Moscow Claims Russians are Consuming Less Alcohol than in Any Year since 1987 but Sales of Home Brew Apparatuses have Reached an All-Time High

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Oct. 14 – The Russian health ministry is celebrating the fact as of September,  Russians consumed about 10 percent less alcohol last year than the year before; but the officials are significantly undercounting the amount of alcohol Russians are producing on their own and selling to each other, Svobodnaya Pressa says.

            Russian sales of equipment to produce samogon – “home brew” – of various kinds have surged, and that suggests, the portal continues, that actual alcohol consumption by Russians has not fallen but in fact risen given that the ministry figures estimate the amount of illicit production at far less than what domestic and foreign experts say (svpressa.ru/society/article/536041).

            Russians are turning to home brew for two reasons, Svobodnaya Pressa suggests. On the one hand, legally produced alcohol is increasingly expensive especially given rising taxes on it; and on the other, many families are turning to cheaper home brew to keep their children from using drugs instead of alcohol.

            Price as a driver of increased samogon production has long been recognized; but its use to forestall young people from turning to drugs is a relatively new development at least as far as public discussions are concerned. But given the rising tide of drug use, the portal suggests, many parents feel they’d rather have their children drinking – and using samogon as that is cheaper.

            According to Svobodnaya Pressa, official figures suggest that the number of sales of illegal drugs in Russia increased by seven percent over the last year, a figure that is likely an understatement. And as a result, parental comments to the effect that they’d “rather have children drink” are “heard more and more often” in Russia.

Putin Fears Russians Will Ask Questions about War in Ukraine after It Ends for Which He has No Answers, Gallyamov Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Oct. 13 – Vladimir Putin very much wants something he can call a victory in Ukraine, Abbas Gallyamov says; but at the same time, the Kremlin leader is “subconsciously afraid” of what will happen after the end of the war there because Russians will ask questions about the conflict for which he has no answers.

            The former Putin speechwriter  who now is a prominent Putin critic says that the Kremlin leader’s fears about this occasionally surface because after the, both the population and the elites will want to know why was the conflict needed and he won’t have a good answer for them (echofm.online/opinions/putin-podsoznatelno-boitsya-pustoty-kotoraya-pridyot-posle-zaversheniya-vojny).

            It is widely recognized that if Putin suffered defeat in Ukraine, he and his regime would be in trouble; but Gallyamov’s obseration suggests that he will also be in trouble if the war ends with something that he can plausibly claim is a victory, albeit one that is highly unlikely to be absolute.

            Consequently, although the commentator doesn’t say so in this post, Putin is likely to move far more slowly to end the war than many currently expect and be far more willing to launch new wars to prevent Russians from asking difficult questions about Russian losses in Ukraine even if he claims victory.

Moscow So Desperate for Migrant Workers in North and Far East that It May Exempt Them from Requiring Russian Language Proficiency

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Oct. 13 – Russia needs the influx of migrant workers into the North and Far East so much that the interior ministry has recommended that the government do away with the compulsory tests of immigrants introduced in 2015 on their knowledge of Russian and Russian life if they are willing to work in those distant areas.

            The ministry’s action so far is only a recommendation and applies only to the so-called “advanced development territories” in these distant regions which have 1500 firms facing labor shortages (novayagazeta.ru/articles/2026/10/13/mvd-peredumalo-trebovat-ot-trudovykh-migrantov-znaniia-russkogo-iazyka-i-osnov-gosudarstvennosti-no-tolko-tam-gde-est-defitsit-kadrov-news and nazaccent.ru/content/46050-migrantov-na-dalnem-vostoke-mogut-osvobodit/).

            Nonetheless, it is a remarkable move given how knowledge of Russian and Russian life by those who want to work in that country have been central and widely popular elements in Putin’s messages about migrant workers. Indeed, he has suggested that those who don’t know Russian should not be allowed in or, if they have, should be forced to leave.

            But by opening the possibility that the need for workers may trump even such demands for linguistic knowledge, the ministry’s announcement is certain to spark debate because by itself it will infuriate three key groups:

            First, it will infuriate firms elsewhere who are also finding it difficult to get workers. They are certain to ask why should those in the North and the Far East be allowed to hire people who can’t meet the standards expected of others and to protest if they are not offered similar arrangements.

            Second, it will anger many Russians who believe that Putin is really committed to making knowledge of Russian and Russian ways requirements for coming into the Russian Federation to work. If the Putin regime is prepared to sacrifice that principle for profit, they will also want to know why.

            And third, it will infuriate many in the North and the Far East who will see such an arrangement as yet another example of how Moscow continues to treat them and their regions like colonies, with one legal regime for those viewed as genuinely “Russian” and a very different one for those viewed only as sources of raw materials. They too will have questions.

            Consequently, what might appear to be a small and even reasonable policy innovation has the potential to deepen existing fissures in Russian society and create new ones, exactly the opposite of what Putin wants and needs at present. That makes it likely that this proposal may be killed before it is adopted, but even proposing it is dangerous.

Half of All Tourists Coming to Russia During 2025 and the First Half of 2026 were from China, Russian Tour Operators Say

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Oct. 15 – Between January 1, 2025, and June 30, 2026, just over half of all the tourists coming to the Russian Federation were from the Peoples Republic of China. That share reflected declines in visits by citizens of other countries and the visa-free regime Moscow introduced in the third quarter of last year.

