Vodka Politics: Alcohol, Autocracy, and the Secret History of the Russian State

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Vodka Politics: Alcohol, Autocracy, and the Secret History of the Russian State Page 75

by Mark Lawrence


  73. Ledeneva, Can Russia Modernise? 96; specific to the alcohol industry see 56–60, 217.

  74. Andrew Osborn, “Will Russia’s Putinka Outlast the President?” Wall Street Journal, May 29, 2007, http://online.wsj.com/article/SB118039981514116698.html (accessed Aug. 14, 2009). See also “‘Crystal’ Has Suspended Production of ‘Putinka’,” WineLiquorMart (blog), April 19, 2011, http://wineliquormart.wordpress.com/2011/04/19/crystal-has-suspended-production-of-putinka/ (accessed Jan. 14, 2012). On brand loyalty see Petrov, “Kak v kaple vodki,” 148.

  75. Marya Levintova, “Russian Alcohol Policy in the Making,” Alcohol and Alcoholism 42, no. 5 (2007): 502.

  76. Nemtsov, Alkogol’naya istoriya Rossii, 286.

  77. Claire Bigg, “Russia: Alcohol Reform Blamed for Outbreak of Poisonings,” Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, Oct. 30, 2006, http://www.rferl.org/content/article/1072399.html (accessed Dec. 8, 2008); Levintova, “Russian Alcohol Policy in the Making,” 502.

  78. Valery P. Goreglyad, “Otchet o rezul’tatakh kontrol’nogo meropriyatiya ‘proverka effektivnosti ispol’zovaniya federal’noi sobstvennosti, peredannoi federal’nomu gosudarstvennomu unitarnomu predpriyatiyu Rosspirtprom, za 2005–2006 gody’,” Byletten’ Schetnoi palaty Rossiiskoi Federatsii 124, no. 4 (2008), http://www.budgetrf.ru/Publications/Schpalata/2008/ACH200805211952/word/ACH200805211952_000.zip/.

  79. Ibid.

  80. Howard Amos, “Fast VTB Growth Raises Eyebrows,” Moscow Times, Jan. 19 2012, http://www.themoscowtimes.com/business/article/fast-vtb-growth-raises-eyebrows/451249.html (accessed Jan. 23, 2012); “VTB Sues Rosspirtprom,” PMR, Feb. 11, 2010, http://www.russiaretail.com/81995/VTB-sues-Rosspirtprom.shtml (accessed March 7, 2012); Julia Ioffe, “Net Impact: One Man’s Cyber-Crusade against Russian Corruption,” New Yorker, April 4, 2011, http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2011/04/04/110404fa_fact_ioffe?currentPage=all (accessed April 11, 2011). For Alexei Navalny on VTB see http://navalny.livejournal.com/tag/BTB; also, Fond bor’by s korruptsiei, Fit for International Financial Markets? A Closer Look at VTB Group’s Practices (London: Henry Jackson Society 2012). Of course, it also helped that members of the board of directors of Kristall and other Rosspirtprom holdings, like Igor’ Kriskovets, were also on the board of directors of VTB. Nina Petlyanova, “Soobrazili na svoikh,” Novaya gazeta, March 4, 2011, http://www.novayagazeta.ru/politics/6856.html (accessed Feb. 20, 2012).

  81. Goreglyad, “Proverka effektivnosti.” Rosspirtprom was not alone: Russia’s largest factory, Istok in North Ossetia—like manufacturers throughout the country—also was struggling. Nina Petlyanova, “Soobrazili na svoikh.”

  82. Petlyanova, “Soobrazili na svoikh”; Dmitry Sergeyev, “Russian Bank VTB Gets Control of 11 Distilleries,” Reuters, Oct. 5, 2009, http://www.reuters.com/article/2009/10/05/vtb-vodka-idUSL53868020091005 (accessed Nov. 11, 2009).

  83. Andrew Scott Barnes, Owning Russia: The Struggle over Factories, Farms, and Power (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 2006), 119.

  84. Peter Rutland, “The Oligarchs and Economic Development,” in After Putin’s Russia: Past Imperfect, Future Uncertain, ed. Stephen K. Wegren and Dale R. Herspring (Lanham, Md.: Rowman & Littlefield, 2010), 172.

