You might want to sit down for this, but drinking is a big part of Russia’s culture. In fact, you might want to literally sit down for this, since the Russian drinking ritual kind of requires you to get comfortable. Russians don’t normally go for your American party-style casual drinking, what with the circulating around holding your red Solo cup while chatting about the stock market or baseball, or whatever the hell you guys talk about.
When Russians set out to knocking down a few, the unstated understanding between all the parties concerned is that the word “few” here is purely a figure of speech. You are expected to assume the sitting position if for no other reason than it’s a much safer one to be falling face down on the floor from. And since, unlike Americans, we are not usually capable of getting drunk on beer, time and resolve will be required.
So, let’s resolutely plunge into this well-known but poorly-understood part of the Russian national endeavor, which to this very day remains clouded in myths, misconceptions, outright fabrication and, often, grievous underestimation.
The Glorious Russian History of Booze
Legend has it that when Saint Vladimir the Great, the Grand Duke of Kiev who forcibly converted the previously pagan Rus into Christianity, was choosing the state religion, he sent for representatives of four major monotheistic faiths to make their pitches. He wasn’t too impressed with Catholicism because it required him to submit to the authority of the Pope and he rejected the advocates for Judaism because haha, seriously, but the best rejection by far was given to the Muslim envoys. Once Vladimir found out that the followers of Islam are forbidden from imbibing fermented beverages, he allegedly uttered this immortal phrase which is criminally omitted from the Russian national anthem:
“The Rus’s happiness is in drinking, to be without it we cannot!”
Trust me, it sounds so much better in the language of Dostoyevsky. This legend, found in the historical chronicles of the medieval monk Nestor, proves two things: 1) Russians are also not above making up bullshit stories about their love for the sauce, 2) holy fuck, just how important is drinking to the Russians that they were willing to say they only chose Orthodox Christianity because it allowed them to get blasted with impunity!
Consider also the fact that Russians like to call themselves “the God-carrying people”, and what you get is that the major self-identifying religious characteristic of the nation is that it was chosen by Jesus specifically because he needed hundreds of millions of drinking buddies to get down with.
The story of the Church of Drunken Jesus is a historical fable, of course. In all likelihood, Vladimir simply made a calculated geopolitical choice, which he was rather notoriously good at. Also a fabrication is the newer theory that ancient Russians were ardently prim and proper and were only turned to drink in the modern era by (who else?) the Jews. If you study Russian historical hypotheses long enough, you might learn that the Jews are also to blame for almost all the famines, every single civil war, both the establishment and the abolition of serfdom, the deaths of all the czars, including those who died of old age, harsh winters, bad roads, America, the assassination attempt on Lenin and the fact that it failed.
The Russians’ tender love for the drink actually is as old as Russia itself. Nestor’s chronicle, even if it contains a lot of fiction, is in itself a real thing, written in the Middle Ages, and it seems that even back then a drunken Russian was somewhat of a tried and true rhetorical trope.
What is definitely true, though, is that medieval Russians usually drank milder beverages, such as mead (honey being extremely plentiful), malted drinks of several kinds, a type of herbal beer, and even fermented birch tree sap… All of that could successfully make a man forget his daily struggles, but probably wasn’t enough to turn him into a proper alcoholic. All of that had changed with the advent of vodka, which was cheap, effective, ruthless and singlehandedly responsible for one of the greatest cultural shifts in Russia’s history.
Russians have come up with yet another cockamamie story on the genesis of the national drink. According to this beautifully bullshitty legend, they came upon the idea in the XV century after sampling aqua vitae at the court of the Pope in Rome (there we go again with divinely inspired alcoholism), and a Russian monk named Isidore, doubtlessly uplifted by the experience, went on to perfect the recipe by eschewing the Catholic grapes for the truly Slavic black bread as the fermentation agent. In fact, no religious inspiration was needed as vodka had most likely come to Russia from Poland where it was known about 100 years before being first mentioned in Russian. In fact, the word itself is a Polish diminutive for “water”, which really makes one think about just how freaking hard the life in Eastern Europe must be.
