Remember when Pepsi-Cola had the 6th largest navy in the world?

In the late 1950s, Pepsi became the first Western product to be sold in the Soviet Union. Over time, it developed into a popular beverage among Soviet citizens, but there was a financial complication: the Soviet Union's currency, the ruble, was not easily convertible to U.S. dollars. To navigate this currency issue, a unique barter agreement was struck in the late 1980s. The Soviet Union agreed to trade various goods, including oil and vodka, for Pepsi products. However the deal took an unexpected turn when the Soviet Union faced a shortage of foreign reserves and products to trade. As a substitute, the Soviet Union gave Pepsi a fleet of 17 diesel submarines, a cruiser, a frigate, and a destroyer, along with some civilian ships, in exchange for $3 billion worth of Pepsi. While this did briefly make PepsiCo the owner of the sixth-largest submarine fleet in the world, the company had no intention of maintaining a military presence. Instead, Pepsi sold the naval assets to a Swedish company who scrapped it, effectively converting the metal into money that could be invested back into their beverage business.