IVAR BERGLIN: In the fall of 1977, Poland instigated a
trade war with Russia over the right to produce vodka.
It was the first time that Poland officially tried to
claim the drink as its own, but it would not be the last.
This is the story of the Vodka Wars.
So where are you taking us?
I want to go to a big, big club--
huge club.
TAXI DRIVER: Yeah, porno.
IVAR BERGLIN: Yeah?
TAXI DRIVER: Yeah.
IVAR BERGLIN: No, not porno.
Just a big, big club.
[LAUGHING]
TAXI DRIVER: What.
Cinema?
[SPEAKING RUSSIAN]
IVAR BERGLIN: I'm taking the tour of Moscow on vodka.
[HOUSE MUSIC PLAYING]
IVAR BERGLIN: Keep going.
TAXI DRIVER: [SPEAKING RUSSIAN]
IVAR BERGLIN: Look at that.
Look at that.
And look at that.
Now, have some vodka.
No.
TAXI DRIVER: Yeah.
[CLUB MUSIC PLAYING]
IVAR BERGLIN: These guys are going to send me around the
world, it turns out, to find the origins of vodka.
I need you to show me--
TAXI DRIVER: Show me.
IVAR BERGLIN: --the first piece of Russian vodka.
Where do I need to go?
You gotta keep it going.
TAXI DRIVER: [SPEAKING RUSSIAN]
[ACCORDION MUSIC PLAYING]
MALE SPEAKER: [SPEAKING RUSSIAN]
IVAR BERGLIN: I'm Ivar, and I work for VICE in Scandinavia.
I do a lot of different things--
lots of the shit jobs no one else wants to do, really.
But in New York, they think I don't do anything at all.
It's a bit of a bummer, except that it works out pretty good
for me, because every once in awhile, they call me up and
tell me to pack my things on a moment's notice.
I'm getting to do another doc for VBS.
Eddy, my boss at VBS in New York, called me and said he
had an idea to make a film called The Vodka Wars.
It sounded nuts.
Vodka war?
For me, it's good time juice-- something you put into a
cocktail, not something you fight over.
Well, in Russia and Poland, it is.
These two nations have been fighting over who invented the
drink for years.
For them, it's a matter of national pride.
And apparently, it's a reason to literally go to war.
I was hooked.
I had no idea that Poland made vodka.
Like most people in the rest of the world, I thought vodka
came from Russia.
Where is vodka from?
MALE SPEAKER: Russia?
IVAR BERGLIN: Russia?
MALE SPEAKER: Russia.
IVAR BERGLIN: Russia.
MALE SPEAKER: Maybe Russia.
FEMALE SPEAKER: Russia.
FEMALE SPEAKER: I think Russia.
FEMALE SPEAKER: I think Sweden.
MALE SPEAKER: Poland.
FEMALE SPEAKER: From Russia?
FEMALE SPEAKER: Poland.
IVAR BERGLIN: Poland, Russia.
FEMALE SPEAKER: Yeah.
IVAR BERGLIN: OK.
So I needed to do some more investigating.
First off, Mother Russia.
[CAPTAIN OVER INTERCOM, INDISCERNABLE]
IVAR BERGLIN: I'm following the American elections, but
more important, there's a new club opening.
We're going there tonight.
11 suspects have been charged over a smuggling operation of
vodka from Russia to Estonia via a two
kilometer underwater pipeline.
They're even building pipelines to
get their vodka across.
This was my first trip to Moscow, so like any good
tourist, I went straight to Red Square.
My first Russian interviews were awesome.
FEMALE SPEAKER: [SPEAKING RUSSIAN]
IVAR BERGLIN: Vodka?
FEMALE SPEAKER: [SPEAKING RUSSIAN]
IVAR BERGLIN: That's great.
That's what I always say.
Lenin.
MALE SPEAKER: Mr. Lenin
MALE SPEAKER: Mr. Stalin.
IVAR BERGLIN: Mr. Stalin.
Nice to meet you.
MALE SPEAKER: Welcome to Moscow.
IVAR BERGLIN: Thank you.
Do you know where I could find some good vodka around here?
MALE SPEAKER: Vodka?
IVAR BERGLIN: Yeah.
MALE SPEAKER: Be careful with Russian vodka.
If you drink it, only with the food, understand?
And Russian women-- is a danger, understand?
IVAR BERGLIN: Russian women are dangerous.
MALE SPEAKER: Dangerous, yeah.
IVAR BERGLIN: Yeah, if you drink too
much vodka, they are.
After palling around with Lenin and Stalin, we headed to
the Russian vodka museum, where they were celebrating
500 years of Russian vodka.
As soon as I got into the museum, they stuck me in a
screening room and showed me the history of Russia
according to vodka.
NARRATOR: [SPEAKING RUSSIAN]
IVAR BERGLIN: Oh, thank you.
ALEXANDER NIKITIN: You're welcome.
What is your name?
IVAR BERGLIN: Ivar.
ALEXANDER NIKITIN: Ivar.
IVAR BERGLIN: And you are?
ALEXANDER NIKITIN: Where did you come from?
Alexander.
IVAR BERGLIN: I'm from Sweden.
ALEXANDER NIKITIN: Very good, Sweden.
IVAR BERGLIN: Yeah.
ALEXANDER NIKITIN: Very good.
With please.
IVAR BERGLIN: So can you tell me a little
bit about this museum?
ALEXANDER NIKITIN: [SPEAKING RUSSIAN]
IVAR BERGLIN: So who owns this collection?
