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 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. 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 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 counterfeit alcohol in the country, the report said.
About 15 percent of alcohol consumed by Russians comes from moonshine, medical tinctures and even liquor-based cleaning solvents and cheap cologne, the State Statistics Service said last year.
Some 1.5 billion liters of vodka was consumed in Russia last year, the report said, adding that about 30 percent of the vodka is believed to have been counterfeit. This year that proportion is reportedly expected to reach 50 percent due to increased excise taxes for alcohol.
Russia led the world in vodka consumption last year, the Economist said in June. The United States was the runner-up with 0.6 billion of the total 4.4 billion liters of vodka consumed around the world.
Headline modified slightly after publication.
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