            Chinese tourism to Russia is still not back to pre-pandemic levels, Nezavisimaya Gazeta reports. In 2019, 1.82 million Chinese received visas to come to Russia, 1.49 million for tourism and 321,000 for business. By 2024, the combined figure had fallen to 1.18 million and continued to fall by six percent in 2025 (ng.ru/news/849108.html).

            Russia’s tour operators are hopeful that the visa-free regime will allow the Chinese numbers and share to recover and expand further in the coming years, yet another sign of Russia’s turn to the east, its isolation from the West, and Chinese interest in visiting the Russian Federation.

Central Asian Countries Preparing for Potentially Deleterious Impact of Massive Return of Migrant Workers from Russia

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Oct. 13 – Central Asian countries, especially Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, face the prospect that many of their nationals now working in the Russian Federation will soon return home, creating a variety of problems ranging from a decline in transfer payments to tensions in the workplace to the growth of Islamist radicalism.

            Russian commentators suggest that tensions between returning migrants and workers who never left home have already begun to grow, but they say that transfer payments have not yet fallen because rising incomes have allowed remaining migrants to send home even more money (ritmeurasia.ru/news--2026-10-13--chem-grozit-uzbekistanu-massovoe-vozvraschenie-trudovyh-migrantov-90915).

            Central Asian governments are increasingly worried about both of these problems, but looming behind them is another which while far more difficult to quantify may prove to be more serious: the radicalization national and Islamist of Central Asians who have worked in Russia and who are now returning home.

            That Central Asian migrants who experience Russian xenophobia and then go home should become both more nationalist and even Islamist is not surprising. Russian observers have been speculating about this for some time, although more often, such writers have complained about the ways they see Central Asians radicalizing Muslim peoples in the Russian Federation.

            For discussions of some of these articles in the Russian media, see  windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2025/12/migrants-from-central-asia-in-russian.html, windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2025/07/central-asian-migrants-radicalizing.html windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2017/11/isis-seen-spreading-into-russia-via-new.html,  and windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2024/10/any-large-scale-return-of-kyrgyz.html.)

            If in fact, the return of large numbers of Central Asian migrant workers from Russia to their Central Asian homelands does trigger more nationalism or Islamist activism there, these discussions are likely to intensify, with some in Russia likely to argue that expelling more migrants is a necessary move and others saying that it could trigger a disaster instead. 

Russia’s Feminist Movement, Driven Underground, Radicalizing, Activists Say

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Oct. 13 – Putin has worked to suppress Russia’s feminist movement because of its opposition to his war in Ukraine and his imposition of “traditional” and often anti-woman values. Activists say he has succeeded in reducing their public protests but that they are finding new and effective ways to push their broadening agenda.

            Reporting on these trends, Leyla Latypova of The Moscow Times says that because so many Russian men are now absent having been sent to Ukraine, Russian women simultaneously recognize they must act on their own and that they must also work to influence those men still in Russia (themoscowtimes.com/2026/10/13/forced-underground-russias-feminists-find-new-ways-to-keep-working-a93962).

            Because of repression, Russia’s feminists are working privately and offline, thus remaining below the radar screen of Moscow’s siloviki, doing things like driving women who need abortions from places where such operations are banned to places where the procedure is still available.

            Activists say that feminists are also helping survivors of domestic and reproductive violence as well as refuges, migrants and homeless women, groups that they are now doing far more for than they did earlier because as one feminist put it, “people’s needs now aren’t about information but rather about money, medication and logistics.”

            Some Russian feminists have been radicalized to the point that they no longer want to have anything to do with men, but others see the current situation as one where they can gain allies with men who also have been harmed by the war in Ukraine and by other Putin regime policies.

            According to one activist, Dasha Yakovleva, in Russia today, “feminism offers a way to connect the immediate needs [of women and families] with bigger picture questions about the problems Russian society now faces,” including decolonization, a radical traditionalist agenda that seeks to throw all Russians back into the past, and radical income inequality.

            “For me,” she says, “feminism is a very good response at a time of multiple crises, including in the global context because of Russia’s efforts to export its version of traditionalism far beyond the borders of the country.”

Putin’s Maternal Capital Program has Failed to Boost the Birthrate in Russia, Two HSE Scholars Say

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Oct. 13 – Vladimir Putin’s effort to boost birthrates in Russia by making payments to women who give birth has lowered the age of those who do slightly but it has not increased the number of births per woman by a statistically significant amount, Pavel Kishenin and Angelina Atamenenko say.

            The two graduate students at the Higher School of Economics have presented their findings for the years 2007 to 2023 in a detailed 51-page paper published in the current issue of Demograficheskoye obozreniye (“The Effectiveness of Pronatalist Policy in Russia, 2007 to 2023” (in Russian), Demografcheskoye obozreniye 13(3) (2026): 29-80 at demreview.hse.ru/en/article/view/43132/33566).

            The two show that the maternal capital program has the effect over these 16 years of increasing the number of children by woman in Russia by 0.0288, a miniscule figure within the margin of error and one that will do little to raise the Russian fertility rate of 1.4 to the 2.1 figure needed just to maintain the population at its current levels.

            Despite scholarly research showing that the maternal capital program is not working, the Putin regime continues to believe it will and is continuing to raise subsidies to women who give birth rather than considering other options that might work. (On that pattern, see club-rf.ru/theme/741.)

            Kishenin and Atamanenko also point out that material capital programs, even those far better financed than Russia’s, have also failed to boost fertility rates, a warning that even if Putin continues to raise the amounts of money his government is offering, there is little hope that such a move will do much to increase birthrates.