ALEXANDER NIKITIN: [SPEAKING RUSSIAN]
IVAR BERGLIN: All these things are 500 years old?
ALEXANDER NIKITIN: [RUSSIAN].
IVAR BERGLIN: [RUSSIAN]?
ALEXANDER NIKITIN: [RUSSIAN].
No.
[LAUGHING]
IVAR BERGLIN: But how old is Russian vodka?
ALEXANDER NIKITIN: [SPEAKING RUSSIAN]
IVAR BERGLIN: How do you know that?
ALEXANDER NIKITIN: [SPEAKING RUSSIAN]
IVAR BERGLIN: Do you have a document or something to show
me where I can see that it's written down?
ALEXANDER NIKITIN: [SPEAKING RUSSIAN]
IVAR BERGLIN: So "Russian Vodka, an Illustrated
History."
ALEXANDER NIKITIN: [SPEAKING RUSSIAN]
IVAR BERGLIN: Russian culture and vodka, I'm guessing.
ALEXANDER NIKITIN: [SPEAKING RUSSIAN]
IVAR BERGLIN: In what bar can I see this today, tonight?
ALEXANDER NIKITIN: [SPEAKING RUSSIAN]
IVAR BERGLIN: So the museum was a little light on any
evidence regarding the Russian origins of vodka.
But this isn't just about vodka.
It's about Russian nationalism.
And vodka, like oil and gas, is just another commodity that
can be traded for power.
To really understand the Vodka Wars, we had to understand who
the hell we're dealing with.
What is modern Russia really like?
To learn more we had to meet the KGB all the way back in
Washington, DC.
Oleg Kalugin is a former KGB general that now lives in
Washington, DC.
Oleg knows old Russia and new Russia, and he explained the
complexities of both to us.
OLEG KALUGIN: Well, let me put it this way.
In the Soviet days, we had three pillars--
Communist Party, bureaucracy, KGB,
military industrial complex.
After the collapse of the USSR, it's Russian
government, KGB, 70%.
Second--
private business, most of them connections with the KGB, and
criminals who also have connections.
It's all under one roof.
And that's what makes Russia an entirely different country.
This is the fusion of government, private
enterprise, and criminal elements.
That's what Russia is today.
IVAR BERGLIN: Sometimes, after a night of good, clean vodka
fun, it's good to get naked and beaten with branches, even
if it's by a dude.
[SHOUTING]
IVAR BERGLIN: Gives you time to really think about stuff.
If cleared my mind and reminded me that even though
Oleg's Russia is kind of ominous, it actually was
Poland the that the first shot in the
world's first Vodka War.
In the fall of 1977, a trade war took place between USSR
and Poland.
Known as the Vodka War, it saw Poland claim in the
International Trade Court that vodka first came from Poland.
As such, only they had the right to call their product
vodka, and all others, including the USSR, had to be
labeled bread wine.
At first, the Soviets dismissed
Poland's claims as a joke.
But when they realized their small neighbor was serious,
they ask well-known historian and Soviet patriot William
Pokhlebkin to investigate.
This dude claimed that vodka was first instilled in Moscow
in 1440, decades before it apparently appeared in Poland.
Based on his research, the court ruled
in the USSR's favor.
Poland lost the first Vodka War.
Recently, many academics have disputed Pokhlebkin's work and
this date, 1440.
Pokhlebkin died in 2000, but we managed to find his friend
and publisher in Moscow.
We wanted to know more about the man that wrote the book
that squashed Poland's vodka ambitions.
BORIS PASTERNAK: [SPEAKING RUSSIAN]
IVAR BERGLIN: Pokhlebkin?
BORIS PASTERNAK: Pokhlebkin.
[SPEAKING RUSSIAN]
IVAR BERGLIN: Was the book "The History of Vodka"
well-received here in Russia?
BORIS PASTERNAK: [SPEAKING RUSSIAN]
IVAR BERGLIN: Pokhlebkin's book can't be trusted.
In fact, one academic was particularly blunt.
"If you read this book, keep a strong bottle of vodka by your
side to stun the more thoughtful parts of your
brain." So we went looking for some evidence of our own.
We went to Oxford, England to find out something that we
thought would be crystal clear--
the origins of the word "vodka."
NINA KRUGLIKOVA: The origin of the book "vodka" is not as
crystal clear as it may seem at first sight.
Most Russian speakers would consider it to be a word of
purely Russian origin.
And even the first etymological dictionaries of
the Russian language did not include this word.
Some Slavonic scholars think that its origin can be traced
to the Polish language, to the Polish word "wodka."
IVAR BERGLIN: Most dictionaries have the word
"vodka" spelled with a V. And the Poles have it spelled with
a W. How come the West excepted the V
as its common spelling?
NINA KRUGLIKOVA: I'm not sure about this question.
But it might get back to that particular
case in 1972, I think.
No, 1982--
the year [INAUDIBLE] was given a priority to produce vodka as
the Russian original alcoholic drink and has exclusive rights
on its advertising under this label in the international
market, as the book says.
IVAR BERGLIN: Is that right?
NINA KRUGLIKOVA: It depends on what you mean by right.
IVAR BERGLIN: Do you think that vodka might be Polish?
NINA KRUGLIKOVA: I think that there is great
likelihood of this.
IVAR BERGLIN: So I went all the way to Oxford just to end
up right back with Pokhlebkin's book, "The
History of Vodka." Bummer.
If Pokhlebkin's book isn't to be trusted, why didn't the
Poles fight back with some evidence of their own?