Immoral transactions in Russia
- posted by Michael @ 9:06 PM

I have recently come across a mention of an article in the Russian Civil Code that might not have been meant to address any vice problem, but it sure sounds like it should have been. This is Article 169 (in Russian) that says in its first sentence (in my translation) "A transaction, the goal of which is knowingly against the foundations of law or morality [emphasis added], is null and void." The Article then goes on to state that the punishment for such a transaction is forfeiture of the transacted amounts, although there are some nuances, depending on whether both parties were aware of the nature of the transaction or only one of the parties. As we all know, Jim has not been a fan of property seizure before a person is convicted of any crime. Russia, however, is a dictatorship of the law (I think Pres. Putin said that at one point) and the forfeiture takes place only after the court has determined that the transaction was indeed immoral.

So far, this Article has been used against "immoral" transactions by some oil refineries trying to avoid (or evade) taxes and to question the legality of PriceWaterhouse's audits of Yukos. But it might be only a matter of time before Russia's law enforcers wake up to its much wider applicability.

Labels: Russia

 
Alcohol in Russia
- posted by Jim Leitzel @ 8:28 PM

Deaths from acute alcohol poisoning in Russia have been described as "so high that they do not fit into the range of international experience." The good news is, however, that such deaths have fallen by more than half in the last two years (or at least the reported statistics have fallen by more than half), from 40,000 deaths in 2005 to 19,000 deaths in 2007. The Moscow Times article suggests that the reduced deaths are due to a tax increase -- no, not a tax increase on potable alcohol, but a tax increase on industrial alcohol, which has caused Russians to substitute to less poisonous varieties. (For some flavour of Russian proclivities to drink beverage "surrogates," see this Vice Squad post from May 2007.) While acute alcohol poisoning deaths have been falling, however, alcohol-associated domestic violence incidents (reported, again) have been rising substantially.

Labels: alcohol, Russia

 
Alcohol's Health Benefits
- posted by Jim Leitzel @ 12:17 PM

It has become common knowledge that alcohol consumption brings some benefit in terms of improved cardiovascular health. But Phil Cook's Paying the Tab reminds us that it once was common knowledge that Hormone Replacement Therapy (HRT) had similar heart benefits -- and when the results of an actual controlled trial came in, it turned out that HRT raised the risk of heart attacks. The beneficial effects noticed earlier were due, it seems, to biased samples: women who went through HRT had characteristics that made them healthier than women who did not. Could the alcohol story be similar? After all, as Cook notes, Gorbachev's anti-alcohol campaign did not seem to bring on a crisis in Soviet cardiovascular health -- rather the opposite, actually. In the end, Cook (page 119) does not argue that the health benefit for middle-aged people from moderate alcohol consumption is illusory -- only that "the evidence is far from definitive."

Labels: alcohol, Cook, Russia

 
Russian Alcohol, Blog Neglect
- posted by Jim Leitzel @ 9:08 PM

I have been out of town for a few days, and this will continue for awhile, it seems. As a result, my one-post-per-day recent blogging standard has and will be compromised, alas. Vice goes on, however, even if Vice Squad sleeps:

Drinking alcohol not meant for consumption such as cologne and antiseptics may be responsible for nearly half of all deaths among working-age men in Russia, according to a study published Friday in The Lancet.

Revelation! This "news item" comes from a paper that Vice Squad mentioned on International Workers Day.

Labels: alcohol, Russia, solipsism

 
Hemp March in Moscow
- posted by Michael @ 3:12 PM

As some of you might know, today was the 2007 Global Marijuana March day. Apparently, groups from 232 cities all over the world signed up for it. One such city was Moscow (see a brief and bland English language report here). The initial meeting of the march participants took place near the McDonald's on the touristy Old Arbat in downtown Moscow. Don't know about other cities (there has been remarkably little in the news about this event) but Moscow police did not treat the march participants kindly. A Russian-language news source reported the following events. By the time 20 or so participants gathered near McDonald's, the Moscow finest already awaited them. As soon at the would-be marchers unfolded their "Legalize marijuana" banner the police pounced on them and detained six people. The friends of the detained tried to free them. After a skirmish, the detainees were taken to the nearby police station. Their friends came up to the station too and started calling the detainees on cell phones. Suddenly, the police became really violent knocking down those who stood near the police station, twisting their arms, hitting their heads against nearby cars and walls, and dragging them inside the station, where the beating apparently continued. One of the detained was beaten up severely during the interrogation. Another detainee suffered an asthma attack and after a considerable delay was taken to a hospital. The police, however, does not acknowledge hurting anybody.

