The Armenian Sparkling Water Machine

This is a picture of a sparkling water machine.

A sparkling water machine is an immensely satisfying device that provides instantaneous sparkling water in a variety of flavours from plain to fruity and sugary.

To operate a sparkling water machine, simply insert a small coin worth approximately 25 cents, and press the button to choose what kind of sparkling water is tickling your fancy. Change is not possible, so if you don’t have a smaller coin, prepare to either drink lots of water or pay one forward to the next thirsty traveller.

Once coins are inserted, press one of the buttons. A cup will fall into the bottom of the machine with a satisfying “plop” and then begin to fill with a delicious spray of sparkling water. The sparkling water is plentiful, and the cup will runneth over for a while before the machine decides it’s fulfilled its sparkling water machine duties.

A friend and I thought the sparkling water machine was novel and very funny, so he took a picture of me in front of it. As he went to take a second so that the part that said “sparkling water” (or rather, gazirovnaya voda) would be visible, we heard a rather sharp “nielzya! (don’t!)” as an unsmiling official stared daggers at us, simply for the crime of being delighted enough by a sparkling water machine to want to preserve it for posterity. We quickly shuffled over to the train platform only to watch her motion for two young men to come over. The two performed a thorough inspection of the sparkling water machine and even opened it to have a good look inside. They then appeared to confirm to the original official that we were not terrorists who’d had the novel idea of planning an attack via sparkling water machine, or thieves who hijacked the sparkling water machine in order to dispense ourselves sparkling water whenever we so pleased, but just bizarre tourists naïve enough to think that a sparkling water machine was worth writing home about. Nonetheless, this officious official continued to give us dirty looks until we boarded the train. How dare we overstep the boundaries in this way? Sparkling water machines are very serious business.