When Pepsi Owned the World’s 6th Largest Navy

In 1989, the Soviet Union signed a bizarre $3 billion trade deal with PepsiCo. Because Soviet rubles were non-convertible on international currency markets, Moscow paid Pepsi with 17 decommissioned submarines, a cruiser, a frigate, and a destroyer—briefly making the soft drink company one of the largest naval fleets on the planet before the ships were scrapped in Norway. Subscribe for more wild Cold War history and untold wartime trade deals.