One of the most widespread myths about Russia is the world-wide opinion about the innate intemperance of the Russian people when drinking beverages containing alcohol. Enemies of the Russian people actively support this opinion among the Russian people, so many of them themselves thoughtlessly repeat the false statements that “such is the nature of a Russian person” who is simply obliged to consume a hundred grams of vodka a day “for health”.
It is known that in the Middle Ages there was no drunkenness in Russia at all: grapes were not yet grown in our country. Drunkenness in Russia was considered a vice. For fun, they used lightly fermented drinks - kvass, mead and beer. Their degree was lower than now … On an ordinary day, no one sat down at the table with a mug of beer, they drank alcoholic drinks either on holidays, or at the end of a big business. Children and adolescents were not poured. Drinking alcohol was also forbidden for newlyweds. "Vodka" in the Middle Ages was called a completely different drink!.. In the XVI-XVII centuries, all the main vodkas were medicinal. For vodkas, the herbs were selected in such a way that alcohol would draw out medicinal substances from them, which, when ingested, were easily given away by alcohol, healing organs prone to diseases …
The historian of vodka Ruslan Bragin tells: “There was a very interesting vodka, it was called“vodka of the night watch.”A man drank a thimble, 20 grams of such vodka, herbs made his heart pound, he could not sleep all night. There were special small glasses of 10-15 grams, they were called … "flies" ". And the expression "under the fly" probably arose when they began to drink vodka not in glasses, but in glasses and bowls … However, the memory of "flies" remained.
But in Western Europe, drunkenness was quite widespread. Latin bishops forbade priests to solder their flock before the sacrament of repentance. Perhaps the use of alcoholic beverages was considered in Western Europe as a means of comforting grieving souls. Apparently, the Latin priesthood was influenced by a not entirely correct understanding of the words of Holy Scripture: “Give strong drink (alcoholic drink not based on grapes - author) to the perishing one and wine to the grieved soul. Let him drink and forget his poverty and remember no more about his suffering”(Proverbs 31: 6, 7).
At this time, Western Europe completely plunged into the abyss of unbridled drunkenness and bacchanalia. The German theologian, educator and teacher Philip Melanchthon (1497 - 1560) lamented: "We Germans drink until we are completely exhausted, until we lose our memory and health."
One of the most powerful monarchs in enlightened Europe, Louis XIV, shocked Russian diplomats by being constantly drunk. Russian ambassadors testified that from the very morning His Majesty the French King was already drunk, in a cheerful eye. The first breakfast of the French king, which he ate while lying in bed, consisted of biscuits dipped in Madeira - the king found a taste in that. They also drank because the Latin pastors themselves set an example, because beer and wine were prepared, as a rule, in monasteries. Pope Alexander VI Borgia died of delirium tremens. And Martin Luther noted: "Every country should have its own devil, the German devil is a good barrel of wine." In the court archives of the 16th century, there are many protocols about drunken fights in churches and churches, and their instigators were often Latin clerics tormented by a hangover …in medieval Bergen, a high cleric on a drunken business burned half the city from one candle. And the scientist author Heinrich von Rantzau wondered not about whether to drink at all, but about how to drink culturally.
Drunkenness was noted among the boyars and high clerics, who fell into the heresy of the Judaizers, foreign mercenaries. Russian people had no time to drink alcoholic beverages, as they always worked. There was no drunkenness as such. Baron Herberstein wrote in 1527: “Eminent or rich men honor the holidays by arranging feasts and drunkenness at the end of the divine service and putting on more elegant clothes, and the common people, servants and slaves for the most part work, saying that to celebrate and refraining from work is a master's business. Citizens and artisans attend the service, at the end of which they return to work, believing that doing work is more charitable than wasting wealth and time on drinking, playing and the like. A person of ordinary rank is forbidden drinks: beer and honey,but still they are allowed to drink on some especially solemn days, such as the Nativity of the Lord, Maslenitsa, Easter, Pentecost and some others, on which they abstain from work … "In 1552, Ivan the Terrible established a" Tsar's tavern "to look after rare drinkers … It turns out that on weekdays in Moscow it was generally forbidden to drink alcohol.
Shmul Maskevich (circa 1580-1632) - a Polish nobleman, a clerk under the governor - noted in his diary: “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, finally, the drunkenness would turn him to death. But if such a correction does not help, he remains in prison until he decays …"
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Mikkhel Litvin, the ambassador of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania to the Crimean Khanate, who visited Russia in the 16th century, wrote in the treatise "On the customs of the Tatars, Lithuanians and Muscovites": "Mosvitians 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 counts 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 lands on which grapes grow, they do not drink wine themselves, but sell it to Christians, receiving money for the war with the money raised for it … Truly, the Muscovites have one who only tastes wine,receives eight to ten blows with sticks and pays the fine with the same number 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 masters diligent in different families, who, sending us wooden bowls and sticks to support the weak, old and drunk, saddles, spears, jewelry and various weapons, rob our gold … He (Ivan III) is numbered by his subjects as holy ascetics, as the liberator of the Fatherland. So did his son Vasily the Third,following the same sobriety and the same morals, he took Smolensk from us. He built the Nalivka settlement with the hands of our hired soldiers and gave it this name as a reproach to our tribe, which is prone to drunkenness. His son, Ivan IV, built Sebezh, Velizh and Zavolochye within our borders. He keeps his own in sobriety. His people are always in arms. He does not beg for peace, he reflects strength by force."
The Russian people began to get drunk under Soviet rule. L. Brezhnev did his best. A. Trushnovich wrote in his "Memoirs of Kornilovets": "A man who did not work in a" bread place "could no longer feed his family alone. Only one product, which was sold even in manufacturing shops, was in abundance and was dispensed out of turn by special order - vodka. A tipsy man pushed past the long line of people and shouted, waving his already empty glass container: “This is a queue for you fools. And we have vodka out of line. Our native party and state care about us! " He uttered this sacramental phrase and shed tears.
For weeks, sometimes for months, the cooperatives were empty, and in front of the "monopole" there were crowds of suffering. The police had a secret order not to interfere with the sale of vodka to the drunk, drinking it on the street, not to pursue the scandalous drunks, but, if possible, to calm down, continually giving a military salute.
At one of the factories I know, a general meeting decided to close a nearby kiosk, because workers ran out, bought and drank vodka, which made the work suffer. Craftsmen who always walked with bruises under their eyes also suffered … After the workers voted to close the kiosk, an unknown man got up from the back rows and said, grazing, that he forbids closing the kiosk. It turned out that this is a financial inspector with great powers. The Soviet government encouraged the sale of vodka to the hungry people in every possible way."
In the 1990s, drunkenness became one of the main reasons for the emergence of the so-called. "Russian cross" - the mortality rate exceeded the birth rate. Alcohol bottled in liter bottles and cigarettes began to be generously and duty-free supplied to Russia. Those who were involved in the supplies clearly realized that they, like Hitler, were guilty of committing mass murder, for which they would not receive forgiveness, either in this century or in the next.