«Колбаса — дело доверия»: фальсификация пищевых продуктов в России в годы Первой мировой войны (1914–1918 гг.)
“Sausage is a matter of confidence”: The Counterfeiting of Foodstuffs in Russia during the Years of the First World War (1914–1918s)

Summary/Abstract: This article is dedicated to the problem of the counterfeiting of foodstuffs in Russia during World War I. It shows that during these years, many counterfeit products appeared on the consumer market. This problem was exacerbated by an undeveloped system of commercial and sanitary inspection, the absence of relevant laws and regulations, and the absence of developed standards for production, combined with widespread scarcity and high consumer prices. The counterfeiting of food products, which did not require any special investment, thus grew on a number of fronts, involving: substitution of lower grade products, the underweighting of the desired product, or the addition of admixtures to said product. Quality suffered as a result. Over time, counterfeiting changed as well, becoming more crude. Attempts at quality control on the communal level proved to be unsuccessful. The only alternative—state supervision of goods on the consumer food market and the publication of regulations concerning food standards and its composition — was only realized in Soviet Russia during the 1920-e years.

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