkards were ridiculed in films, sobering-up stations were in operation, in real life they dealt with drunks at home and at work they tried not to fire them without any particular reason. And if dissidents were actively locked up in prisons and mental hospitals, then alcoholics were treated as their own, native proletarians who simply stumbled.
Gorbachev's anti-alcohol company
When Gorbachev came to power, perestroika began and glasnost was announced, people started talking about many problems of the Soviet system, including domestic drunkenness. On May 7, 1985, the Central Committee of the CPSU issued a resolution “On measures to overcome drunkenness and alcoholism,” with which the so-called “anti-alcohol campaign” began. As part of the latter, the state introduced unprecedented measures - prices for vodka more than doubled, which almost halved its consumption.
It is worth saying that this measure was discussed for quite a long time in government circles, because income from the sale of alcohol made up a significant part of the budget. But even here, excesses began - an order was given to cut down vineyards throughout the Union. Winemaking collective and state farms saved elite varieties as best they could.
It was Prohibition that led to the fact that people began to drink everything. They used sleeping pills and tranquilizers, the existence of which most drinkers did not even know existed. At the same time, for the first time, interest in drugs was recorded, which subsequently led to terrible mortality from overdoses. The people sang to the tune of the then hit song about Komarovo: “For a week, until the second, we’ll bury Gorbachev. Let’s dig up Brezhnev, we’ll drink as before.”
On the other hand, in parallel with these measures, Soviet citizens were allowed to travel abroad without problems, it became possible to open their own business, which gave optimism to active people who, during times of stagnation, were forced to drink out of hopelessness and meaninglessness in research institutes and factories.
One way or another, at the end of the Soviet Union, alcohol consumption per capita was 3.9 liters (while under Brezhnev it was 10.6 liters).
“Shouldn’t we have a glass of wine?!” - it seems that not only Russian people are asking this question. In any case, they look very realistic.
The issue of food costs is very relevant today. A few years ago, when going to the polls, candidates assured that they would return sausage at 2.20. This was almost the first point of their program. Now the situation has changed a little, but the prices of the 70-80s in the Soviet Union cause nostalgia for some, and irritation for others.
There is a constant comparison between those prices and modern ones. This does not take into account the level of wages and the cost of products, which have increased many times over due to world prices for petroleum products and fertilizers. And if you consider that all agriculture was subsidized, then the prices in stores and on the market become understandable.
It should also be noted that there were at least three categories of supply. The capital was provided with everything. Industrial centers fell into the first category. Their stores always had a lot of different goods. In regional centers and big cities the choice was limited. Provision of small towns, regional centers and, especially, villages was carried out on a residual basis. Today, many people remember how they went to industrial centers to buy sausage, fish, and canned food. Suburban trains were even called “sausage trains.”
And so imagine, we are in the Soviet Union in the stagnant Brezhnev times. We have to set the table for a family holiday dinner. First, we go to the bread store. We take a white bun for 20-24 kopecks, a rye roll for 16 kopecks, a loaf for 13 kopecks and butter buns depending on the size from 4 to 20 kopecks.
In a meat and dairy store, pork costs 2.00 – 2.20, beef – 1.90 – 2.00, lamb – 1.80. For jellied meat you can get pork legs for 0.32 – 0.60, beef legs for 0.20 – 0.30, chicken legs for 0.90 – 2.30 per kilogram. In the next department we buy milk on tap for 0.22 or in packaging for 0.34 kopecks per liter, a half-liter bottle of kefir for 0.30, having previously returned the empty one for 0.15. On the store display are 400 gram cans of condensed milk for 0.55. Of course, all these products could be purchased on the market, but all this would cost at least twice as much.
Before we go further, let's stop to drink kvass. We will pay 0.03 for a glass, and 0.06 for a glass. Or soda fountains will attract our attention - a glass with syrup is 0.03, without syrup - 0.01. The assortment of ice cream was much smaller than today. It cost customers 0.07 – fruit, dairy – 0.10, cream – 0.13, ice cream – 0.15, popsicle – 0.22.
The "Fish" store will please you, if you're lucky, with live carp 0.75 - 0.80, fresh frozen sturgeon 5.00 - 9.35, but more often frozen hake 0.20 - 0.40, salted herring in bulk 1.30 - 1.54, Ivasi herring - 3.00, sprat 0.30 per kilogram.
In the "Gastronom" in the "Grocery" department, let's try to buy buckwheat - 0.52, granulated sugar - 0.90, flour - 0.46, coarse rock salt - 0.10 per kilogram. A pack of Indian tea cost 0.90, a can of instant coffee – 6.00.
For confectionery products, we will buy a pack of Strawberry cookies - 0.26 and a pack of Yubileiny - 0.28, Belochka candies - 3.40, Kara-Kum - 4.00, a box of chocolates from 1.90 to 8.26.
For the traditional Olivier salad you need to take boiled sausage 2.20 - 2.60, a jar of mayonnaise - 0.33, a dozen eggs 0.90 - 1.20, a jar of peas - 0.39.
Among canned goods, sardines were popular - can 0.60 - 0.72, canned cucumbers and tomatoes - 0.40 - 0.50.
A student's breakfast most often consisted of a cup of tea, bread and butter, squash caviar for 0.42 or canned food "Tourist's Breakfast" for 0.33.
As for drinks, we give preference to wines: dry Moldavian 2.10 – 2.70, Georgian 3.00 – 4.00, Bulgarian 1.70 – 2.30. Fortified fruit and berry 1.10 – 1.80, grape – 2.30, vintage 2.88 – 4.24. We will spend from 4.40 to 13.60 for Three Stars cognac, 3.50 to 5.00 for vodka 0.5 liters, 3.50 to 5.00 for beer, 0.37 half a liter. The price included the price of a container of 0.12, which could be immediately returned or exchanged with an additional payment for a drink.
The state price of vegetables was as follows:
potatoes 0.12 – 0.15, cabbage 0.08 – 0.10, beets 0.09, onions 0.10-0.12, watermelon 0.05-0.10, apples – 0.20 – 0.50. But, unfortunately, everything in the retail chain was of very low quality. Agricultural products could also be purchased at the collective farm market. The prices were set by the farms, so the cost was 2-3 times higher.
