(Fwd) Re: Fwd: Chris Doss on Russia - reply (on alcoholism)

["Nestor Gorojovsky" <nestorgoro@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

I believe that this may be interesting.
------- Forwarded message follows -------
From:                   "Chris Doss"
Date sent:              Sun, 28 Sep 2003 10:20:01 -0400

BTW when Feldman says the following:

In an earlier article, Nestor -- like many others -- presented near
universal alcoholism in Russia as a product of the fall of the Soviet Union.
He attributes this to privatization and low prices.  This is wrong. The
problem has continued to multiply but it long predated and had assumed the
proportions of a colossal epidemic long before Yeltsin or Gorbachev.

He is quite incorrect. Alcoholism in Russia is not "near universal,"
stereotypes notwithstanding. It's more like 10% of the male population. More
alcohol is consumed per capita yearly in France and Germany than in Russia.
The problem is more one of poor-quality alcohol: Peasants do not earn enough
money to buy real vodka, so they substitute grain alcohol or poor-quality
homebrew. This is where the alcohol poisoning deaths come from.

In the USSR, a bottle of vodka cost 5 rubles, and average monthly salary was
about 150 rubles. It was not a casual purchase. And owning a still would get
you three years in prison.

------- End of forwarded message -------

Néstor Miguel Gorojovsky
nestorgoro@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

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"Sí, una sola debe ser la patria de los sudamericanos".
Simón Bolívar al gobierno secesionista y disgregador de
Buenos Aires, 1822
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