Russians Are Finally Drinking Less (Really)

Negative analyses of Russia, such as my Forbes colleague Ilan Berman’s recent book Implosion, often heavily focus on the extent to which Russia has been “gutted by alcoholism.” In one sense this is a sensible thing to focus on because Russia really does have a pretty serious drinking problem. Books have been written about the myriad ways in which alcohol ruins Russia’s social fabric, and even people who barely know anything about the place will usually associate it with rampant consumption of vodka. Russia’s level of alcohol abuse was bad through the 1960′s, 1970′s, and 1980′s, and got completely and entirely out of control in the 1990′s and early 2000′s. Had Russian drinking patterns remained frozen where they were in 1994 or 2003, it would be very hard to take the country seriously as a global power.