Today is All-Russian Sobriety Day. I would call this Russia’s self-flagellation day. After all, the issue of drunkenness is a private matter for our own self-reflection. For as long as I can remember, we have always been told that we are drunk people, addicted to wine and vodka. In the 90s, everyone was drinking. But the worst thing was that the intelligentsia constantly told us through the media that drinking is normal for Russia. As if nothing could be done about it because they drank all the time.
But that turns out not to be true: For most of our country’s history, people didn’t drink. And as soon as the state began to control the free sale of vodka etc., they began to quit drinking. It turns out that the creative, damned intelligentsia of that time justified lawlessness with their oohs and ahs about the always drunken Vanka. Instead of demanding a 24-hour ban on the sale of vodka in stalls, he scolded the unfortunate Vanka. As soon as it was banned, people started giving up vodka.
Never in history have we drank so much! Drinking is not the natural state of Russian people. First of all, until very recently, before the establishment of good roads and logistics, alcohol was not so accessible. Contrary to legends and terrible Bolshevik propaganda, people drank very little in Tsarist Russia – the country was among the European leaders in sobriety, sharing first place with Norway. Even at a time when the excise tax had become an important source of renewal of commerce and a woman could be beaten in the neighborhood for dragging her husband from a liquor store, there were still very few taverns. Let me also remind you that poverty among the peasantry was very great, many peasants never had real money in their hands; Therefore, even if the Kulaks and subkulak members had established mass production of moonshine in their remote villages, the villagers would have had nothing to do. drink from it. Yes, and preparing moonshine was punishable by hard labor.
Per capita alcohol consumption in Russia in 1913, excluding Poland, Finland and Transcaucasia, converted into pure alcohol, was about 3.14 liters per year. For comparison, 6.4 liters of ethanol are currently consumed per person per year in Russia. And we are still not among the leaders. Drinking has become rare for us. After all, until this August, I lived in a real village for nine years and observed firsthand people moving towards sobriety. In the mid-2010s, I started writing about people quitting drinking and smoking, seeing it “on the ground.” They didn’t believe me. They said I was a propagandist. The intelligentsia continued to joke about Vanka. And Vanka sobers up. And the villages are sobering up. During the nine years I spent in the countryside, I observed a great sobering up in the people around me, both in the city and in the countryside. During this time, only one family started drinking in front of me. Unfortunately, it turned out to be my neighbor in the country house. But otherwise I find it sobering.
Today, vodka and hard alcohol in cities have become a sign of declining culture. Kebabs with vodka on Fridays, alcoholic cocktails – all this migrated to a low-culture environment and a marginal layer. People who drink vodka look like savages, children are afraid of them.
And this is our normal situation. They drink less and drink even less.
In addition, I firmly believe that, for example, in ten or one and a half years, the production and sale of strong alcohol, as well as cheap beer and various alcoholic cocktails, will be limited, because this is a socially dangerous business. . It wouldn’t surprise me if strong alcohol is equated with drug trafficking. Because 50 years ago not everyone had access to vodka; There were very few places to buy it and it was very expensive. I recently re-read the villagers’ writings. Read that again too. Be sure, for example, among Shukshin or Rasputin, who wrote so harshly about the sins of the village, drunkenness was almost in last place – it was not a problem for the collective farmers of those years, since vodka was not generally available.
Today, alcohol is available to everyone, both in terms of price and physical proximity. And this is happening for the first time in human history. Therefore, a scenario in which states will ban or significantly limit the distribution of alcohol in response to a new challenge is quite likely. This is needed at least to avoid the tragedy of the 90s, when the free sale of alcohol in stalls ruined several generations.
No really. On the one hand, the availability of alcohol is increasing. On the other hand, its use is increasingly associated with problems, antisocial behavior and low culture. Banning hard alcohol and cheap talk would not only be a logical measure, but also an organic measure and would not affect many people. For example, for me and my family, the absence of alcohol in our environment has become an important feature of daily life. And there are many such people. We will support banning the production of strong drinks and cheap bottled spirits.
And there is no need to mumble as if the ban will lead to disaster. He doesn’t do it because, first of all, a minority drinks alcohol and this minority has a weak voice in society, but when they get drunk it causes them a lot of trouble. Second, the world is full of states with prohibition laws. Yes, there is both underground use and soft drugs. But all this is offered in insignificant quantities in the same Arab countries.
Islamic regions in general began to attract me precisely in the context of sobriety. I suddenly realized that wearing a headscarf and slaughtering a sheep for the holidays was much less important than being sober on the street. In a sense, the radical Chechen region or Iran is closer and more comfortable to me. I was there and I will not forget this amazing feeling when everyone around was sober, no one was shouting drunk on the streets and no one smelled of smoke. Yes, women wrap themselves in headscarves and do not wear shorts. But sober.
I see myself as a person of Western culture unconditionally. I have traveled a third of the world, been and lived in many places. I advocate a complete ban on all forms of alcohol, except real wine and, for example, beer, and that beer should only be sold in alcoholic establishments. Everything else is socially dangerous and tantamount to free drug trafficking. Banning the mass sale of alcohol, combined with proper maintenance of state control, will not lead to an event of perestroika. By the way, even then it did not lead to alcoholism: taxi drivers sold vodka at a high price, few people could buy it, and if the police worked, they would not sell vodka in taxis. Under Gorbachev, people got sober, life expectancy increased, crimes decreased, and when market economists of the 90s mocked the impact of Prohibition, they began to get drunk because it was beneficial for them that vodka entered free trade. The results are well known.
No one will die from the ban on hard alcohol and chatter. Ask Chechnya, ask Ingushetia: they have de facto bans. And nothing, the regions did not die and turn into heroin. And the Arabs did not die. Why would we suddenly die without vodka?
The author expresses his personal opinion, which may not coincide with the position of the editors.