In truth, the police actions are not really surprising, given its treatment of other recent events (see, for example, here and here) organized without approval of the authorities. It is unclear, however, why they keep doing that. Without police brutality, few people would probably notice these events, at least not as much, although perhaps this brutality that by now has come to be expected deters many potential participants.

Labels: marijuana, police brutality, Russia

 
Zapoi in Izhevsk
- posted by Jim Leitzel @ 11:53 PM

The alcohol situation in Russia continues to astound. (For earlier examples, see this November 19, 2003 post of acute alcohol poisonings, and co-blogger Mike's April 14, 2007 response to some dodgy statistics.) In the April, 2007 issue of Addiction is a report on drinking in the city of Izhevsk, in the Urals. The researchers wanted to find out about problematic drinking behaviors, going beyond per capita consumption statistics and standard "binge" queries (5 or more drinks in one sitting for men is the usual binge criterion.) They interviewed people who lived with adult men, and asked these people -- usually the spouse -- about the man's drinking. (They interviewed the 1,750 male subjects themselves, too, but it is well-known that people significantly under-report their own drinking.)

The findings that are most unsettling, at least to me, concern two worrisome drinking behaviors, surrogates and zapoi. By 'surrogates,' the researchers are referring to the consumption of alcohol mixtures that are not intended to be imbibed, such as colognes; 8 percent of the men were reported to have drunk surrogates in the past year, and 4 percent drank them weekly. Remember, these data concern men who live with other people -- the homeless and men who live alone are excluded from the study -- and hence might even be expected to have less troublesome drinking habits than the average male. The authors note that the appeal of these unpalatable surrogates is their combination of low price and high alcohol content, allowing the surrogates to provide a fixed quantity of alcohol at something like 1/6 what it would cost by consuming vodka. Almost 4 out of 5 of the men drank vodka or other spirits over the course of a year, with about 20 percent consuming on a weekly basis.

Oops, I took a little break before I discussed zapoi. OK, that sentence is supposed to represent a very weak self-referential joke, because the Russian word zapoi refers to a sort of extended binge, a two-day or longer period in which someone withdraws from normal life in favor of drinking and continuous drunkenness. Ten percent of the men in the study had an episode of zapoi in the previous year. Wow -- and again, it is likely that the real alcohol devotees are not even included in the sample.

Russian alcohol surrogates crop up in Moskva-Petushki, a Soviet-era underground, alcohol-soaked tale that includes some recipes for making exotic drinks (such as "Tear of a Komsomol Girl") from surrogates. As I recall, one instruction is something along the lines of "Purify a can of varnish," leading to a discussion of how it can be that in the Soviet Union, almost no one knows how Pushkin died, but everyone knows how to purify a can of varnish.

Labels: alcohol, Russia

 
Off-topic: Boris Yeltsin
- posted by Jim Leitzel @ 11:30 PM

I have now read a few obituaries of Boris Yeltsin that report (as seeming fact) that per-capita income in Russia fell by 75% during the Yeltsin years. (Here's one such article, from Forbes.com.) I was in Russia for a month in 1991, at the beginning of the Yeltsin era, and I lived there in 1997-98, towards the end of the Yeltsin era, with many visits in between. The notion that per-capita income fell by 75% is simply absurd. Does anyone believe that Russians were consuming two or three or four times as much of any good in 1991 than they were in 1998? As co-blogger Michael and I used to say to each other when presented with such proclaimed "facts" concerning large income falls, Russia must have been extremely wealthy in 1991. If the 75% decline is correct, then after the high growth rates of the 2000s, Russia would have just about caught up by now to the glorious heights that its juggernaut of a planned economy achieved in 1991.