Very quickly, vodka joined the Mongols as only the second, and the last, invader in the history of Russia to successfully conquer the country’s entire territory. In fact, the Russian state, and not at all the Jews, happily got down to the business of getting the population as drunk as possible by monopolizing alcohol trade. In time, alcoholism became such a staple of Russian life that vodka taxes and regulating vodka prices became a key component of the domestic policy of whatever government happened to be in charge. Only once in the history of the nation did the state attempt to impose sobriety upon the masses, when Mikhail Gorbachev, the famously well-intentioned and even more famously incompetent reformer, enacted “sobriety laws.” The immediate effect of the laws was a drastic growth of both moonshine production and alcohol poisonings. Half a decade later, the Soviet Union collapsed.
To be without it we cannot. Saint Vladimir may have never said it, but that doesn’t make him any less right.
Why We Drink
Giving the simple answer (“Because it’s cold, and living here is unbearably depressing”) feels like a bit of a cheat. Lots of warm-climate nations appreciate a good buzz as do some very happy ones, too. But there is a grain of truth in simplicity, in that for the greater part of its history, 90% of Russia’s population had lived in abject poverty with alcohol being the only diversion available. That being the case, an entire culture and a rather deep philosophy has developed around drinking. Russians, who normally hate Western stereotypes about their drunkenness, nevertheless freely acknowledge among each other that alcohol, to a large degree, defines the nation’s self-image.
Yet the question we will explore here is not going to be the existential “Why” but rather the situational “why”: what are the occasions when alcohol is required and what are the functions it serves.
The latter question is very important, because alcohol is Russia’s most important and most seriously regarded social litmus test. To put it in very simple terms, people who do not drink will not be trusted, while people who cannot hold their drink will not be respected. This is big, might want to write it down. If there is ever a cornerstone of Russian culture, this is it.
Russians might not put on a big show of being offended if you don’t drink with them the way some of their neighbors would (Georgians come to mind immediately), but do expect a lot of side glances and a much cooler attitude if you flat out refuse the invite. Drinking with someone is the number one social icebreaker, a show of good intentions, an outreach to understanding, a gateway to potential friendship. The ideal beginning of a beautiful friendship, Russian-style, is two men who barely know each other sharing a bottle of vodka and, a few shots later – BOOM! – they are brothers. They are confessing their innermost fears, hopes and dreams to each other, they are eagerly discussing the fate of the Motherland (Jews will more than likely be mentioned), they are decrying everything that is fucked up in the world, and they urgently need to know whether they respect one another (“Do you respect me?” is in fact the most iconic phrase associated with the state of drunkenness in the Russian male). You can see now how a refusal to drink can very easily be seen as a desire to distance oneself from the company, a wish to refrain from getting to know people. A vodka refusenik will be regarded as standoffish, a snob, an outsider and generally not one of “ours”, which is a very important and very loaded term in Russian.
On the other hand, drinking without knowing your limits is fraught with consequences as well. Russians, of course, are no strangers to the state of extreme drunkenness. In fact, I have already tried to explore the extensive vocabulary our language has for the different stages of intoxication. There is nothing wrong with collectively getting wasted in the warm company of “ours” who share deep mutual respect. The problem arises when you get drunk too early or to a much greater degree than your fellow drinkers. The lack of ability to “take the punch” is seen as a serious deficiency of character and manliness. If you are seen as someone prone to getting knocked out quickly, you will quickly become the butt of jokes and see your social status plummet. This is why drinking in Russia is a bit of an art form and an exercise in self-discipline. It is much less shameful to know your limits and stop than to take a plunge and make a fool of yourself.
