The first taverns in Russia appeared in the late 1500s - early 1600s. Distributors of this alcoholic potion flew into Russia, set up these taverns in all our cities and villages, and began to get people drunk, therefore, by and large, the troubled time of the early 1600s is a drunken time.
- Who initiated this?
- Such alcoholic expansion was carried out mainly with the help of foreign trade capital. Orthodox people and Muslims were prohibited from selling alcohol. By the way, in 1893, when the state monopoly on alcohol was restored, it turned out that 95% of alcoholic and 99% of tobacco products in Russia were controlled by foreign trade capital outside the Orthodox world.
Drunkenness among the Slavs was considered a mortal sin, but it was considered an even more serious sin in Orthodoxy to spread this poison, poison the people, kill their neighbors.
IN GENERAL RUSSIA IS NOT FAMOUS DRUNKING, BUT SOBE. So, the most powerful temperance movement in Russia was in 1858-1861. For three years, the peasants of all western provinces themselves completely refused to drink alcohol. The innkeepers even put up vodka for free, and people turned over this vodka, poured it out, beat the innkeepers. In 1858 alone, there were 110,000 trials of peasants, 111,000 peasants were exiled to hard labor for participating in these anti-alcohol riots. They were called “ANTI-ALCOHOL RITES”.
The second wave of the temperance movement in Russia was led by the Russian intelligentsia. Dostoevsky, Tolstoy wrote many articles against alcohol, although then alcohol consumption was ten times less than it is now. And all the same, the Russian intelligentsia rose to protect the people from drunkenness.
The third temperance movement began in 1905. A congress of anti-alcohol societies of Russia gathered, TEXTBOOKS FOR SCHOOLS about a sober lifestyle were created, they began to promote sobriety everywhere, which ended in an epochal victory: in 1914 in Russia, the tsar gave the right to local self-government bodies at their discretion for the period of army mobilization on the eve of World War I. establishments in their area. And to the credit of our people, I must say that every single store was closed throughout the country.
In the so-called "drinking" Russia, just 100 years ago, 95% of children under 18, 90% of women and 43% of men were absolute teetotalers (that is, they had never tasted alcohol in their lives)!
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This fact alone can be nailed to the pillory of those who spread the myth about the genetic addiction of the Slavs to alcohol.
In 1916, two peasant deputies Yevseyev and Makagon in the State Duma proposed the following bill: "On the introduction of sobriety in Russia for ever."
This is where the concept of Siberian health comes from: Siberians were all Old Believers who did not drink a drop of alcohol categorically. SOBBY WAS THE NORMAL PEOPLE OF RUSSIA'S LIFE STANDARD.
The "dry law" declared in 1914 by the will of the People lasted until 1925, until it was canceled by Rykov. But even after that, the "alcoholic curve" almost did not go up. In 1932, we barely made it to 1 liter per year per capita, in 1950 this figure rose to 1.85 liters, which was still many times less than the corresponding figure for "cultured" Europeans.
In the USSR, in the period from 1981 to 1988, a powerful informal temperance movement arose. Informal. The founder and leader of this movement was Academician Uglov. And in 1985, an anti-alcohol decree was adopted, it was written: "Create a society of sobriety."
Gorbachev himself had nothing to do with this resolution. Just the first thing he did in order to bend his chest in front of the people was to take and approved a ready-made resolution that Andropov was preparing.
Andropov created a special commission of the Central Committee of the CPSU on this issue, Gorbachev was not a member of it. It was Andropov who wanted to sober Russia up, Gorbachev simply put this bill into effect when he came and saw a huge number of letters from all over the country attached to it, asking to stop the alcoholic lawlessness in soldering our people.
- Are there any good fruits of this anti-alcohol decree?
- Now there is a significant increase in the birth rate only because the huge number of children who were born during the demographic explosion thanks to this decree has grown up and started creating new families.
Now the generation that was conceived during this period, from 1985 to 1988, enters life and begins to act.
This is a healthy generation that was born thanks to the anti-alcohol regulation. Then the birth rate surge was incredible.
CERTIFICATES OF FOREIGNERS OF THE 16-17 CENTURY ABOUT SOBBY IN RUSSIA
Samuil Maskevich (circa 1580-1632) - Polish nobleman, clerk. I have been to Russia many times and for a long time.
