Newsletter - Fall 2001

Vodka and Spirt in the New Russian Economy

Katherine Metzo
Department of Anthropology
Indiana University

Increasing alcohol consumption is one of the causes for the steady decline in male life expectancy in Russia. This has occurred despite government efforts to place economic constraints on the sale of vodka. For decades, the Soviet government had a monopoly on production and sale of vodka. Gorbachev's perestroika, however, included a campaign to create a "drier" Russia by limiting the sale of vodka to Russian citizens through a coupon system. Despite these efforts, illegal production of alcohol has increased, a black market for vodka has emerged, and the government has lost its monopoly over vodka. The changing economics of alcohol demonstrate the pervasiveness of vodka as a social, economic, and symbolic factor in post-Soviet Russia. In this essay, I discuss some of the informal economic behaviors surrounding the consumption, sale, and production of vodka and other spirits.

During my fieldwork in rural Buriatia, a Siberian region of Russia, I observed that drinking patterns among professional women have taken on forms once reserved for men. While working at an English Department in 1994-95, I took part in a tradition of chaipit'e (formal tea) on the last Friday of every month. Around 3 PM, instructors who were not giving lessons or grading oral examinations would begin arranging and setting the table with cakes, appetizers, fresh fruit, and several bottles of wine, champagne, and vodka. During chaptit'es, the collective celebrated personal milestones such as birthdays, marriages, births, and thesis defenses. Outside of this forum, drinking on the job was completely unacceptable. On numerous occasions during more recent fieldwork in Buriatia in 2000, I spent time with other predominantly female collectives during the workday. As with the chaipit'es, alcohol was an important part of the celebration of personal milestones. Unlike the formal teas I took part in during 1994 and 1995, women in these collectives would run out to the store for a second or even a third bottle during the middle of the afternoon when the mood struck them. This type of drinking was formerly culturally acceptable only among men.

Worsening economic conditions in much of Russia explain in part these changes in women's drinking behavior. Women often work in unheated, cramped offices with bad lighting and poor plumbing. In recent years, most women, particularly outside of regional centers, receive their salaries infrequently or are still awaiting back pay from several years ago. These women are disenchanted with the promises of "market reform" and "emerging democracy" so drinking alleviates their economic frustrations.

Unemployment also drives the increase in alcohol consumption. I estimate that the unemployment rate is around 30 percent in the formal sector of the Tunka region of Buriatia, where I spent nine months in 2000. Most "unemployed" people work informally in jobs in which they are paid with a few rubles, a hot meal, and a bottle of vodka or spirt (grain alcohol or alcohol spirits). Spring planting, fall harvesting, and annual remodeling are the most common jobs for which someone might hire labor. One friend sometimes hired her uncle and his friends to work on jobs around the house. She provided them with food and alcohol around four in the afternoon to ensure that most of the work was completed.

Although the sale of spirt is technically illegal, it plays an important role in the economics of alcohol. Vodka is extracted from bottles and replaced with watered down spirt; fake labels are made for combinations of spirt and water. In villages, spirt abounds in its pure form, sold out of people's homes to be diluted with water before consumption. The consumption of spirt is usually a deliberate choice in rural areas. Those looking for an inexpensive way to get drunk can buy 200 milliliters of spirt for 10-15 rubles (roughly 30-50 cents) as opposed to a bottle of vodka costing 45-60 rubles (one and a half to two dollars). Cheap alcohol spirits are often of very low quality. They may be unrefined ethyl alcohol or industrial alcohol spirits used for cleaning machinery. Thus, the rise in alcohol-related deaths can partly be attributed to poisoning from cheap spirt.

Most of the grain alcohol, industrial spirits, and other forms of illegal alcohol that flow into Tunka originate in Irkutsk. This commodity chain reveals little-spoken-of ethnic tensions between indigenous Buriats in Tunka and Russians in Irkutsk. Successful industrialization in Irkutsk contrasts with an impoverished economy based on agriculture and forestry in Tunka. Some Russians from Irkutsk have become wealthy by exploiting the natural resources of Tunka. Many community leaders in Tunka see the alcohol trade as reflecting these unequal relations. They accuse Russians of first introducing vodka centuries ago and of subsequently maintaining an exploitative relationship by importing cheap spirit.