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Russia fact of the day
Russia's average annual alcohol consumption has reached 15 litres (26 pints) per person, nearly tripling the 1990 average of 5.4 litres, the country's consumer protection agency said Monday.
Of course that's both good news and bad news. Here is the link, which reports that 12 percent of all deaths in Russia are alcohol-related.
Posted by Tyler Cowen on April 10, 2007 at 11:54 AM | Permalink
Comments
26 pints doesn't seem like all that much--roughly 78 cans of 12 oz. beer. That's not even 2 a week. is this figure right, or am I missing something?
Posted by: Thelonious_Nick at Apr 10, 2007 12:22:05 PM
How is this good news?
Posted by: RWB at Apr 10, 2007 12:23:34 PM
How is this good news?
Increased consumption is probably a result of increased wages and/or cheaper vodka. That's how.
Posted by: Robert at Apr 10, 2007 12:32:14 PM
26 pints doesn't seem like all that much(...)
that's 15 litres of pure ethyl alcohol, not 15 litres of alcohol-containing liquids... roughly 39.5 litres of 38° vodka :)
How is this good news?
more legal vodka - probably less moonshine.
Posted by: Pretinieks at Apr 10, 2007 12:41:29 PM
"Increased consumption is probably a result of increased wages and/or cheaper vodka. That's how."
coupled with "12 percent of all deaths in Russia are alcohol-related", that seems like a very dubious statement.
I would consider it more analogous to something like "Flynt, MI, has had a tripling in the number of lottery tickets purchased per person. Of course that's both good news and bad news."
Less obvious to me is how it actually is good news in any way, unless you sell alchohol in Russia.
Posted by: theCoach at Apr 10, 2007 12:43:48 PM
It is difficult to speak about the average between 1000 millionairs and 1000 paupers. Same about drinking: there are folks in Russia who drink everything that contains alcohol in gallons, and folks who never drink anything stronger than cola. Taking this into account, the increase of average consumption might mean increasing of the percentage of people in the first group, which means that people are losing their self-confidence/happiness/whatever kept them afloat, and trying to find it in a glass of vodka. Which is never good news, methinks.
Posted by: ashalynd at Apr 10, 2007 12:48:13 PM
How often a drunkard substitutes between different drinks, like Brandy,Whisky,Gin,Rum,Vodka etc? Or do they adhere lifelong to only one variety, for example Rum only? Put in another way do drunkards constitute homogenous groups in the matter of consumption of a particular type drink? How do the liquor companies decide about the proportion of Brandy,Whisky,Gin,Rum,Vodka etc to be manufactured in a year? Inshort is there exists a relation between drunkard preferences and the combinations of various type liquors produced?
Posted by: GVV at Apr 10, 2007 12:53:58 PM
This drunkard primarily sticks to gin, with the occassional whiskey thrown in.
Posted by: Steve at Apr 10, 2007 1:06:41 PM
A real boozer in Russia, in most cases, would choose the easiest available stuff to drink. And if he is a seasoned alcoholic, then chances are high that he does not have much money to be really picky. Next, many drunkards are of middle age or older. In Soviet time, everything but vodka or cheap wine was considered luxury. Hence, it is vodka what those people drink, or vodka mixed up with something if they still want to pretend having a taste. If there will be no vodka, they might also drink eau-de-cologne, and this is not even the worst option.
Posted by: ashalynd at Apr 10, 2007 1:14:50 PM
Tripled? This is VERY likely attributed to some sort of error in measurement. VERY, VERY likely.
Posted by: josh at Apr 10, 2007 1:17:33 PM
Maybe he means that there is also good news? The story notes that alcohol related deaths declined from 2005 to 2006 by about 1/3 (~42k -> ~28k)
Posted by: DaveInTheCorn at Apr 10, 2007 1:40:52 PM
Back when I lived in Russia I read a story that said something like "2/3 of men in Russia are drunk when they die. It doesn't matter what they died from". I've never been able to find the story again (it was in a print paper) and I don't know if it was accurate but it was fun and not terribly unbelievable. As Ashalynd says, most of the serious drinking there is vodka. You can get fairly cheap beer (some of which is pretty good) and cheap wine, most of which is not good at all, especially while the blockade on Moldovan wine was on-going. There are also a lot of 'coctails in a can' and you can buy 2-liter bottles of 'gin and tonic' (in quotes since I'm not sure it contains either gin or tonic, but it's pretty strong) for not too much but mostly kids drink these things. Vodka is a lot more expensive now than in '99, and there has been about a 50% increase in the price of beer since then but I can't say how that compares to the prices in '90. You can still get a cheap bottle (.7lt) for about $2.50. It's useful to note, though, that the only time Russian male life expectency has gone up in the last 40 or so years was during the semi prohibition put in place by Gorbechov, and that was even with a big increase in deaths due to fake alcohol.
