Vodka Politics (105 page)

12
. Stickley et al., “Alcohol Poisoning,” 446–47; Mark Lawrence Schrad, “A Lesson in Drinking,”
Moscow Times
, March 5, 2011.

13
. This is why famed Swedish doctor-turned-alcohol-reformer Ivan Bratt declared that absolute consumption statistics are “utterly valueless.” Marquis W. Childs,
Sweden: The Middle Way
(New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1936), 112. In this section I refer to a standard half-liter bottle of 80-proof vodka, conventional 750 milliliter bottles of wine at 12 percent alcohol, and international standard 0.35 liter bottles of beer at 5 percent alcohol. Stickley et al., “Alcohol Poisoning,” 446–47; Schrad, “Lesson in Drinking.”

14
. Khalturina and Korotaev, “Alkogol’naya katastrofa,” 21; Vladimir P. Nuzhnyi and Sergei A. Savchuk, “Nelegal’nyi alkogol‘ v Rossii: Sravnitel’naya toksichnost‘ I vliyanie na zdorov’e naseleniya,” in
Alkogol’naya katastrofa i vozmozhnosti gosudarstvennoi politiki v preodolenii alkogol’noi sverkosmertnosti v Rossii
, ed. Dar’ya A. Khalturina and Andrei V. Korotaev (Moscow: Lenand, 2010), 227.

15
. Garrett,
Betrayal of Trust
, 137.

16
. Aleksei Mitrofanov, “Prazdnik teper’ vsegda s toboi,”
Izvestiya
, Feb. 17, 1999, 8; Murray Feshbach, “Russia’s Population Meltdown,”
Wilson Quarterly
25, no. 1 (2001): 19; Hedrick Smith,
The Russians
(New York: Quadrangle/New York Times Book Co., 1976), 121. On the traditional Russian drinking culture see
chapter 7
and Walter Connor,
Deviance in Soviet Society: Crime, Delinquency and Alcoholism
(New York: Columbia University Press, 1972), 39–42.

17
. Richard Weitz, “Russia: Binge Drinking and Sudden Death,” Eurasianet.org, Dec. 15, 2010,
http://www.eurasianet.org/node/62577
(accessed Dec. 17, 2010). Higher death rates among Russian men is based on a 2010 presentation by Martin McKee, co-director of the European Center on Health and Societies in Transition; the audio podcast can be found at
http://csis.org/event/new-insights-catastrophic-level-mortality-russian-men
.

18
. Aleksandr Nemtsov,
Alkogol’naya istoriya Rossii: Noveishii period
(Moscow: URSS, 2009), 241; Francis C. Notzon et al., “Causes of Declining Life Expectancy in Russia,”
Journal of the American Medical Association
279, no. 10 (1998): 798.

19
. Martin McKee, “Zdorov’e rossiyan: Chto nuzhno predprinyat’, chtoby izmenit’ situatsiyu k luchschemu,” in
Alkogol’naya katastrofa i vozmozhnosti gosudarstvennoi politiki v preodolenii alkogol’noi sverkosmertnosti v Rossii
, ed. Dar’ya A. Khalturina and Andrei V. Korotaev (Moscow: Lenand, 2010), 141; Martin McKee et al., “The Composition of Surrogate Alcohols Consumed in Russia,”
Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research
29, no. 10 (2005): 1887–88; Vladimir M. Shkol’nikov, Evgenii M. Andreev, and Dmitrii A. Zhdanov, “Smertnost’ trudosposobnogo naseleniya, alkogol‘ i prodolzhitel’nost’ zhizni v Rossii,” in
Alkogol’naya katastrofa i vozmozhnosti gosudarstvennoi politiki v preodolenii alkogol’noi sverkosmertnosti v Rossii
, ed. Dar’ya A. Khalturina and Andrei V. Korotaev (Moscow: Lenand, 2010), 98.

20
. David A. Leon et al., “Nepit’evoi alkogol‘ v Rossii: Potreblenie i vozdeistvie na zdorov’e. Chto nam izvestno?” in
Alkogol’naya katastrofa i vozmozhnosti gosudarstvennoi politiki v preodolenii alkogol’noi sverkosmertnosti v Rossii
, ed. Dar’ya A. Khalturina and Andrei V. Korotaev (Moscow: Lenand, 2010), 156, 59.

21
. Garrett,
Betrayal of Trust
, 136; Eberstadt, “Drunken Nation,” 61. During the 1990s alcohol directly killed 31 out of every 100,000 people in Russia and 54 out of every 100,000 men. Nuzhnyi and Savchuk, “Nelegal’nyi alkogol’ v Rossii,” 271; Aleksandr Nemtsov, “Mnogo pit’, vse-taki vredno,”
EKO
, no. 281 (1997): 187; Vroublevsky and Harwin, “Russia,” 213.

22
. A. M. Harkin, ed.,
Alcohol in Europe—A Health Perspective
(Copenhagen: W.H.O. Regional Office for Europe, 1995); Vladimir S. Moiseev,
Alkogol’naya bolezn’: Porazheniya vnutrennikh organov pri alkogolizme
(Moscow: Izdatel’stvo Universiteta druzhby narodov, 1990), 18–20, 54–55.

