MOSCOW, August 5 (RIA Novosti) – A so-called science town in Siberia, founded to host a lethal-virus research center, is the place in Russia where the average resident reportedly drinks the most vodka per year – 102 liters.
The town of Koltsovo, population 13,000, in the Novosibirsk Region, has its own hard-liquor distillery as well as the prestigious Vector Institute, which is comparable to the US Centers for Disease Control and searches for ways to eradicate deadly viruses such as Ebola and bird flu.
The town’s average resident annually consumes nine liters of vodka more than the runner-up, airport town Smyshlyayevka in central Russia’s Samara Region, financial news site Finmarket.ru said Monday in a report based on alcohol sales data for 2011-2012 compiled by Russia’s State Statistics Service.
The next town on the list, Petra-Dubrava, also in the Samara Region, consumes about half as much – 51 liters per capita per year. Muscovites drink just 6.9 liters a year, the report said, adding that residents of Russia’s second-biggest city, St. Petersburg, consume 7.5.
The national annual average was 7.7 liters of vodka per capita, but the figure rose to between 20 and 30 liters in regions where sales were more closely monitored, hinting at the long-alleged popularity of bootlegged alcohol in the country, the report said.
About 15 percent of alcohol consumed by Russians comes from moonshine, medical tinctures and even alcohol-based cleaning solvents and cheap cologne, the State Statistics Service said last year.
Some 1.5 billion liters of vodka were consumed in Russia last year, the report said, adding that about 30 percent of the vodka is believed to have been bootlegged. This year that proportion is reportedly expected to reach 50 percent due to increased excise duties for alcohol.
According to a June report in Britain's Economist weekly, Russia led the world in vodka consumption last year, imbibing almost 2 billion liters of the global total of 4.4 billion. The United States, which has more than double Russia's population, trailed behind at a distant No. 2 with total vodka consumption of 0.6 billion liters.
Updated with clarified time frame, additional figures and slightly modified headline.
