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Russian Minister urges Russians to smoke more, drink more


Georgian Business Week reports that the Russian Minister Alexei Kudrin is urging his country’s citizens to smoke more cigarettes and drink more alcohol to support the local economy.

Russia is raising excise duty on both tobacco and alcohol sales, and higher consumption of both could help lift tax revenues for spending on social services. “If you smoke a pack of cigarettes, that means you are giving more help to solve social problems such as boosting demographics, developing other social services and upholding birth rates,” Kudrin said.

Currently, Russian duties on cigarettes are among the lowest in Europe. In June, Russia’s Finance Ministry announced plans that could double the price. This was part of President Dmitri Medvedev’s New Year strategy, announced on January 1, 2010 in an anti-alcoholism campaign to curb Russia’s excessive drinking.

Given that 65% of the nation’s men smoke and with a per capita alcohol consumption twice as high as that of America and an active underground market for homemade alcohol (known as samogon), Russians aren't about to give up their hard liquor so easily. The average Russian drinks 19 litres of pure alcohol each year, mainly vodka – from the word voda, Russian for water.

Distilled from grains or potatoes it has an alcohol content of between 40% and 55% (80-110 proof) and is served in a small “shot” glass. By 1860, more than 40% of government revenue came from vodka, and even Peter the Great was rumored to drink two liters a day. Prohibition, introduced by Czar Nicholas II, took effect from 1914, but was back on shelves by 1925 to raise much needed government revenue after the civil war. The temperance movement flared up again in the 1985 when Gorbachev launched an all-out campaign to eradicate drunkenness, revoking liquor licenses, and banning vodka consumption at Soviet embassies, earning him the nickname Mineral'nyi Sekretar ("The Mineral Water Secretary"). Drinking increased after the 1991 fall of the Soviet Union, but Boris Yeltsin tried to keep drinking in check by raising the price of vodka, which only encouraged the black market for samogon.

Today, Russians' annual consumption of alcohol is higher than that of any other nationality in the world. Russian men have a life expectancy of just 60 years — largely attributed to alcoholism. While President Medvedev's anti-alcoholism campaign will do little to solve Russia's drinking problem, it's likely to generate significant income for Moscow. And with Kudrin announcing that people should drink and smoke more, Russians are sure to be confused.
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