But getting further into the details of the “situational why”, Russians will generally feel it’s necessary to have a drink in order to celebrate or observe the following occasions:
- holidays, whether official, religious, personal or professional
- meeting a friend
- meeting a stranger
- purchasing an expensive item, a ritual known as “washing it off” (cars, refrigerators and fur coats are absolute musts to “wash off”, but it is not unheard of to “wash off” pets, running shoes, smartphones and vacuum cleaners)
- a promotion or a raise (this is mandatory, lest you be considered an absolute scum of the earth, and the practice has its own name, prostavlyatsya, or “to lay it out for the occasion”)
- Fridays and paydays
- childbirths
- a wake or a visit a grave of a friend/relative
- needing to have a serious conversation with someone who understands
- completing a difficult or important task
- departing to live somewhere else or on vacation/to the army/for a space mission
- fishing or hunting (drinking is mandatory on these occasions, while actual fishing and hunting are optional)
- enjoying the beautiful outdoors
- quitting drinking
Even though all of these occasions normally and expectantly involve copious amounts of alcohol and more than casual drunkenness, the behaviors, rituals, expected outcomes and even the alcohol itself all vary in accordance to the specifics of the situation. Knowing these rules of engagement is crucially important before exploring our drinking culture, for the opportunities of making a stereotypical Western idiot of yourself are literally endless.
What We Drink
The second most annoying thing any American can ask a Russian (after “Hey, I have worked with a Russian guy named Alex, do you know him?”) is “So, which vodka is good?” It may sound strange, but this question would genuinely baffle most of us since we are not in the habit of consuming this beverage for its flavor or bouquet. “Whatever gets the job done” is the only true answer, since Russians generally treat vodka as drink with a narrowly defined purpose.
There was a sketch in a Russian comedy show of the early 2000s, when a dude dressed as a bottle of vodka confronted a pair of drinkers to bemoan their ulterior motives. “I understand now!”, cried the bottle. “You only need me to get drunk and start fighting. And, stupid me, all this time I thought I was delicious!” This was funny precisely because it’s so true.
While some Russians can make a show of self-importantly running off a list of brands of their preference (see if “Russian Standard” or “Putinka” make an appearance; it’s a clear tell of someone who is putting on airs), in reality none of them would turn their nose up at literally any somewhat clear liquid with 40% alcohol content.
While the brand or indeed quality of vodka is of secondary or tertiary importance, it is necessary to know on which occasions vodka is the only beverage admissible. It is quite inconceivable, for example, to drink anything else on somber occasions such as wakes and visiting someone’s grave (yes, Russians totally drink at cemeteries, and it is customary to leave half a glass of vodka topped by a slice of black bread at a veteran’s grave, for example). The prostavlyatsya ritual on happy occasions such as getting a raise or a promotion, also calls for vodka and little else.
Most importantly, a sincere, soulful conversation with a friend who will get your struggles, 99% of which in Russia occur in the kitchen, can only be had with vodka. One simply can’t effectively commiserate on women, politics, the beauty of the Motherland and the endeavors and travails of the Russian male with any other beverage. The same rules hold for more earthly, blue-collar debates about more base things which Russian male buddies stereotypically stage in a garage.
No, nobody ever holds deep philosophical conversations or enjoys the beautiful outdoors or engages in “fishing” and “hunting” with wine or beer. Hard stuff is absolutely required on such occasions, and vodka, being the cheapest and most readily available, is usually the beverage of choice. For people who want to make an occasion extra special and can afford it, cognac is an acceptable upgrade. It should be noted, however, that Russians, who are still not very comfortable with the concept of copyrights, use the word “cognac” to refer to any brandy, usually of Armenian or Moldovan distillation.
Beer is purely a social drink in Russia, reserved for spending a bit of time in good company, enjoying a terrible football match (“terrible” and “football” in one sentence is officially recognized as a redundancy in Russian) or simply providing a launching pad for better beverages. As the Russian saying goes, “beer without vodka is money wasted.” No Russian will ever get drunk on beer alone, but mixing it up with the “holy water” produces the yorsh, the only cocktail Russians recognize. Named after the ruffe, a popular lake fish, yorsh is specifically designed to deliver knockout blows as efficiently as possible.
Since grapes are not possible to grow over the vast majority of Russia’s territory, the country’s wine culture is rather poor. The Kuban River area near the Black Sea is the only region that produces its own wines, which are normally of middling quality. Fortified wines, however, were all the rage in the Soviet Union, where they were very cheap and extremely potent and thus the best substitute for vodka. Otherwise, some Russians have developed a taste for the wines of Georgia and Moldova, two ex-Soviet states where winemaking is a major industry. Georgian males in particular pride themselves on their ability to “take the punch”, wine-wise, much like the Russians do with vodka. They absolutely will consider it a grave insult if you refuse to drink with them. Be aware, though, that for a Georgian, draining half a bottle in one gulp is considered normal, acceptable pacing. Armenians, on the other hand, are proud of their brandy, which they absolutely will call “cognac” and challenge any offended Frenchman to climb the Caucuses to fight them for it.