  85. Phoebe Eaton, “How Much Is That in Rubles?” New York, May 21, 2005, http://nymag.com/print/?/nymetro/news/people/features/9873 (accessed Nov. 11, 2011.)

  86. Elena Tokareva, “Gruzinskii skandal rossiiskogo oligarkha,” Stringer, Jan. 26, 2011, http://www.stringer.ru/publication.mhtml?Part=48&PubID=15616 (accessed Jan. 12, 2012); Petlyanova, “Soobrazili na svoikh.”

  87. Oleg Trutnev and Kristina Bus’ko, “Vasilii Anisimov predskazal po ‘Kristallu’,” Kommersant’, May 31, 2011, http://www.kommersant.ru/doc/1650972 (accessed Feb. 24, 2012). See also Oleg Trutnev, “‘Rosspirtprom‘ i polyaki mutyat vodki,” Kommersant’ Sept. 15, 2011, http://www.kommersant.ru/doc/1773740 (accessed Feb. 24, 2012). See also Rinat Sagdiev, “Vasiliyu Anisimovu i ‘Rosspirtpromu’ vodochnye kompanii dostalis’ bez chasti aktivov i s predstavitelyami struktur Arkadiya Rotenberga v sovetakh direktorov,” Kompromat.ru, Feb. 18, 2010, http://www.compromat.ru/page_28855.htm (accessed Nov. 5, 2011).

  88. Oleg Trutnev, “‘Kristall’ ne nalivaet,” Kommersant’, Jan. 18, 2012, http://www.kommersant.ru/doc/1853092 (accessed Jan. 19, 2012).

  Chapter 23

  1. Dmitrii Medvedev, “Rossiya, vpered!” Kremlin.ru, Sept. 10, 2009, http://news.kremlin.ru/news/5413 (accessed March 1, 2012). See Richard Sakwa, The Crisis of Russian Democracy: The Dual State, Factionalism and the Medvedev Succession (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2011), 347–50.

  2. Mezhduregionalnoye dvizhenie ‘Edinstvo’ or MeDvEd.

  3. Which in turn is borrowed from a description of Sergei Witte. Daniel Treisman, The Return: Russia’s Journey from Gorbachev to Medvedev (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2011), 123, 419.

  4. Andrei Vandenko, “Prostye istiny,” Itogi, Feb. 18, 2008, http://www.itogi.ru/russia/2008/8/3759.html (accessed March 7, 2012). Medvedev grew up on Western rock bands like Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin, Deep Purple, and Black Sabbath—which is not important politically but is definitely an upgrade over Putin’s unhealthy fixation with the Swedish super group ABBA. “‘Money, Money, Money’ for Putin,” Moscow Times, Feb. 6, 2009. See also http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ahnZYdjd7Ww (accessed March 2, 2012).

  5. Treisman, Return, 137; Sakwa, Crisis of Russian Diplomacy, 98–101.

  6. Leonid Abalkin, “Razmyshleniya o dolgosrochnoi strategii, nauke i demokratii,” Voprosi ekonomiki 12 (2006): 15; quoted in Stephen White, Understanding Russian Politics (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2011), 148. See also ibid., 105–6; Jason Bush, “Russia’s New Deal,” Bloomberg Businessweek, March 29, 2007, http://www.businessweek.com/globalbiz/content/mar2007/gb20070329_226664.htm?chan=search (accessed Feb. 29, 2012).

  7. Cable 08MOSCOW558, “Medvedev and Russia’s National Priority Projects—All Hat, No Cattle?” Feb. 28, 2008, http://wikileaks.ch/cable/2008/02/08MOSCOW558.html; Cable 06MOSCOW12764, “Russians Still Cynical about National Priority Projects,” Dec. 4, 2006, http://wikileaks.org/cable/2006/12/06MOSCOW12764.html (accessed March 3, 2012).

  8. Stephen K. Wegren and Dale R. Herspring, “Introduction,” in After Putin’s Russia: Past Imperfect, Future Uncertain, ed. Stephen K. Wegren and Dale R. Herspring (Lanham, Md.: Rowman & Littlefield, 2010), 5.