23
. Nicholas Eberstadt, “Russia: Too Sick to Matter?”
Policy Review
, no. 95 (1999): 9; Larry Husten, “Global Epidemic of Cardiovascular Disease Predicted,”
The Lancet
, Nov. 7, 1998, 352; Sonni Efron, “Grim Prognosis,”
Los Angeles Times
, Nov. 12, 1995, 1.

24
. Eberstadt, “Russia: Too Sick to Matter?” 9.

25
. Khalturina and Korotaev, “Alkogol’naya katastrofa,” 17–19; William Alex Pridemore, “Vodka and Violence: Alcohol Consumption and Homicide Rates in Russia,”
American Journal of Public Health
92, no. 12 (2002): 1921; Eberstadt, “Drunken Nation,” 60–61; “Fact of Life in Russia,”
60 Minutes
, CBS News, May 19, 1996.

26
. Shkol’nikov, Andreev, and Zhdanov, “Smertnost’ trudosposobnogo naseleniya,” 98; Goskomstat Rossii,
Sotsial’noe polozhenie i uroven’ zhizni naseleniya Rossii: Statisticheskii sbornik
(Moscow: Goskomstat Rossii, 1998), 310.

27
. Average life expectancy among Russian men bottomed out at 57.6 years in 1994. Aleksandr Nemtsov, “Tendentsii potrebleniya alkogolya i obuslovlennye alkogolem poteri zdorov’ya i zhizni v Rossii v 1946–1996 gg.,” in
Alkogol‘ i zdorov’e naseleniya Rossii: 1900–2000
, ed. Andrei K. Demin (Moscow: Rossiiskaya assotsiatsiya obshchestvennogo zdorov’ya, 1998), 105; Anders Åslund and Andrew Kuchins,
The Russia Balance Sheet
(New York: Petersen Institute for International Economics, 2009), 86.

28
. Khalturina and Korotaev, “Alkogol’naya katastrofa,” 24–25. Every additional liter of alcohol consumed per year reduces a man’s life expectancy by 10.5 months but only 4 months for a woman. Andrei V. Podlazov, “Demograficheskaya demodernizatsiya i alkogolizatsiya Rossii,” in
Alkogol’naya katastrofa i vozmozhnosti gosudarstvennoi politiki v preodolenii alkogol’noi sverkosmertnosti v Rossii
, ed. Dar’ya A. Khalturina and Andrei V. Korotaev (Moscow: Lenand, 2010), 116. The widest Soviet sex differential between 1980 and 1983 was 10.2 years. W. Ward Kingkade and Eduardo E. Arriaga, “Sex Differentials in Mortality in the Soviet Union,”
in
Social Change and Social Issues in the Former USSR
, ed. Walter Joyce (New York: St. Martin’s, 1992), 115.

29
. Feshbach, “Russia’s Population Meltdown,” 16–17; Eberstadt, “Drunken Nation,” 54. TFR and other demographic data can be found at the website of Goskomstat Rossii, the state statistical agency:
http://www.gks.ru/dbscripts/Cbsd/DBInet.cgi?pl=2403012
(accessed Jan. 14, 2012.)

30
. “Fact of Life in Russia,”
60 Minutes
, CBS News, May 19, 1996.

31
. Feshbach, “Russia’s Population Meltdown,” 16–17; Eberstadt, “Drunken Nation,” 54. Relatedly, “90 Percent of Russian Men Suffer from Erectile Dysfunction,”
Pravda
, Jan. 11, 2012,
http://english.pravda.ru/health/11-01-2012/120204-erectile_dysfunction-0
(accessed Jan. 12, 2012).

32
. Garrett,
Betrayal of Trust
, 135. See also Victoria I. Sakevich and Boris P. Denisov, “The Future of Abortions in Russia,” Paper presented at the European Population Conference 2008, July 9–12, in Barcelona, Spain,
http://epc2008.princeton.edu/download
. aspx?submissionId=80419 (accessed Feb. 2, 2012).

33
. Nikita Mironov, “Rossiya vymiraet, potomu chto v strane ne ostalos’ muzhchin,”
Komsomol’skaya pravda
, June 24 2009,
http://www.kp.ru/daily/24316.3/508858
(accessed Nov. 5, 2010); Paul Goble, “High Mortality among Men Undercuts Moscow’s Pro-Birth Policies,”
Moscow Times
, June 30, 2009; “Endangered Species,” in Nemtsov,
Alkogol’naya istoriya Rossii
, 294. 2010 census figures are available at
http://www.perepis-2010.ru/results_of_the_census
(accessed Feb. 1, 2012). Murray Feshbach is quoted in Garrett,
Betrayal of Trust
, 130.

34
. Khalturina and Korotaev, “Alkogol’naya katastrofa,” 19.

35
. Ibid., 18; Eberstadt, “Drunken Nation,” 55; Nemtsov,
Alkogol’naya istoriya Rossii
, 108.

36
. Judyth Twigg, “What Has Happened to Russian Society?” in
Russia after the Fall
, ed. Andrew C. Kuchins (Washington, D.C.: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 2002), 152–53.