In Ukraine and Belarus, local variations of vodka have regained popularity with the breakup of the Soviet Union. The Ukrainian “horylka” (literally, “fire drink”) isn’t terribly different from the Russian product, but “pertsovka”, which is made with red pepper, is a testament to the Ukrainians’ ability to withstand spices, which Russians absolutely lack. Belarusians make a rather interesting hard liquor out of bison grass, which they call “zubrovka”, or “bison drink.”
Finally, “samogon”, the Russian moonshine, has outgrown its origins as an illegal homebrew that violated the state’s monopoly on intoxicating the masses into a craft beverage often served in trendy restaurants. Most “samogon”, though, is still crudely produced in Russian villages and is notorious for being the source of the most nuclear of hangovers known to man. One of Russia’s most beloved literally characters, a fast-talking swindler named Ostap Bender, had once lectured American tourists that “samogon” can be made out of anything, “even from a regular stool.” In fact, grain, root vegetables and corn are the most popular ingredients in the fermenting mixture, aided by copious amounts of sugar. But Bender wasn’t too far off in his analysis, as the Russian “samogon” can contain pretty much anything, most importantly a horrible headache the next morning. It is said that the “samogon” hangover is the second closest thing to childbirth a man can ever experience, the first one being actual life in Russia.
As yet another Russian proverb goes, “Next to the feeling of hangover, all other feelings are mundane.”
How We Drink
Are you about to drink with Russians and desperate to find out how to do it properly? No worries, the advice is very simple: don’t. Find any pretext you can and chicken out. Most Russians will accept excuses such as “I have a bleeding ulcer that will kill me within seconds”, “I belong to a cannibalistic religious cult that forbids the consumption of alcohol when not accompanied by human flesh” and “I have been coded.”
(A culturally significant aside… “Coding” is a purely Russian term used by medical professionals as a combination of a placebo and a “scared straight” philosophy. To put it simply, the doctor pretends to implant a “detonator” into the patient’s body (via a pill, an injection, telepathy or hypnosis) and tells the patient that it will automatically kill him once any amount of alcohol is consumed. This isn’t a joke. This is actual shit actual Russian doctors do. If anyone ever wants to write the comprehensive analysis of Russia’s society, “coding” can seriously be the only topic worth exploring.)
Back to the topic, drinking with Russians is certainly not advisable for anyone who values their health and standing in society. As noted above, losing face while drinking will cause your social status to plunge drastically, and keeping up with Russians will almost invariably result in just that, particularly for Americans who are astonishingly capable of getting drunk on Bud Light.
However, if you do get press-ganged into partaking in our national pastime, try very hard to keep to your limits and pace yourself accordingly. You won’t weasel out of draining your first shot. You will be watched closely, and folks will probably shout “Do dna!” (“To the bottom!”) to make sure you don’t cheat. Following that, however, if you keep an upright position and reasonably good cheer, you can take things slower. Most people won’t look askance at someone who takes small swallows in lieu of full shots, as long as appearances are kept. This is honestly the best you can do, lest you wind up in the gutter, the hospital or the morgue.
As to the drinking ritual, let’s just put this to bed: whoever has popularized the belief that we toast each other with “Na zdorovye!” should be put to death. Literal death. Now. We, and I can’t stress this enough, DO NOT. Like, never. This is one of the worst smears of glorious Russian culture extant in the West. “Na zdorovye” means “You are welcome” in Russian, as a way to responding to “Thank you.”
You will occasionally hear “Za vashe zdorovye!” (“To your health!”) as well as “Bud zdorov!” (“Be healthy!”) or “Budem zdorovy!” (“Let us be healthy!”), all of which are extremely ironic considering he usual effects of consuming vodka. Other popular toasts include “Za prekrasnyh dam!” (“To the beautiful ladies!”), “Za teh, kto v more!” (“For those who are at sea!”), “Za vstrechu!” (“To our meeting!”) and, of course, “Za Putina!” (“To Putin!”). If you are an American in the company of Russians, also expect to drink “Za Trumpa!”, regardless of your political leanings. This is just the locals thinking they are being polite to you, since in Russia the person of the ruler is commonly conflated with the idea of the nation.