There are many reasons for the insane figures on changes in per-capita income or consumption in Russia in the 1990s, but the chief culprit is the employment of bad price indices under a situation of repressed inflation prior to price liberalization in early 1992. So economic conditions of the pre-Yeltsin years are artificially boosted, and much of the measured fall of the Yeltsin years is just a recognition of the actual, pre-Yeltsin, situation. Many people have pointed out this problem over the years -- see my 1995 book on Russian reforms, for instance -- but somehow it now can be published as established fact that Yeltsin oversaw an economic collapse unparalleled in history.

As for Yeltsin's legacy more generally, I don't pretend to any special insight. His actions on Chechnya were tragic and disastrous, and I was not much of a fan of his 1993 storming of Parliament, though that one is more ambiguous in my mind. He left Russia with Putin, a move which has harmed Russia significantly, and promises deeper and sustained harm for the foreseeable future. But I always sort of felt, Chechnya aside (a big aside), that when the really big choices had to be made, choices about whether Russia was going to head towards individual freedom or totalitarianism, that in those instances, Yeltsin was at his best.

Nevertheless, I also sort of think that it might have been best if Yeltsin had not been re-elected in 1996. The co-opting of the media and the embrace of the oligarchs that were probably required for his re-election were too costly. Had Yeltsin lost, Mr. Zyuganov would have reversed the economic course, but the results, I think, would have been bad enough to discredit Zyuganov's party and its policies permanently. And it is very likely that today we would have someone other than the power-obsessed Putin presiding over a Russia prospering through high world energy prices and a sensible exchange rate (which they only achieved after the 1998 financial crisis).

Labels: Russia

 
EU Vice Update
- posted by Jim Leitzel @ 11:38 PM

Yesterday Mike brought up the odd statistics on Russian alcohol; in today's New York Times, Serge Schmemann discusses the European Union's upcoming ruling on the definition of 'vodka'. The ruling will have repercussions for Russia, as a decision that claims that vodka must originate from grain or potatoes would marginalize some of the competitors to Russian vodka exports in Europe. Sounds as if Schmemann thinks that the origin of vodka is irrelevant to imbibers: practiced drinkers in his experience "are unanimous that all vodkas are divided into two, and only two, categories: pure and impure." Kinda like bloggers.

Among the ongoing EU vice stories is what to do about cross-border (often internet-based) gambling. Many EU members have monopoly providers of gambling services, but that practice conflicts with the free trade precepts of the EU. Which approach should win, state-level gambling monopolies (perhaps consistent with the subsidiarity principle of the EU), or free trade? (It's the EU's version of the US v. Antigua problem.) This past week, the British betting firm William Hill applied for a license to overcome the Greek national monopoly by offering its services in Greece. Also, a German court upheld a state-run casino monopoly in Germany, though German gambling restrictions (including a plan to outlaw internet gambling) are running into opposition in Brussels. Speaking of German authorities, a small measure of revenge might be exacted for the soccer team AC Milan eliminating Bayern Munchen from the Champion's League this week: AC Milan's uniforms in the Munich match included an ad for an Austrian gambling firm, resulting in the imposition of a 100,000 euro fine against the Italian team.

Labels: alcohol, EU, gambling, Russia

 
Are the Russians drinking more that they used to?
- posted by Michael @ 8:02 PM

A couple of days ago, Matthew Kean cited Canberra that reported a big jump in Russian alcohol consumption from 5.4 liters of pure alcohol equivalent per person in 1990 to 15 liters per person currently. This per capita consumption seemed high, but not incredible. For comparison, Irland's 2006 consumption was 13.6 liters per person aged 15 and older. (The corresponding number for Luxembourg is 15.5 liters but that is certainly skewed by Luxembourg neighbors' cross-border shopping.) Also, the French used to drink about 20 liters per 15+ year-old 30 years ago and Spain wasn't far behind, although both have cut down their drinking since then.

Canberra also reported, however, that in 2005 consumption was "only" 9.7 liters per person. While the tripling of consumption since 1990 was hard to believe (well, thinking of it, Jim and I started visiting Russia in 1991, so perhaps there is a reasonable explanation), the 50+% jump since 2005 was completely incredible. Paraphrasing the US Postal Service, if it looks too strange to be true, it probably is. So, I went to the Russian website mentioned by Canberra (the site of the Russian consumer protection agency Rospoterbnadzor -- as the Russians would say, you can't pronounce the word without drinking a bottle of vodka first). Sure enough, while Russians do drink a lot (no surprise there) they are probably much steadier in their drinking habits than Canberra would have us believe. Rospotrebnadzor actually was careful to distinguish between "measured" consumption in 1990 and 2005 correctly reported by Canberra and the "rough estimate" of actual "current" per capita consumption of 15 liters. The latter included "dual use" liquids such as alcohol-based household chemicals and eau de colognes. There is no telling what the actual consumption was in 1990, although it certainly was much higher than 5.4 liters per person.

