Noooooo!!!!!!!!
Несколько цитат из сегодняшней washingtonpost.com
What! No Vodka? Pause in Production Has Russians Uneasy
For Want of a New Tax Stamp, Distilleries Shut Down; Why Moscow Felt No Pain
By GUY CHAZAN February 10, 2006; Page A1
MOSCOW - There was an eerie silence last week at ZAO Veda's vodka distillery, one of Russia's biggest. For the first time in its 10-year history, the plant stopped production. Bored workers kept busy by scrubbing down machinery with Ajax.
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In Moscow, drinkers shrug off the threat of shortages. "As long as they're still selling 95-proof antiseptic at the drugstore for 30 cents a bottle, we'll survive," says Mikhail Vasiliev, an accountant shopping for spirits at a Moscow supermarket.
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Vodka is a national staple, as quintessentially Russian as caviar and the Bolshoi ballet. Each year, Russians knock back 9.1 liters of spirits a person, most of it vodka, according to beverage research company Canadean. Americans, in contrast, drink 4.9.
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Though the law was part of a crackdown on fake vodka, it is the illegal producers who have benefited most from the crisis. Bootleg vodka with fake stamps now is filling the void left by legal distillers. That could spell trouble for Russia's public health system: According to official statistics, around 40,000 people die in Russia every year from poor-quality counterfeit vodka.
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Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev earned the wrath of millions in the mid-1980s with his antialcohol drive, when liquor production and sales were drastically curbed. Industrial output rose, divorce rates fell and there were fewer accidents. Hardened alcoholics simply switched to toxic surrogates like bug spray and eau de Cologne.
What! No Vodka? Pause in Production Has Russians Uneasy
For Want of a New Tax Stamp, Distilleries Shut Down; Why Moscow Felt No Pain
By GUY CHAZAN February 10, 2006; Page A1
MOSCOW - There was an eerie silence last week at ZAO Veda's vodka distillery, one of Russia's biggest. For the first time in its 10-year history, the plant stopped production. Bored workers kept busy by scrubbing down machinery with Ajax.
......
In Moscow, drinkers shrug off the threat of shortages. "As long as they're still selling 95-proof antiseptic at the drugstore for 30 cents a bottle, we'll survive," says Mikhail Vasiliev, an accountant shopping for spirits at a Moscow supermarket.
......
Vodka is a national staple, as quintessentially Russian as caviar and the Bolshoi ballet. Each year, Russians knock back 9.1 liters of spirits a person, most of it vodka, according to beverage research company Canadean. Americans, in contrast, drink 4.9.
......
Though the law was part of a crackdown on fake vodka, it is the illegal producers who have benefited most from the crisis. Bootleg vodka with fake stamps now is filling the void left by legal distillers. That could spell trouble for Russia's public health system: According to official statistics, around 40,000 people die in Russia every year from poor-quality counterfeit vodka.
......
Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev earned the wrath of millions in the mid-1980s with his antialcohol drive, when liquor production and sales were drastically curbed. Industrial output rose, divorce rates fell and there were fewer accidents. Hardened alcoholics simply switched to toxic surrogates like bug spray and eau de Cologne.