(Please, note that if you are a Canadian, you will also wind up drinking “Za Trumpa!”, because the distinction is lost on most Russians. You are more likely, though, to be offered to drink “Za hockey!”)
A culture of more elaborate toasts, borrowed from the Caucasus, has also developed in Russia. These are usually long stories with a moral or amusing anecdotes with a punchline. Here is one that I have just shamelessly borrowed from an iconic Soviet movie.
Once upon a time, one very small but very proud bird decided to fly higher than all others. “I will fly to the very sun”, said the proud little bird and took off. It flew very high indeed until it got close to the sun. The sun singed the bird’s wings and it plunged down to earth whereupon it smashed on the ground and died. So let us drink, friends, to our ability, no matter how high we fly, to never abandon the collective!
It should also be noted that Russians don’t normally “do shots” the way Americans do. It is considered good manners to have food with your drink, even if it’s the most rustic kind imaginable, such as black bread, salted fish or salo. Chasing your shot with a bit of food is considered a cultured thing to do and is supposed to increase your alcohol tolerance. Such chasers are known as zakuski and the act of consuming them is called zakusyvat. In fact, a common putdown for someone who is unseemly drunk is “One should zakusyvat, you know.”
It is, however, traditional to skip zakuski after the first shot. This shows one’s commitment to drinking and displays one’s fortitude. Glasses must be clinked before the first shot, except when one drinks to a recently deceased. It’s also common to chase the first drink with the second almost immediately, with little to no toasting or conversation. “Between the second and the first, keep the break extremely short”, goes yet another Russian proverb. This rather harsh ritual will usually weed out the weak and the not sufficiently invested.
Subsequent shots should be chased with food and may or may not be toasted, but toasts usually become shorter as things get more serious. At that point, you will likely hear something extremely to the point such as “Budem!”, “Davai!”, “Poehali!”, “Pognali!”, “Vzdrognem!”, “Ukhnem!” and so on, all of which translate as “Let’s go!”, more or less. Alternatively, you might hear something very esoteric, such as “Budem zhivy, ne pomrem!” (“If we stay alive, we won’t die!”) or “Bog ne vydast, svinya ne syest!” (“God won’t betray us, pigs won’t eat us!”), which convey resilience and stubborn desire to cheat death in the face of sub-lethal blood alcohol levels.
You may often observe Russians exhale loudly before taking a shot. This is done to prevent gagging on strong liquor and to make sure it goes down smoothly in one gulp. Once it does, it’s not uncommon to release a loud gasp or a grunt, accompanied by an exclamation such as “This went down well!”
Cocktails have only recently gotten introduced to Russia, and while you will often see urbanites ordering mojitos or bloody marys in Russian bars, traditional drinking culture vehemently rejects mixology. In fact, even ice is staunchly scorned by serious Russian drinkers, as vodka is most commonly consumed straight, neat and from a 200-ml glass.
Most importantly, keep in mind that having drunk with someone is considered an important act of social bonding, not dissimilar with helping someone move in America. Once you have gotten drunk with a person, you are no longer casual acquaintances. You are friends at least and surrogate brothers at worst, expected to speak frankly to each other, not betray each other’s confidence, stick up for each other in fights, and, yes, help move. It is not entirely out of the question that you have already exchanged same-sex kisses (in a socially acceptable, non-sexual way) and sworn to do anything for the fellow drinker.
Drinking in Russia, being the one dependable thing in an utterly not dependable country, serves as the linchpin of human relationships, a guarantor of stability and a benchmark of human appraisal. Homer Simpson had no idea how Russian he sounded when he proclaimed alcohol the cause of and the solution to of all the lives problems.
Vzdrognem, friends!
Coming up next time, a deeper exploration of the zakuski as we attempt to answer the question of whether there is literally anything that Russians won’t pickle.
