Russians in Five Federal Subjects Now Drinking More than 25 Liters of Pure Alcohol a Year Each

Paul Goble

            Staunton, March 7 – Russians as a whole are consuming 14.3 liters of pure alcohol this year, an increase of 8.3 percent from 2017, the Moscow Center for Research on Federal and Regional Alcohol Markets says; but in five federal subjects, the per capital consumption exceeds 25 liters a year.

            These findings, reported today by Izvestiya, not only are far higher than the Russian government says but are far more than the eight liters of pure alcohol per capita annually that international officials say can inflict genetic damage (iz.ru/853465/evgeniia-pertceva/piushchii-subekt-v-rossii-sostavili-top-5-regionov-po-prodazham-alkogolia).

            They alone will have a negative impact on life expectancies, baby birth weights and survival, and family violence, not to speak of the impact on the workplace and productivity. And this report will also add to cynicism among Russians about government statistics given that these figures are far higher than Moscow officials claim. 

            Still worse, actual alcohol consumption by adult males and increasingly adult females is far higher than in either case, given that these figures are based on dividing sales of hard liquor by the total population including children, thus understating adult consumption and given they do not include unresgisteered moonshine (samogon) and various dangerous alcohol surrogates.

            The five federal subjects where alcohol consumption is the highest are the Nenets Autonomous District (28.6 liters), Sakhalin Oblast (28.3 liters), Magadan Oblast (26.5 liters), Moscow oblast (25.8 liters) and the Republic of Karelia (25.6 percent). In these federal subjects and others, Russians are spending a significant portion of their incomes on alcohol.

            (Each Russian on average 1355 rubles (26 US dollars) on alcohol every month. In the top five subjects, it is far more and a far higher percentage of income, often leaving little for food, clothing and child care. The state may welcome these sales: it receives a quarter of all this money in taxes (kasparov.ru/material.php?id=5C80E793C59CC).)

                It speaks volumes about just how serious a problem these numbers reveal that Izvestiya reports in the course of the article that “at the time of publication, the health ministry had not responded to the paper’s request for comment.”