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Эд_2006
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By Alexei Bayer | Tuesday, May 30, 2006
Vodka has been an integral part of the Russian economy for centuries.
Yet, in its current form, it is only a bit more than one hundred years old. Intriguingly, much of Russia’s recent history can be seen through a glass of vodka — or, at least, through a bottle.
Many nations of the world are associated with their favorite poison.
The French are forever linked with red wine. The Germans are inconceivable without a mug of their favorite beer.
The Irish go hand-in-glove with whiskey.
Russia’s heart and soul
No prizes for guessing what alcoholic beverage the Russians are most fond of. It’s vodka, of course. The drink seems to be as old as Mother Russia herself.
And it appears as if every Russian imbibes it first with his — or her
— mother’s milk.
And that the inventor of modern vodka — who discovered in 1894 that the stuff
is best when it is exactly 40% alcohol (80 proof) — was the world-renowned chemist Dmitry Mendeleev.
Professor Mendeleev is otherwise known around the world for compiling the Periodic Table of Chemical Elements.
Drinking in Russia
Not that Russians did not drink vodka before Mendeleev. The first mention of vodka in Russian history dates back to 1386. It was brought there by the Italians.
True, when vodka assumed its modern 40-degree strength, it represented a major shift in the alcoholic content of the drink.
From peasant to camarade
But perhaps the most significant shift in vodka consumption occurred as
a result of the Bolshevik Revolution. Its grand design was to transfer to workers and peasants the means of production — which, in turn,
was supposed to remove exploitation.
According Lenin and his cohorts,
was the main cause of excess drinking in pre-revolutionary Russia.
Russians kept drinking even more under communism. Except that the business of distilling and selling vodka very quickly began to reflect the political and economic peculiarities of Soviet society.
Two choices
In the 1960s, there were only two varieties of vodka on store shelves
at any one time — one slightly cheaper and the other a bit more expensive.
Form follows content
The more expensive brand, known around the world as Stoli — Stolichnaya —
went for Rb3.12. Those two price tags were known by heart to every Soviet citizen — man, woman and child.
Both brands came mainly in half-liter bottles which, once opened, could
not be recapped. That, more than anything else, reflected prevailing
Soviet mores at the time.
In front of a food store where vodka was sold, you would likely see
disheveled men trying to put together a troika. Each would contribute
a ruble — and the half-liter bottle yielded exactly three glasses.
Rules and regulations
Since a bottle of vodka cost around three rubles, that number also became
the common price of all types of goods and services — from fixing a leaky
faucet to buying a truckload of stolen logs for your wood-burning stove.
Still, this being the Soviet Union, there were plenty of rules and regulations concerning the national drink. For example, vodka was sold only starting
at 11 am — and the last store closed no later than 11 pm.
Skirting the rules
There were numerous ways around all those rules. For example, taxi drivers
could sell you a bottle of vodka at any time of day or night — with a hefty
mark-up, of course.
Many people believe that it was U.S. President Ronald Reagan — and his uncompromising stance against the Evil Empire — that finally broke the back of communism. This is probably a mistaken view.
The collapse of communism was slow. The first signal appeared in the early
1970s — when the Soviet government suddenly raised the price of a bottle of vodka.
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