In the article Alcoholic Traditions in Russian Principalities and the Muscovite Kingdom, it was told about the alcoholic drinks of pre-Mongol Rus, the emergence of "bread wine" and taverns, the alcoholic policy of the first Romanovs. Now let's talk about alcohol consumption in the Russian Empire.
As we remember from this article, the first attempts to monopolize the production of alcohol were undertaken by Ivan III. Under Alexei Mikhailovich, a serious struggle against moonshine began. And Peter I forbade distilling in monasteries too, ordering the “holy fathers” to hand over all the equipment.
The first emperor: assemblies, the Most Drunken Cathedral, medal "For drunkenness" and "Peter's water"
The first Russian emperor not only consumed alcohol in large quantities, but also made sure that his subjects did not lag behind him too much. V. Petsukh wrote at the end of the twentieth century:
"Peter I was inclined towards a democratic and very drunk lifestyle, and because of this, the divine status of the Russian autocrat faded to such an extent that Menshikov found it possible to slap the heir Alexei on the cheeks, and the people - in writing and orally, rank the emperor among the aggels of Satan."
With the scope of his drunken orgies, Peter I managed to surprise not only the people and boyars, but also the worldly foreigners.
It is known that after descending from the stocks of the built ship, Peter announced to those present:
"That bum who, on such a joyful occasion, does not get drunk."
The Danish envoy, Yust Juhl, recalled that one day he decided to get rid of the need to get drunk by climbing on the mast of a new ship. But Peter noticed his "maneuver": with a bottle in his hand and a glass in his teeth, he crawled after him and gave him such a drink that the poor Dane barely managed to get back down.
In general, drunkenness at the court of Peter I was considered almost a valor. And participation in the notorious revelry of the "All-Drunken Council" became a sign of loyalty both to the tsar and to his reforms.
This is how the last moral obstacles preventing the spread of drunkenness in Russia were broken. But common thoughts sometimes visited the first emperor. Once he even instituted a cast-iron medal "For Drunkenness" (in 1714). The weight of this dubious award was 17 pounds, that is, 6, 8 kg (not counting the weight of the chains), and it had to be worn by the "awarded" one week. This medal can be seen at the State Historical Museum.
However, sources do not report on the mass “awarding” of such medals. Apparently her institution was one of this emperor's fleeting quirks.
At the time of Peter I, the word "vodka" entered the Russian language. This was the name given to "bread wine" of low quality, a glass of which was included in the daily diet of sailors, soldiers, shipyard workers and builders of St. Petersburg (a glass is a hundredth part of the "official bucket", about 120 ml). At first this alcoholic drink was contemptuously called "Petrovskaya water", and then - even more pejoratively: "vodka".
Successors of Peter I
The wife of Peter I, Catherine, who went down in history as the first empress of Russia, also loved "bread" and other wines beyond measure. In recent years, she has preferred Hungarian. Up to 10% of the Russian budget was spent on their purchase for the Empress's court. After the death of her husband, she spent the rest of her life in continuous drinking.
The French envoy, Jacques de Campredon, reported to Paris:
"(Catherine's) entertainment consists in almost daily drinking in the garden, lasting all night and a good part of the day."
Catherine, apparently, became decrepit extremely quickly precisely from excessive consumption of alcoholic beverages. She died at the age of 43.
At a fairly early age, through the efforts of the Dolgoruky, the young emperor Peter II also became addicted to wine.
Age of Empresses
But Anna Ioannovna, on the contrary, did not drink herself, and did not tolerate drunken people in her court. The courtiers were then allowed to openly consume alcoholic beverages only once a year - on the day of her coronation.
It must be said that both Anna Ioannovna and her favorite Biron were slandered by the monarchs of the Petrine line of the Romanov dynasty who came to power. There were no atrocities outside the scope of Anna's ten-year reign, and the budget under this empress, for once, became surplus. Minich and Lassi went to the Crimea and Azov, washing away the shame of the Prut campaign of Peter I with enemy blood. The Great Northern Expedition set off. Yes, and her subjects lived easier under her than under Peter I, who "in order to protect the Fatherland, he ruined it worse than the enemy."
Under his daughter Elizabeth, who was required to put on a new dress every day, so after her death “32 rooms were discovered, all filled with the dresses of the late empress” (Shtelin). And under Catherine II, during the reign of which serfdom turned into real slavery. But we got ahead of ourselves.
Elizabeth also "respected" all kinds of wines: as a rule, she herself did not go to bed sober and did not interfere with others getting drunk. So, her personal confessor, according to the register drawn up in July 1756, was allocated for a day 1 bottle of a musket, 1 bottle of red wine and half a grape of Gdansk vodka (obtained by triple distillation of grape wine with the addition of spices, a very expensive alcoholic drink). On the table at which the chamber-junkers dined, 2 bottles of Burgundy wine, Rhine wine, musket, white and red wine, and 2 bottles of English beer (12 bottles in total) were placed daily. Singers received 3 bottles of red and white wine daily. State lady M. E. Shuvalova was entitled to one bottle of unspecified grape wine per day.
In general, staying sober in Elizabeth's court was quite difficult. It is said that in the morning the guests and courtiers of this empress were found lying side by side in the most embarrassing physiological states caused by excessive consumption of alcohol. At the same time, completely outsiders often turned out to be next to them, no one knows how they had penetrated into the royal palace. And therefore, the stories of contemporaries that no one ever saw Peter III (Elizabeth's successor) drunk before noon should be considered as evidence of the unnatural behavior of this emperor in the court environment.