Interestingly, as reported by this Russian news website, the output of vodka in the first quarter of this year grew by 67% relative to the same period a year ago, and the output of wines increased four-fold. This remarkable growth in output (but not in consumption, I bet) was due to the problems that the Russian booze industry had a year ago when the Russian government began to require new excise stamps for alcohol, but did not provide those stamps to the producers.

Labels: alcohol, Russia, taxes

 
Singapore's Anti-Drug Cruelty
- posted by Jim Leitzel @ 11:06 AM

For most of human history sellers of opiates have engaged in a legal and even respected trade. Of course, in our more enlightened times we know that such sellers must be punished. And no country is more eager to punish, and to take the punishment to absurd extremes, than Singapore (though China and Malaysia are among the progressive nations competing for the honor). Today Singapore hanged a 21-year old man who had been convicted of heroin trafficking.

Update: Moscow's mayor endorses the cruelty.

Labels: Asia, heroin, Russia

 
Russian antitrust agency upholds public morals
- posted by Michael @ 9:18 PM

Despite some arguments to the contrary, I have always thought that Russia was a rather unusual country (perhaps there is no such thing as a “usual” country, but I am not going to worry about these things here). Still, once in a while, even I get surprised about some things that happen there. As far as I could gather from a relatively brief news item on a Russian language news site, four years ago the Moscow branch of the Russian anti-monopoly agency decided that the advertisement for Moulin Rouge magazine was “unethical” and, therefore, prohibited the ad (or perhaps even the magazine – this is not clear from the news item). The ad showed a lady (quite beautiful one, I might add) who was topless, but covered her nipples with her hands. The publisher of the magazine appealed the decision to the Arbitrage Court. The publisher lost its case a couple of days ago.

First, it is a mystery to me why the anti-monopoly agency would be involved in making ethical judgments. But perhaps even more amazing were the arguments the agency used (and the court upheld and even specifically referenced) to motivate its decision. In its reasoning, the anti-monopoly agency cited the Sermon on the Mount (“everyone who looks at a woman with lust for her has already committed adultery with her in his heart”) as well as the “Foundations of the Social Concept of the Russian Orthodox Church” (I won’t quote from there; it’s too boring). Moreover, the anti-monopoly agency also sprinkled its opinion with a few citations from the Koran including such statements as (my translation from Russian) “it is a sin to look at a woman who is a stranger and see parts of her body” and “it is a sin to undress needlessly and walk around naked” (I am not sure though what constitutes "need" with respect to undressing). Based on all this, the anti-monopolists concluded that the ad violated “common norms of humanity and morals” and contained “images offensive to the religious beliefs of individuals.” Wow. And I though that the Antitrust Division of the US Justice Department was too intrusive.

The Moulin Rouge publisher intends to appeal the court decision.

Labels: pornography, Russia

 
Mr. Prokhorov has been released
- posted by Michael @ 5:54 PM

The Russian oligarch who was arrested on Tuesday in Courchevel, France, has been released. We can all relax. It's still apparently legal to wine and dine young women and even offer them lodging. I do hope that the French police had a better reason for arresting and holding all those people in jail for a couple of days than what they revealed. But I have no evidence of that.