  9. Stephen Colbert, “Un-American News: Financial Edition,” The Colbert Report, Oct. 6, 2008, http://www.colbertnation.com/the-colbert-report-videos/187306/october-06–2008/ un-american-news—financial-edition, and “Cold War Update: Russia,” The Colbert Report, May 12, 2008, http://www.colbertnation.com/the-colbert-report-videos/168292/may-12-2008/cold-war-update—russia (accessed March 2, 2012).

  10. Wegren and Herspring, “Introduction,” 6–7. On loyalty and trust being the most important values in the ruling sistema see Alena V. Ledeneva, Can Russia Modernise? Sistema, Power Networks and Informal Governance (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2013), 39.

  11. Sergei Guriev and Aleh Tsyvinski, “Challenges Facing the Russian Economy after the Crisis,” in Russia after the Global Economic Crisis, ed. Anders Åslund, Sergei Guriev, and Andrew Kuchins (Washington, D.C.: Peterson Institute for International Economics, 2010), 13–17.

  12. Ronald D. Asmus, A Little War That Shook the World: Georgia, Russia, and the Future of the West (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010), 49; for the role of alcohol in the war see, 33, 151.

  13. Guriev and Tsyvinski, “Challenges Facing the Russian Economy,” 16–30.

  14. Il’ya Barabanov, “Luchshaya rol’ vtorogo plana,” Novoe vremya/New Times, May 11, 2009, http://newtimes.ru/articles/detail/3161 (accessed March 3, 2012); Treisman, Return, 140–41. See also President of Russia, official web portal, http://archive.kremlin.ru/eng/text/news/2009/04/214779.shtml.

  15. Maria Levina, “National Projects under Crisis Watch,” Moscow Times, Nov.14, 2008, http://www.themoscowtimes.com/news/article/national-projects-under-crisis-watc
h/372358.html (accessed March 2, 2012); Treisman, Return, 138.

  16. “Medvedev Angered by Officials’ Demagogy,” RT.com, July 29, 2010, http://rt.com/news/sci-tech/medvedev-national-projects-council (accessed Aug. 15, 2010). Also see Sakwa, Crisis of Russian Diplomacy, 312.

  17. Julia Ioffe, “Net Impact: One Man’s Cyber-Crusade against Russian Corruption,” New Yorker, April 4, 2011, http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2011/04/04/110404fa_fact_ioffe?currentPage=all (accessed April 10, 2011). On the resignation of “Mr. Unibrow,” Oleg Simakov, see “Glava departamenta informatizatsii Minzdravsotsrazvitiya Simakov ushel v otstavku,” Gazeta.ru, Oct. 13, 2010. http://www.gazeta.ru/news/lastnews/2010/10/13/n_1559346.shtml (accessed March 6, 2012).

  18. Tom Balmforth and Gregory Feifer, “Russian Health Care Provides No Real Safety Net,” Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, Aug. 14, 2011, http://www.rferl.org/content/russian_healt_car_provides_no_real_safety_net/24296527.html (accessed Feb. 11, 2012); Reuters, “Russians Wrongly Think They’re Healthy,” Moscow Times, April 27, 2011, http://www.themoscowtimes.com/news/article/russians-wrongly-think-theyre-healthy/435851.html (accessed April 28, 2011).

  19. Balmforth and Feifer, “Russian Health Care Provides No Real Safety Net.”

  20. Ibid.

  21. Ibid.

  22. “More Than 80 Percent of Russian Teenagers Take Alcohol,” ITAR-TASS Daily, Oct. 9, 2010, http://dlib.eastview.com/browse/doc/22613353 (accessed Oct. 11, 2010). See also Aleksandr Nemtsov, Alkogol’naya istoriya Rossii: Noveishii period (Moscow: URSS, 2009), 288–90; Grigory G. Zaigraev, “The Russian Model of Noncommercial Alcohol Consumption,” in Moonshine Markets: Issues in Unrecorded Alcohol Beverage Production and Consumption, ed. Alan Haworth and Ronald Simpson (New York: Brunner-Routledge, 2004), 38. Also see chapter 21, note 44.

  23. Nemtsov, Alkogol’naya istoriya Rossii, 295 (author’s translation); for an English-language edition see Aleksandr Nemtsov, A Contemporary History of Alcohol in Russia, trans. Howard M. Goldfinger and Andrew Stickley (Stockholm: Södertorns högskola, 2011), 320. On the life-expectancy discrepancy between the sexes see chapter 21, note 27.