37
. Khalturina and Korotaev, “Alkogol’naya katastrofa,” 18; Jake Rudnitsky, “Bleak House,”
The eXile
, Jan. 22, 2003,
http://exile.ru/articles/detail.php?ARTICLE_ID=6802&IBLOCK_ID=35
(accessed Jan. 2, 2013); Eberstadt, “Dying Bear,” 100; Eric Rosenthal et al., “Implementing the Right to Community Integration for Children with Disabilities in Russia,”
Health and Human Rights
4, no. 1 (1999): 83; Garrett,
Betrayal of Trust
, 138.

38
. Twigg, “What Has Happened to Russian Society?” 151. Also see Fred Weir, “Russia’s Shrinking Population Mars Putin’s Superpower Ambitions,”
Global Post
, Nov. 3, 2011,
http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/regions/europe/russia/111102/russia-population-superpower-health-soviet-union?page=0,2
(accessed Feb. 2, 2012). This is why I find it important to support organizations like the Russian Orphan Opportunity Fund, which provides educational and vocational development:
http://www.roofnet.org/mission
.

39
. Garrett,
Betrayal of Trust
, 139–40.

40
. Richard Galpin, “Russia’s Disabled Suffer Neglect and Abuse,” BBC News, Oct. 12, 2009,
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/8302633.stm
(accessed June 26, 2011); Rimma Avshalumova, “Finding Work Is Difficult for Disabled,”
Moscow Times
, Feb. 14, 2012,
http://www.themoscowtimes.com/business/article/finding-work-is-difficult-for-disabled/453103
. html (accessed Feb. 14, 2012); Rosenthal et al., “Implementing the Right to Community Integration for Children with Disabilities in Russia.” One in nine families with disabled children reports familial strife with regard to alcohol. Ethel Dunn, “The Disabled in Russia in the 1990s,” in
Russia’s Torn Safety Nets: Health and Social Welfare during the Transition
, ed. Mark G. Field and Judyth L. Twigg (New York: St. Martin’s, 2000).

41
. Laurie C. Miller et al., “Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorders in Children Residing in Russian Orphanages: A Phenotypic Survey,”
Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research
30, no. 3 (2006): 531. Likewise, see Khalturina and Korotaev, “Alkogol’naya katastrofa,” 19; Tatiana Balachova et al., “Women’s Alcohol Consumption and Risk for Alcohol-Exposed Pregnancies in Russia,”
Addiction
107, no. 1 (2012): 109.

42
. Feshbach, “Russia’s Population Meltdown,” 15; Twigg, “What Has Happened to Russian Society?” 150; Garrett,
Betrayal of Trust
, 130. See also “Teenagers’ Health Worsens—Rf Chief Pediatrician,” ITAR-TASS Daily, May 12, 2012.

43
. “Fact of Life in Russia,” “
60 Minutes
, CBS News, May 19, 1996.

44
.
Doklad o sostoyanii zdorov’ya detei v Rossiiskoi Federatsii (po itogam Vserossiiskoi dispanserizatsii 2002 goda
) (Moscow: 2003), 31–59; cited in Murray Feshbach, “The Russian Military: Population and Health Constraints,” in
Russian Power Structures: Present and Future Roles in Russian Politics
, ed. Jan Leijonhielm and Fredrik Westerlund (Stockholm: FOI, Swedish Defense Research Agency, 2007), 138–42; personal correspondence with Murray Feshbach, Feb. 18, 2012. Also see “Russia’s Alcohol Consumption More Than 100% above Critical Level,” RIA Novosti, Sept. 24, 2009.
http://en.rian.ru/russia/20090924/156238102
. html (accessed Sept. 28, 2009).

Chapter 22

1
. Moscow Distillery Cristall webpage,
http://www.kristall.ru/page.php?P=1
(accessed Nov. 8, 2010). On the history of Stolichnaya see also Vladimir Ul’yanov, “Vodka Stolichnaya: Kak vse nachinalos,” Popsop.ru, May 27, 2008,
http://popsop.ru/2155
(accessed Nov. 8, 2010); Viktor Erofeev,
Russkii apokalipsis: Opyt khudozhestvennoi eskhatologii
(Moscow: Zebra E, 2008), 26.

2
. Aleksei Sivov and Igor’ Ivanov, “U ‘Kristalla’ dvoitsya,”
Izvestiya
, Aug. 5, 2000, 2.

3
. Nikolai Pavlov, “Violent DTS at Kristall,”
Current Digest of the Russian Press
33, no. 52 (2000): 13; originally published in the
Rossiiskaya gazeta
, Aug. 15, 2000, 2.

4
. Nikolai Petrov, “Kak v kaple vodki: Politika, finansy, regionalizm,” in
Regiony Rossii v. 1999 g.: Ezhegodnoe prilozheniye k politicheskomu almanakhu Russii
, ed. Carnegie Center Moscow (Moscow: Gendal’f, 2000), 143; Sophie Lambroschini, “Stand-Off at Vodka Distillery Continues,” Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, Aug. 8, 2000,
http://www.rferl.org/content/article/1094494.html
(accessed Feb. 2, 2012).