Recently i had a rather unique chance of being exposed to some of the remains of the Soviet era. I saw a box of detergent from the 1970’s. It wasn’t just any detergent, but an imported one, which was a rarity at that time. People would put an effort to get as much as possible of imported detergent, stock it, and use it for generations - go figure when would be the next time you could get it. This is how today, over 30 years older, we can get a chance of traveling back in time.

This particular detergent was imported nowhere else, but from Iran, and the box has a very nice, typical 1970’s design. But the best feature of that detergent is its name. It’s called “Barf”. Take a look yourself…

Now, the questions is, does it have any meaning in Persian, or there was just someone with a very sarcastic sense of humor in Iran who decided to sell Russians detergent with such an interesting name? Maybe it is similar to the sense of humor of a person who sold Israeli paper cups to Saudi Arabia?