Labels: France, Russia

 
Russian oligarch arrested in France
- posted by Michael @ 7:14 PM

One of the richest men in Russia and the world, Mikhail Prokhorov, 41, was arrested with 27 other people, including several young women, in a French ski resort of Courchevel. Apparently, all the women were let go soon after the apprehension, but Mr. Prokhorov and at least some of his friends are still held in custody in Lyon. So far, no charges have been filed. It will be interesting to see what these not so poor Russians are charged with, if anything. It seems that it might be soliciting prostitution or perhaps even (God forbid!) drug possession. (Prostitution itself is not apparently illegal in France, but solicitation is.) From the available information, it appears that the Russian women who were initially apprehended with Prokhorov and others were not prostitutes. Moreover, the Bloomberg article referred to above quotes Lyon's state prosecutor as saying that "[t]he possibility of gifts, dinners and lodgings in five-star hotels being offered to the women is ``part of the investigation.'' Wow. By this standard, most American males might be guilty, except, of course, we would need to replace "five-star hotels" with something more affordable such as one's appartment. But perhaps there will be more serious charges involved. One interesting thing is how little information seems to be available on the web about all this in English. When I googled "Prokhorov prostitution" I did not see any entries on the first page that related to this story. I guess why should anybody really care that a guy who has $7.6 billion is arrested for (presumably) soliciting prostitution? In any case, the French authorities are going to make a statement about this case tomorrow and perhaps I will say more about it then.

Labels: France, prostitution, Russia

 
The Final Victory
- posted by Michael @ 9:12 PM

Just when Vice Squad is (was?) about to give up, the victory in the War on Drugs is apparently at hand. We may be sorry it didn't take place in the homeland of the world's leading warrior, but I, for one, am happy it's finally over. According to gazeta.ru (in Russian) for several days now, the Japanese customs authorities have been holding a Russian freighter "Valery Kuz'min" in the port of Minamata. The police took the passports and cell phones of the 26-person crew and have confined the sailors to the ship, which is being guarded by about 50 policemen. The investigation is ongoing. All this started on June 10 when the customs officals discovered a suspicious bag in the ship's toilet. The preliminary analysis has determined that the bag contained almost 300 grams of marijuana. That's right, these must have been the last 300 grams that had to be apprehended for the complete and final Victory. (No wonder nothing was found in those school lockers in Pennsylvania.) The Russians claim they have no idea how the bag got onto the ship. But I don't care. I am happy Vice Squad and I have lived to see the day. As for all of this happening in Japan, I don't mind too much. Our homeland has had it's share of glory in the War on Drugs, for example, in the recent medicinal marijuana decision. On to glorious victories in our numerous other Wars! Cheers.

Labels: Japan, marijuana, Russia

 
Drinking and Orbiting
- posted by Jim Leitzel @ 7:13 PM

Sixth months on the International Space Station can become a little monotonous, I imagine. After a few weeks, the stories told by the other members of your crew take on a distinctly familiar ring. That joke about the view being "out of this world" begins to wear thin. And the once-charming bad Russian pronunciation of the American guy only serves to demonstrate the extent to which he is nekul'turniy. If only there were some performance-enhancing drug available....

Russian cosmonaut Salizhan Sharipov, just back from space, said that alcohol should be allowed on the International Space Station as it helps to cope with stress and enhances performance, the RIA-Novosti news agency reports.

Sharipov was speaking at the first news conference organized after he, U.S. astronaut Leroy Chiao and Italian astronaut Roberto Vittori successfully completed their mission on the ISS on Monday. The Russian cosmonaut said that it would be “desirable” for spacemen to have 50 milliliters of wine or cognac every day. “But only to improve our work, to better cope with the psychological stress,” Sharipov said.

Labels: alcohol, Russia

 
Simpsons Not Yet Banned in Russia
- posted by Jim Leitzel @ 5:11 PM

In Kansas, legal proceedings involve watching pornographic movies. In Moscow, a court invested a few days watching episodes of The Simpsons. A man was suing a Russian TV station for showing The Simpsons and The Family Guy, on the grounds that the shows had "gotten his 6-year-old son interested in drugs and prompted him to call his mother a 'toad.'" The case was thrown out.

Thanks to Finland for Thought for the pointer. Finland for Thought is an interesting blog based in, uh, Finland run by an American who has the good taste to be from Baltimore. Here's his post on how a Baltimore-area man found himself arrested, with the Secret Service called in, because he paid for his $114 stereo at Best Buy with perfectly legal two-dollar bills.

