Muscovites have been puzzling over a series of vaguely Warholian posters appearing in subway stations. The “product” being presented is called Amerikanskoye Salo, which translates to “American Lard.” Judging from the poster, it comes in several exciting varieties, including chocolate-covered lard and lard drizzled with borscht. Frankly, we are a little puzzled, too. Depending on your source, “Salo” could be: a) a political PR stunt involving Ukraine, b) a viral PR campaign for a new book, or c) neither of the above. The only thing we’re pretty sure about is that this stuff is not for eating.

The first explanation appeared in yesterday’s Kommersant. The business newspaper claims the ad campaign was at least partially orchestrated by political consultants from A Just Russia, the country’s third-largest political party. By displaying foods with a tasty outside and lardy inside, the images are designed to make people think about how crappy and unhealthy American food is. This will grow into an antipathy toward all things American, including the candidacy of pro-Western Ukrainian President Viktor Yuschenko, who many Russians believe was "planted" by U.S. operatives. The goal, then, is to affect public attitudes about the Ukrainian presidential election and get Russia more involved in influencing the outcome this time around. The Ukrainian phase of the campaign, which will cost $9 million and may even include selling real American lard in cans at throwaway prices, is set to begin soon.

A Just Russia, by the way, was formed in 2006 as a coalition party for pensioners and economically left-leaning nationalists. They are pro-Kremlin and basically exist to make it look like there is more than one political party of any consequence in Russia. What they have to do with lard or the Ukrainian elections is beyond us.

Convoluted enough for you? It gets worse.

The only text on the posters besides “American Lard” is a link to the website Vokr.ru. If you go there you find it’s the site for a political movement/series of books called Content Warriors, which is some sort of Machiavellian philosophy about changing the world through PR. Which is perhaps why LiveJournal blogger Norvezhvsky Lesnoi disagrees completely with Kommersant’s analysis, and thinks the posters are all part of a viral campaign to sell the books.

Meanwhile, blogger and RUSSIA! contributor Leonid Bershidsky suspects that Norvezhsky Lesnoi is in on the whole thing, and being paid to post about it by the publisher of Content Wars, Eksmo. Then again, Bershidsky is apparently on the board of Eksmo, so now we don’t know what to think!

All of this appears to be going over the heads of the general public. At the Oktyabrskaya Metro station on Wednesday, commuters stared at the lard poster, transfixed. One man whipped out his camera to take a picture. When I asked the girl near me, "What’s with the poster?" she laughed, and assured me it was a new kind of food. “You know, American lard. It goes in chocolates.” Sigh. Propaganda here used to be so simple.

Сальный номер: Украинская предвыборная кампания началась в московском метро [Kommersant]

Photo courtesy Norvezhsky Lesnoi