last one -- drinking in russia -- my thanks to lexis-nexis academic universe

In the land of vodka, a boom in alcohol-free beer

The Christian Science Monitor
June 13, 2001, Wednesday

Scott Peterson
Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor

ST. PETERSBURG, RUSSIA --
Czars tried to control it. Bolsheviks outlawed it. Soviet-era
Communist Party bosses campaigned against it. But none could keep
Russians from their vodka.

And they still lead the world in alcohol consumption, each drinking
some 16 quarts of pure alcohol a year.

But while high alcoholism rates are often cited as part of Russia's
broader social decline, today that hard-liquor culture may be
changing, if modestly.

Vodka sales are slowing, and production dropped 9 percent last year,
while sales of beer - with much lower alcohol content - have surged
from 10 to 30 percent each year for a decade. Growth in 2000 was 23
percent.

But the key may be the surprising popularity of a new, nonalcoholic
beer, called Baltika No. 0.

"In the beginning, we were afraid there would be no demand, or that
it would be very weak," says Alexandre Dedegkaev, production director
at Baltika, Russia's largest brewery. "Now the line is loaded to 100
percent capacity," with plans to at least double output this year."

Baltika first put a nonalcoholic brew on the market in 1996, but it
failed to sell and became the butt of jokes. Since late February,
though, when the Swedish-Finnish owned St. Petersburg brewery put out
"Baltika No. 0," Russians have been snapping it up.

One reason is taste. To separate alcohol from fully fermented beer,
Baltika uses an expensive process that preserves taste. Even plant
workers here can't tell the difference in blind tests, company
officials say.

But some argue that Russian "progress" is the main reason for its
popularity. There is a growing awareness of the dangers and scale of
alcoholism in Russia, even as many statistics continue to worsen.
Some 34,000 people died of alcohol poisoning in Russia last year,
government officials say, up 13.7 percent from 1999. Overall alcohol
consumption continues to grow.

So there may be a greater sophistication of Russian drinkers, who
demand a "softer" tipple than vodka, and who widely consider beer to
be on a par with soda. People gather at city kiosks to drink beer at
any time of day. According to Russian law, beer is not an alcoholic
beverage; Baltika advertises it as a "civilized" and even healthy
alternative to vodka. Market research commissioned by Coca Cola found
that overall soft-drink sales were up 17 percent last year, too, with
expected gains of 13.5 percent in 2001. Mineral-water production is
also increasing.

"I didn't think the market could change so much," says Mr. Dedegkaev,
who notes a rising standard of living in recent years. "Alcoholism is
a social phenomenon, and while many countries have it, we consume
more [vodka] than we should. Now, priorities are changing. People are
more European, busier, and treat their life and health more
carefully."

Not all are convinced that beer - or its nonalcoholic variant - can
wean Russian drinkers from liquor.

"I don't think that Russia has passed the turning point toward a
healthy mode of life," says Alexander Pavlov, deputy head of the
Agriculture Ministry's Food Industry Department in Moscow. "The wider
spread of nonalcoholic beer, and more low-alcohol drink consumption,
does not solve the problem of alcoholism," he says. "If young people
lose interest in vodka, the situation may be improving. But on the
other hand, regular consumption of low-alcohol drinks can form a
habit."

Still, it's a start.

There have also been changes at the political level. Former President
Boris Yeltsin was sometimes visibly drunk in public, an infamous
imbiber of vodka who would disappear for days during drinking bouts.
But the more youthful President Vladimir Putin, a judo expert who
exercises regularly, met British leader Tony Blair last year in a
Moscow pub for a pint of lager.

Though Russia last year received $ 3.2 billion in revenues from
alcohol production - more than 5 percent of total state income - Mr.
Putin last August signed a string of strict new tax regulations that
chilled the industry. Confusion over their implementation, and lack
of new required tax stamps, led to the shutdown over the weekend of
many of Russia's 700 legal vodka distilleries.

Prohibition winds have also come from health minister Gennady
Onishchenko, who told Russians in January not to be lulled by
feel-good beer ads. He warned that a "sea of beer" was exacerbating
already-heavy vodka use. "Now even children and teenagers drink this."

While some in the Russian press criticized the minister for missing
the point that vodka is the real concern, that antidrinking sentiment
is hardly ruffling feathers for the new Museum of Russian Vodka,
which opened in St. Petersburg last Friday. "We see vodka as a
national drink, like Irish whisky and French cognac," says museum
director Sergei Chentsov. "Formerly, it was a myth of the Russian
image, that vodka was a degenerating aspect of Russian culture."

Exhibits show vodka's historic importance, and "indispensable" role
in Russian feasts since medieval times. Visitors are greeted by a
life-size wax figure of a monk offering a shot of vodka, while
standing over a primitive moonshine apparatus.

History records that even this nation's choice of religion depended
on the stuff. In the 10th century, Prince Vladimir (later made a
saint) chose Christianity over Islam, which prohibited alcohol,
because "drink is the joy of the Russians." There's also the legend
of a 14th-century battle at the River Piani, where Russian forces,
after a bout of drinking, were surprised and slaughtered by Mongols.
Ever since, the word piani has been the root for many Russian words
about drunkenness.

Peter the Great - a famously heavy drinker himself - used a "Great
Eagle Goblet" as a punishment, sometimes forcing guests to drink down
a bowl full of vodka.

But in the Soviet era, alcohol had mixed reviews. Lenin reportedly
said that "vodka and other poisons will lead us back to capitalism."
Stalin portrayed alcoholism as tantamount to economic sabotage, and
one official study in 1923 - the year total prohibition was lifted -
calculated that the grain wasted on brewing illegal moonshine, called
samogon, could have saved thousands from starving.

Mikhail Gorbachev launched his own war against drunkenness in the
'80s, but though the tough restrictions he imposed improved health
appreciably, they carried a high political cost.

As much as aficionados may consider vodka the "water of life" in
Russia, critics and officials say Russia must confront this heritage.
Non-alcoholic beer may be a start, and the popularity of Baltika No.
0 points to changing Russian attitudes. But few think it will prove a
solution.

"Because all beer is not officially considered alcohol, it can be
advertised and sold everywhere, including improper places like
schools," says Pavel Shapkin, head of the National Alcohol
Association.

"Even when factories produce some no-alcoholic beer, they are
motivated not by the propaganda of a healthy life, but by purely
economic reasons."

(c) Copyright 2001. The Christian Science Monitor
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