  24. “Medvedev Urges More Steps to Curb Alcohol Threat,” RIA Novosti, Aug. 12, 2009, http://en.rian.ru/russia/20090812/155791576.html (accessed Nov. 5, 2009); Maria Ermakova, “Russia May Ban Beer Sales at Kiosks, Markets, Ministry Says,” Bloomberg, Sept. 29, 2009, http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=afmjcxsVo0Hc (both accessed Nov. 5, 2009).

  25. Guy Faulconbridge, “Russia’s President Calls Time on Vodka ‘Disaster’,” Reuters, Aug. 12, 2009, http://www.reuters.com/article/2009/08/12/us-russia-vodka-idUSTRE57B4KC20090812; “Medvedev against Ban on Alcohol, Will Fight Problem Differently,” RIA Novosti, July 4, 2009, http://en.rian.ru/russia/20090704/155431427.html (both accessed Sept. 11, 2009); David Zaridze et al., “Alcohol and Cause-Specific Mortality in Russia: A Retrospective Case-Control Study of 48,557 Adult Deaths,” The Lancet 373 (2009): 2201. See also N. F. Izmerov and G. I. Tikhonova, “Problemy zdorov’ya rabotayushchego naseleniya v Rossii,” Problemy prognozirovaniya 3 (2011): 56.

  26. Oleg Shchedrov, “Medvedev Praises Anti-Alcohol Drive,” Moscow Times, July 20, 2009.

  27. “Medvedev Urges More Steps to Curb Alcohol Threat.”

  28. Megan K. Stack, “Foreign Exchange: Russian President Takes out after Alcohol,” Los Angeles Times, Sept. 3, 2009, http://articles.latimes.com/2009/sep/03/world/fg-russia-booze3; Maria Antonova and Anna Malpas, “Medvedev Puts Limits on Alcohol,” Moscow Times, Sept. 14, 2009, http://www.themoscowtimes.com/news/article/383100/index.html (accessed Sept. 15, 2009).

  29. Richard Weitz, “Global Insights: Russia’s Demographic Timebomb,” World Politics Review, Feb. 15, 2011, http://www.worldpoliticsreview.com/articles/7888/global-insights-russias-demographic-timebomb (accessed Feb. 17, 2011).

  30. Pavel Butorin, “‘Squirrel from Hell’ Takes on Russian Alcoholism,” Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, Dec. 22, 2010, http://www.rferl.org/content/squirrel_from_hell_takes_on_russian_alcoholism/2255880.html (accessed Dec. 25, 2010); for the “Squirrel from Hell,” see “Adskaya belochka,” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=73cjNp7n75o (Nov. 25, 2010); “Adskaya belochka 2: Tolyan-bratan,” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3JtdhvAjXtM (Dec. 19, 2011); “Zolotaya Manufaktura” vodka company, http://rsg.org.ru/en/belochka.

  31. Seth Meyers, “Weekend Update,” Saturday Night Live, Nov. 7, 2009, http://www.hulu.com/watch/107514/saturday-night-live-taylor-swift#s-p12-so-i0 (at 35:5; accessed March 7, 2012). See also Andrew Osborn, “Kremlin Encourages Russia to Drink More Wine,” Telegraph, Sept. 7, 2011, http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/russia/8747419/Kremlin-encourages-Russia-to-drink-more-wine.html (accessed Sept. 11, 2011).

  32. Ekaterina Shcherbakova, “Demograficheskie itogi 2011 goda (chast’ II),” Demoskop Weekly, February 20–March 4, 2012, http://demoscope.ru/weekly/2012/0499/barom03.php (accessed March 8, 2012). Putin-era average is author’s estimation based on Scherbakova’s data. Alexandra Koshkina, “Alcohol Consumption in Russian Cities Decreasing,” Gazeta. ru, Aug. 23, 2011, http://rbth.ru/articles/2011/08/23/alcohol_consumption_in_russian_cities_decreasing_13282.html (accessed Aug. 24, 2011); “Booze Kills Seven Per Cent Fewer Muscovites,” RT.com, March 9, 2012, http://rt.com/news/prime-time/booze-mos-cow-statistcis-down-211 (accessed March 10, 2012).