From the diary of Maskevich 1594-1621:
“The Muscovites observe great sobriety, which is strictly demanded from both the nobles and the people. Drunkenness is prohibited; there are no writers or taverns in all of Russia; nowhere to buy wine or beer; and even at home, with the exception of the boyars, no one dares to cook for himself a drink; this is being watched by scouts and wardens, who are ordered to inspect the houses. Others tried to hide the barrels of wine, skillfully sealing them in the ovens, but even there, to great misfortune, they found the culprit. The drunken man is immediately taken to the "beer prison", specially arranged for them; there is a special dungeon for every kind of criminals; and only after a few weeks are released from her, at someone's request. A person noticed in drunkenness is again imprisoned for a long time, then taken through the streets and mercilessly flogged with a whip; finally released. For the third guilt again in prison, then under the whip; from under the whip to prison,from prison under the whip … up to ten times of the guilty party, so that, at last, the drunkenness would loathe him. But such a correction will not help, he remains in prison until he decays …"
Michalon Litvin - Ambassador of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania to the Crimean Khanate, who visited Russia in the 16th century, From the treatise of Lytvyn "On the customs of the Tatars, Lithuanians and Muscovites":
“The Mosvites at Easter feasts are content with the following supplies: salt, not cleanly washed, mustard, garlic, onions and (other) fruits of their land; not only commoners, but also their nobles and their sovereign, the destroyer of our cities, of which he boastfully numbers already 73. On the royal dinner table, between golden vessels and homemade dishes, they put a little pepper, but not boiled, which no one touches … However, Moskhi … although they own the land on which grapes grow, they do not drink wine themselves, but sell it to Christians, receiving money for the war with the money received for it …"
“Truly, among the Muscovites, the one who only tastes the wine gets eight or ten blows with sticks and pays a fine with the same amount of coins. In Muscovy, however, there are no shanks anywhere, if at least a drop of wine is found in some householder, then his whole house is ruined, estates are confiscated, servants and neighbors living on the same street are punished, and he (the owner) is forever imprisoned. The neighbors are treated so harshly, because it is believed that they are infected with this communication and are accomplices of a terrible crime. …"
"Since the Muscovites abstain from drunkenness, their cities abound with craftsmen diligent in different kinds, who, sending us wooden bowls and sticks to support the weak, old and drunk, saddles, spears, jewelry and various weapons …"
FOR SOBBY - ON KATORGA. THE HISTORY OF THE DESTRUCTION OF SOBRIETY IN RUSSIA IS STRONGLY SILENT
It is hushed up in order to support the myth that drunkenness is a Russian national trait, that Russians have always drank, and nothing can be done about it!
But there are facts refuting this myth.
Chapter from the book "Do you respect me?" Saratov ethnographer, member of the Union of Writers of Russia Vladimir Ilyich Vardugin.
For sobriety - to … hard labor.
“The textbooks are silent about this war, although it was a real war, with volleys of guns, perished and prisoners, with the victors and the vanquished, with the trial over the defeated and the celebration of those who won and received indemnity (compensation for losses associated with the war). The battles of that war, unknown to schoolchildren, unfolded on the territory of 12 provinces of the Russian Empire (from Kovno in the west to Saratov in the east) in 1858-1860.
Historians often call this war "teetotal riots", because the peasants refused to buy wine and vodka, vowed not to drink the whole village. Why did they do it? Because they did not want tax farmers to profit from their health - those 146 people into whose pockets money flowed from the sale of alcohol from all over Russia. The farmers literally imposed vodka, if someone did not want to drink, he still had to pay for it: such were then established rules …
In those years, there was a practice in our country: each man was assigned to a certain tavern, and if he did not drink his "norm" and the amount from the sale of alcohol turned out to be insufficient, then the taverns collected the uncollected money from the yards of the area subject to the tavern. Those who did not want or could not pay were flogged with a whip for the edification of others.
Wine merchants, getting a taste, inflated prices: by 1858, a bucket of sivukh instead of three rubles began to sell for ten. In the end, the peasants got tired of feeding the parasites, and they, without saying a word, began to boycott the wine merchants.
The peasants turned away from the tavern not so much because of greed, but because of the principle: hardworking, hardworking owners saw how their fellow villagers, one after another, join the ranks of bitter drunks, who no longer love anything but drink. Wives and children suffered, and in order to stop the spread of drunkenness among the villagers, at community meetings the whole world decided: no one drinks in our village!
What was left for the wine merchants to do? They cut the price. The working people did not respond to "kindness." Shinkari, in order to bring down the temperance mood, announced a free distribution of vodka. And people did not fall for this, answering firmly: "we do not drink!"
For example, in the Balashovsky district of the Saratov province in December 1858, 4,752 people refused to drink alcohol. All the taverns in Balashov were given a guard from the people to ensure that no one bought wine, those who violated the vow were fined or subjected to corporal punishment by the verdict of the people's court.