Posted by: Matt at Apr 10, 2007 2:04:00 PM
Matt:
In his papers on the dire state of Russian demographics, Nicholas Eberstadt frequently cites a study (done in one city, so who knows how well it extrapolates to the whole of Russia) that found that over 40% of men dying of injuries or of cardiovascular disease (the two leading causes of death for young and middle aged men in Russia), were intoxicated at the time of death.
Posted by: Cyrus at Apr 10, 2007 2:40:37 PM
"How is this good news?
Increased consumption is probably a result of increased wages and/or cheaper vodka. That's how."
Riiiiiiiiiiiiight. And you're supposed to be a human being?
Posted by: Rob at Apr 10, 2007 2:45:39 PM
I wonder if grain alchohol could be a Giffen good.
Posted by: josh at Apr 10, 2007 3:07:35 PM
Increased human liver imports from China.
Posted by: Cynic at Apr 10, 2007 3:38:56 PM
Rob and Coach -- If Russians have the ability to buy more vodka (either because they are earning more now than they were in 1990 or because the enterprises supplying vodka have become more efficient than they were in 1990), then the increased ability to buy vodka is, in this respect, "good news." Increased real wages and increased business productivity are good things. We may prefer to see Russia's increased wealth/productivity manifested in ways other than increased consumption of vodka (and it would almost have to be). But the good of having more purchasing power is not outweighed by the fact that some people use that purchasing power in ways we don't approve of.
Posted by: jp at Apr 10, 2007 3:49:43 PM
There is a biological dimension to all this as well of course. Alcohol was not widely available in Russia until the 1775 reform of local govnt (this is straight from Figes 'Natashas Dance') ended state control over vodka traders, and soon enough there was a vodka mart on every street. Before that it was rationed etc, and people would drink to excess only because it was so rare. But the good old free market quickly brought it to everybody.
Biological dimension. I understand alcohol was a late arrival to Russia, well, to the masses at least. Alcohol should be treated like a deadly old disease visited upon a population. Over many thousands of years it gradually kills off those most susceptable to its evil wiles, because girls don't marry drunkards, so over time drunkards don't have babies & don't pass on their alcoholic genes.
Eg - Italians & Jews. These groups have been drinking alcohol for thousands of years, and yet they are also noted for their sobriety. Why? What happened when alcohol was introduced to the Jewish & Italian pops? Heres an op - over thousands of years all the drunkards were selected out, there was an adaptive advantage to sobriety, so over the centuries sober genes predominated. Because alcohol has only recently been introduced to Russia, the drunkard genes have not yet been selected out.
It's just gotta, GOTTA, be the truth.
Du'sividaya! I'm here all night.
Posted by: adrian at Apr 10, 2007 4:07:38 PM
Russian girls tend to prefer foreigner guys to Russian men, due to their infidelity, drunkenness etc. There is a whole literature on how Russian girls dislike Russian guys. So we are witnessing selection effects already.
Posted by: adrian at Apr 10, 2007 4:19:03 PM
Living in Russia I can say that there are much fewer drunk persons out in the streets than in 1990 s ( and I do not consume alcohol at all, few of those whom I know or work with do opposite ). So I cannot say how these figures are correct.
From what I know the consumption of alcohol grew two fold during 70s and kept hight all 80s. Then there was a maximum in 90s ( due to cheap foreign alcohol - namely "Royal alcohol' ( 90% alcohol in 1 liter bottle ) from Holland.
My guess is that actually this is a promotion of measures against alcohol.
The examples of statements of the agency in question were that mineral water from Georgia is 'poisonous' ( while it always was of hight quality and famous among russians).
Posted by: Sergey Kurdakov at Apr 10, 2007 4:27:36 PM
Sergey - sample bias dude. I severely doubt Russian guys who speak English, have good jobs and read MR are drunkards, or are friends with drunkards. Anecdotes don't undermine the stats.
Posted by: adrian at Apr 10, 2007 4:39:02 PM
adrian -
it is just that few past years the government presses fear. If you read local newspapers you would know for example, that US want to concur Russia to seize hers oil resources. It is difficult to believe from outside but here life is just different than in US or Europe. the problem is that those who seized property in 90s now realize that there are bunch of legal problems which could strike back. And to keep the things tight authorities decided that some mass paranoia would remedy problems. While I do not see drunked I really could attest there is a paranoia in Russia now.
Posted by: Sergey Kurdakov at Apr 10, 2007 4:47:43 PM
If I recall, Vladimir refused conversion to Islam back in 988 because, among other things, "drink was the joy of the Rus" - I tend to think they were getting hammered pretty regularly for more than a century or two...
Posted by: Mike at Apr 10, 2007 5:49:57 PM
The Russian government should promote beer drinking over vodka drinking, just as Hogarth painted Gin Alley and Beer Street to encourage the English poor to switch from distilled hard liquor to nutritious, less intoxicating beer.
Posted by: Steve Sailer at Apr 10, 2007 11:38:30 PM
Mike - the elite, not the masses.
Posted by: adrian at Apr 11, 2007 1:15:21 AM