  33. Vedomosti, “Russian Ingenuity Conquers Alcohol Sale Restrictions,” Moscow Times, Feb. 8, 2012, http://www.themoscowtimes.com/business/article/alcohol-delivered-afterhours/452672.html (accessed Feb. 10, 2012).

  34. Igor’ V. Ponkin, “Monitoring i profilaktika potrebleniya alkogol’nykh napitkov v sisteme obrazovaniya,” in Alkogol’naya katastrofa i vozmozhnosti gosudarstvennoi politiki v preodolenii alkogol’noi sverkosmertnosti v Rossii, ed. Dar’ya A. Khalturina and Andrei V. Korotaev (Moscow: Lenand, 2010), 332–34; Natalya Krainova, “Report: Adults Drink Less, Teens More,” Moscow Times, Nov. 16, 2011, http://www.themoscowtimes.com/news/article/report-adults-drink-less-teens-more/447989.html (accessed Nov. 18, 2011.) For an on-the-ground take see Jeffrey Tayler, “Russian Hangover: A Moscow Apartment Block’s Tenants Turn over, One Vodka Binge at a Time,” The Atlantic, Oct. 11, 2011, http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2011/11/russian-hangover/8665/ (accessed Oct. 11, 2011).

  35. 2010 figures from Ekaterina Shcherbakova, “Demograficheskie itogi 2010 goda (chast’ II),” Demoskop Weekly, March 7–20, 2011 http://demoscope.ru/weekly/2011/0457/barom03.php (accessed Aug. 29, 2013). 2011 figures from Ekaterina Shcherbakova, “Demograficheskie itogi 2011 goda (chast’ II).” Figures for the first half of 2013 from Rosstat, “Estestvennoe dvizhenie naseleniya v razreze sub’ektov Rossiiskoi Federatsii za yanvar’-iyul’ 2013 goda,” Aug. 27, 2013, http://www.gks.ru/free_doc/2013/demo/edn07–13.htm (accessed Aug. 28, 2013).

  36. Lyudmila Alexandrova, “Legal Output of Vodka Sliding in Russia but Russians Drinking as Much as Always,” ITAR-TASS, July 19, 2013, http://www.itar-tass.com/en/c39/813821.html (accessed July 24, 2013); Isabel Gorst, “Russia’s Vodka Tax: Backfiring,” Financial Times (beyondbrics blog), July 17, 2013, http://blogs.ft.com/beyond-brics/2013/07/17/russias-vodka-tax-backfiring/ (accessed July 17, 2013); “Legal Vodka Production Falls by One-Third in Russia,” RT.com, June 24, 2013, http://rt.com/business/russia-vodka-production-falls-158/ (accessed July 17, 2013).

  37. Walter Joyce, “The Battle Continues: Gorbachev’s Anti-Alcohol Policies,” in Social Change and Social Issues in the Former USSR, ed. Walter Joyce (New York: St. Martin’s, 1992), 99.

  38. Arina Petrova, “Alkogol’naya sostavlyayushchaya reforma,” Kommersant’, June 29, 2011, http://www.kommersant.ru/doc/1665297 (accessed Aug. 27, 2013). Many thanks to Anna Bailey for this reference. Earlier estimates have vodka contributing 7–8 percent of the budget. Nemtsov, Alkogol’naya istoriya Rossii, 288–90; Zaigraev, “Russian Model,” 38. On the flat tax see Jorge Martinez-Vazquez, Mark Rider, and Sally Wallace, Tax Reform in Russia (Northampton, Mass.: Edward Elgar, 2008), 38–52.


  39. “Medvedev, Putin Toast Each Other with Milk,” AFP, Oct. 2, 2010, http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5gpVfhA2SZ4Dh5fxvOo5-QQcXdrLQ?docId=CNG.4db59b76c2daef9f84b5eea831b965fa.441 (accessed Oct. 4, 2010).

  40. Antonova and Malpas, “Medvedev Puts Limits on Alcohol.” See also Polya Lesova, “Russia Targets Beer, Not Vodka, to Tackle Alcoholism,” Wall Street Journal MarketWatch, Oct. 9, 2009, http://www.marketwatch.com/story/russia-targets-beer-not-vodka-vs-alcoholism-2009-10-09 (accessed Oct. 11, 2009).

 

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