The townspeople also joined the grain growers: workers, officials, nobles. Sobriety was also supported by the priests, who blessed the parishioners to stop drinking. The winemakers and potions merchants were already intimidated by this, and they complained to the government.
In March 1858, the ministers of finance, internal affairs and state property issued orders for their departments. The essence of those decrees was to prohibit … sobriety! The local authorities were instructed not to allow the organization of sobriety societies, and to destroy the existing sentences on refraining from wine and not allow in the future.
It was then, in response to the ban on sobriety, that a wave of pogroms swept across Russia. Having begun in May 1859 in the west of the country, in June the riot reached the banks of the Volga. The peasants smashed drinking establishments in Balashovsky, Atkarsky, Khvalynsky, Saratovsky and in many other districts.
In Volsk. On July 24, 1859, a crowd of three thousand people smashed wine exhibitions there at the fair. Quarter warders, police officers, mobilizing wheelchair teams and soldiers of the 17th Artillery Brigade, tried in vain to calm the rioters. The rebels disarmed the police and soldiers, and released prisoners from prison. Only a few days later, the troops that arrived from Saratov put things in order, arresting 27 people (and a total of 132 people were thrown into prison in Volsky and Khvalynsky districts).
All of them were convicted by the commission of inquiry based on the testimony of the tavern's inmates, who slandered the defendants in stealing wine (while smashing taverns, the rioters did not drink wine, but poured it on the ground), without supporting their accusations with evidence. Historians note that not a single case of theft has been recorded, the money was plundered by the employees of the drinking establishments, attributing the loss to the rebels.
From 24 to 26 July, 37 drinking houses were destroyed in the Volsky district, and for each of them large fines were taken from the peasants for the restoration of taverns. The documents of the commission of inquiry preserved the names of convicted fighters for sobriety: L. Maslov and S. Khlamov (peasants of the village of Sosnovka), M. Kostyunin (village of Tersa), P. Vertegov, A. Volodin, M. Volodin, V. Sukhov (from Donguz). The soldiers who took part in the temperance movement were ordered by the court to “deprive all rights of the state, and the lower ranks - medals and stripes for blameless service, whoever has such, punish with gauntlets every 100 people, 5 times, and send them to hard labor in factories for 4 years.
All in all, 11 thousand people were sent to prison and hard labor throughout Russia. Many died from bullets: the riot was pacified by the troops, who were ordered to shoot at the rebels. All over the country there was a reprisal against those who dared to protest against the soldering of the people. The judges raged: they were ordered not only to punish the rioters, but to punish them approximately, so that others would not disdain to strive "for sobriety without official permission." Those in power understood that one could pacify by force, but sitting on bayonets for a long time was uncomfortable.
It was necessary to consolidate the success. How? The government, like the heroes of the popular comedy movie, decided: "Whoever hinders us will help us." The ransom system for selling wine was abolished, and an excise tax was introduced instead. Now anyone who wants to produce and sell wine, having paid a tax to the treasury, profits from the drinking of his fellow citizens. In many villages there were traitors who, feeling the support of the bayonets behind their backs, continued the war against sobriety by other "peaceful" methods.
The teetotalers had to solve an almost insoluble problem: how to overcome the resistance of the authorities, which supported not sobriety, this basis of state power, but innkeepers, although filling the state treasury with money, but leading the country to death …
Slavic soberness
Vodka does not heal, but cripples.
There was Ivan, and now there was Blockhead, and all the wine is to blame.
Drinking vodka is ruining yourself.
To be friends with vodka is to live health.
Grabbed some wine - the fellow was gone.
Whoever loves wine destroys his heart.
Vodka without fire will burn the mind.
Fists cut wood from a sober man, but from a drunk man they won't take an ax.
The heroes drown in a puddle of vodka.
Wine comes - shame goes away.
You can't get enough of a drunkard at seven.
The drunkard does not go by himself, his hops lead.
The path of the spring is not a road, and a drunken person's speech is not a conversation.
A drunkard among the people is like a weed in a vegetable garden.
Where drunkenness is, there is crime.
Where there is wine, there is bitterness.
Hunger and cold have trodden the way to the tavern.
The tavern was built for grief and trouble.
Whoever gets drunk with a mash, he washes with tears.
Drink and walk - no good to see.
He fell in love with wine - he ruined the family.
A drunken man has seven cages, and he sleeps - one wattle fence.
The cups are faceted, and the hut is collapsed.
A drunk with a sieve measures money, but if he sleeps, there is nothing to buy a sieve with.
Cups and glasses will be brought to your purse.
The river begins from the stream, and drunkenness from a glass …