Paul
Goble
Staunton, April 12 – The Russian
government is celebrating what it says is a success in its battle to reduce
alcohol consumption by pointing to a decline of seven percent in vodka sales in
2013, but more than three out of four Russians say they are drinking as much or
more as in the past, with many of them turning to samogon, the Russian for “moonshine,”
or other surrogates.
“Nezavsimaya gazeta” calls attention to this
divergence and cites experts who say that efforts by Moscow and regional
governments to restrict alcohol sales are having the same effect such efforts
have had in the past: driving people away from regulated and taxed alcohol to
unregulated and untaxed products (g.ru/economics/2014-04-10/4_alcohol.html).
Alina Terekhova, a journalist for
the Moscow paper, cites the plans of the authorities in Sakha to restrict the
sale of alcohol by reducing the number of places where it can be sold. But she
then cites experts who say that such much-ballyhooed efforts are destined to
have little impact, at least in the intended way.
A new poll by the Public Opinion
Foundation in fact finds that despite the government’s anti-alcohol initiatives
in recent years, 36 percent of those surveyed said they were drinking more than
they did earlier, and 41 percent said they were drinking just as much. Only 11 percent said they were drinking less.
Asked to compare the situation now
with the one that existed in Soviet times, 45 percent of those sampled said
they were certain that people are drinking more now than they did in the 1970s
and 1980s, 20 percent said they didn’t think there had been any change, “and
only nine percent spoke about a reduction in consumption.”
Such statements are at odds with
what the Russian Statistics Committee has been reporting. According to Rosstat, alcohol sales fell 1.8
percent from 2012 to 2013, vodka sales by seven percent, with beer and wine sales
remaining essentially at the same levels.
But Vadim Drobiz, the head of the
Moscow Center for the Investigation of Federal and Regional Alcohol Markets,
says that “there is no mystery here: what is happening is that the population
is little by little ceasing to drink alcohol sold in stores and turning to
production from garages.”
According to the expert, “there is
not a single social-economic cause” that would explain a seven percent
drop. Instead, demand for alcohol is “growing
now absolutely everywhere and not just in [Russia].” But because in Russia, “the
most expensive alcohol in the world” is not at the top end but in the
mid-range, “people are simply ceasing to buy quality alcohol.”
Instead, they are turning other
sources, including “dual use” liquids, he says, noting that the Russian alcohol
market consists of three parts: the legal, the illegal (alcohol produced by
distilleries but sold without the payment of taxes), and surrogates. The
authorities have reduced the size of the second, but they have not been able to
control the growth of the third.
Over the last two years, he
continues, the shift to surrogates has accelerated because many Russians lack the funds to pay even for the illegal
untaxed kind let alone the legal and taxed variety that official statistics
register. Producers of surrogates have expanded both production and sales over
the same period.
And these sales are largely beyond
the reach of the state. Indeed, there is now “a powerful network for the sale
of alcohol from hand to hand,” one which means that while many rural areas now
do not have stores selling alcohol, the population doesn’t need them because it
has these informal networks to satisfy its needs.
The real tragedy in all this,
although not noted by the “Nezavisimaya gazeta” article, is not the decline in
tax revenues to the state but rather into the impact such surrogates have on
public health. Many contain poisons, and
consequently, Russian policies designed to reduce drinking are having the
tragic effect of making Russians sicker – or even killing them.
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