Labels: Finland, obscenity, pornography, Russia

 
"Methods of painful impact to treat addictive behavior." [Updated!]
- posted by Jim Leitzel @ 11:02 AM

That's the English translation of the title of a Russian paper presented at a conference on new treatment methods for narcotics. From Pravda:

Siberian scientists believe that addiction to alcohol and narcotics, as well as depression, suicidal thoughts and psychosomatic diseases occur when an individual loses his or her interest in life. The absence of the will to live is caused with decreasing production of endorphins - the substance, which is known as the hormone of happiness. If a depressed individual receives a physical punishment, whipping that is, it will stir up endorphin receptors, activate the "production of happiness" and eventually remove depressive feelings.

That 'eventually' takes some 30 of the therapy sessions. One of the co-authors of the study, Dr. Sergei Speransky, claims to have cured his own depression via punishment, and more amazing still, "he also recovered from two heart attacks with the help of physical tortures too." Dr. Speransky recognizes that people might think that he's a bit odd, but he offers a denial:

"People might probably think of me as a masochist," Dr. Speransky said. "But I can assure you that I am not a classic masochist at all," he added.

Come to think of it, that is not exactly a denial, is it?

Thanks to friend of Vice Squad and satisfied Pravda reader Dima Masterov for the link; "pravda," of course, is the Russian word for "surely we couldn't make this stuff up."

Update: If the Siberian addiction cure is too wimpy for you, consider that of the Thamkrabok monastery in Thailand: "Addicts are put through a series of bamboo floggings, prayers and manual labour which is designed to cleanse them physically and mentally." (Scroll down to the bottom of the linked article.)

Labels: addiction, drugs, Russia, Thailand, treatment

 
The Rule of Law In Russia and the US
- posted by Jim Leitzel @ 4:27 PM

M. Simon at Power and Control sees some shortcomings in both countries.

Labels: Russia

 
Alcohol in Russia
- posted by Jim Leitzel @ 6:32 PM

Yesterday Vice Squad drew upon the January issue of the journal Addiction to talk about slot machines; today, it's the February issue that catches our attention (but not our link -- the Addiction website is currently down.) There's an article on alcohol in Russia by Alexander Nemtsov, a leading Russian alcohol policy expert. Here's a brief more-or-less random assortment of points drawn from Nemtsov's article:

Before World War I, per capita alcohol consumption in Russia was less than 1/3 of that in Western European countries such as the UK, Spain, France, and Italy. The big increase in alcohol consumption in Russia started only in the early 50s, but continued up to Gorbachev's anti-alcohol campaign of 1985.

Just today The Lancet published an article indicating that alcohol is responsible for about 4 percent of 'the global burden of disease.' Nemtsov notes that alcohol is connected with about 4 percent of the deaths in the European Union and Norway. But in Russia, well, the drinking situation is vastly more severe: more than 30 percent of deaths are directly or indirectly tied to alcohol. [Vice Squad has previously noted the almost unbelievable extent of acute alcohol poisoning in Russia.]

I'll close by quoting Nemtsov's paragraph on treatment for alcoholism in Russia:

The most common form of treatment is in Russia is [sic] directive suggestive psychotherapy, undertaken during a single consultation. This so-called 'coding', based on the work of Dovzhenko, seems at best to have only a placebo effect. It has never been evaluated, but its widespread use is consistent with the beliefs of the Soviet population. Psychopharmacotherapy is provided in hospitals and in dispensaries but family and group psychotherapy are rarely used in Russia. Treatment of alcoholic dependence achieves relatively poor outcomes.

Labels: addiction, alcohol, Russia, treatment

 
Putin Backs Beer
- posted by Jim Leitzel @ 11:40 PM

A friend of Vice Squad brings our attention to this BBC story on the possible ban on public beer drinking in Russia. Mr. Putin does not support the proposed ban in its current form -- so, it can no longer be termed a possible ban.

Promoting beer consumption is probably, in net terms, a form of harm reduction in Russia, as more beer drinking will likely mean less vodka consumption. Already recent years have seen a significant shift in this direction, i.e., more beer and less vodka. (Public consumption of vodka is already verboten.) Still, when I lived in Russia, it took a while to get used to seeing people -- often kids who looked to be about 16 -- drinking a beer as they walked down the street. The practice of drinking while walking down the street has apparently not gone away, according to the linked article: "Around 30% of the beer bought in Russia is consumed immediately, as many people find it too expensive to buy alcohol in restaurants and bars."

Labels: alcohol, harm reduction, Russia