During the reign of Elizabeth, the word "vodka" first appeared in a state legal act - the empress's decree of June 8, 1751. But somehow it didn't take root.
Over the next 150 years, the terms "bread wine", "boiled wine", "burning live wine", "hot wine" (the expression "strong drinks" also appeared), "bitter wine" (hence " "And" bitter drunkard ").
There were also the terms semi-hard (38% by volume, first mentioned in 1516), foamy wine (44, 25%), triple (47, 4%), double alcohol (74, 7%). Since the middle of the 19th century, foamy wine has increasingly come to be called "pervak" or "pervach". It did not foam: in those days the upper and best part of any liquid was called "foam" ("milk foam", for example, is now called cream).
And the word "vodka" at that time among the people existed as a slang. In the literary language, it began to be used only at the beginning of the 19th century. Even in Dahl's dictionary "vodka" is still just a synonym for "bread wine", or - a diminutive form of the word "water". In aristocratic circles, vodkas were then called distillates of grape and fruit wines, to which various pomace and spices were added.
Under Elizabeth, for the first time in history, Russian bread wine began to be exported.
Brigadier A. Melgunov in 1758 received the right to export "hot wine" of high quality abroad for sale: "such kindness that does not exist in the supply to taverns."
Kruzhechnye yards (former taverns) under Elizabeth were renamed into "drinking establishments". The remains of one of them were discovered in 2016 while laying cable collectors in the area of Moscow's Teatralnaya Square. This drinking establishment survived the Moscow fire of 1812 and operated until at least 1819.
However, the word "tavern" from the Russian language has not gone anywhere, having survived to our time. And in tsarist Russia and kruzhechnye yards, and drinking establishments among the people continued to be called "taverns".
"Daughter of Petrov" also marked the beginning of a new fashion fad.
In "decent houses" now, without fail, there were tinctures and liqueurs for all letters of the alphabet: anise, barberry, cherry, … pistachio, … apple. Moreover, in contrast to imported "vodkas" (distillates of grape and fruit wines), in Russia they also began to experiment with refined "hot bread wine". This led to a real revolution in the home distillery of the nobility. Nobody paid attention to the incredibly high cost of the resulting product. But the quality was also very high. Catherine II then sent the best samples of such products to her European correspondents - Voltaire, Goethe, Linnaeus, Kant, Frederick II, Gustav III of Sweden.
Catherine II "became famous" also by the statement
"Drunken people are easier to manage."
Under her, on February 16, 1786, a decree was issued "On the Permission of the Permanent Distillation of the Nobles", which actually abolished the state monopoly on the production of alcoholic beverages and state control over their production.
Some researchers believe that one of the reasons (not the main one, of course) of the assassination of Emperor Paul I was his desire to cancel this Catherine's decree and return the production of alcoholic beverages and vodka under state control.
Alcohol policy of the Russian Empire in the 19th century
The monopoly on the production of alcohol was nevertheless partially restored by Alexander I - in 1819.
The reason was the disastrous state of the state, devastated by the war of 1812 and the subsequent "liberation campaign" of the Russian army. But the retail trade in alcohol remained in private hands.
Under Alexander I, by the way, vodka began to spread in France.
It all started with deliveries to the Parisian restaurant "Veri", rented by the Russian command for generals and senior officers. And then other restaurants and bistros began to order vodka. Together with Russian soldiers and officers, the Parisians began to try it.
In 1826, Emperor Nicholas I partially restored the ransom system, and since 1828 completely canceled the state monopoly on vodka.
Many believe that the emperor took these steps, wishing to make a conciliatory gesture against the nobility, which was extremely unpleasantly impressed by the repressions against the Decembrists, famous and influential families.
Under Nicholas I, the government, apparently wishing to accustom the people to vodka, suddenly limited the production and sale of wines, beer and even tea. Brewing became so taxed that by 1848 almost all breweries were closed. It was at that time that Bismarck issued one of his catchphrases, stating that
"The Russian people would have a brilliant future if they were not completely infected with drunkenness."
The reign of Nicholas I became a "golden age" for wine "tax farmers", whose number in the last years of his life reached 216. Contemporaries compared their profits with the tribute of the people to the Mongols. So, it is known that in 1856 alcoholic beverages were sold for more than 151 million rubles. The treasury received 82 million of them: the rest went into the pockets of private traders.
The tax farmers then had tremendous influence and incredible opportunities. The case against one of them in the Moscow department of the Senate was led by 15 secretaries. Upon completion of the work, documents for several dozen carts were sent to St. Petersburg. This huge wagon train, along with the people accompanying it, simply disappeared on the road - no traces of it were found.
In the middle of the 19th century, the number of drinking establishments in the Russian Empire increased sharply. If in 1852 there were 77 838, in 1859 - 87 388, then after 1863, according to some sources, it reached half a million.
The devastation of the population and the increase in mortality from drunkenness then caused such discontent that riots in the villages often began with the destruction of drinking establishments.
On the outskirts of the Russian state, where the traditions of self-government were still strong, people sometimes themselves solved the problem of drunkenness of neighbors and relatives - using unusual but very effective methods of "folk addiction". So, in some Don Cossack villages, drunkards were publicly flogged on a Sunday afternoon in the market square. The "patient" who received this treatment had to bow on four sides and thank the people for the science. It is said that relapses after such "treatment" were extremely rare.
Under Alexander II, in 1858-1861, the unthinkable happened: in 23 provinces of the center, south, middle and southern Volga and Ural regions, a mass "sober movement" began to spread.
The peasants smashed drinking establishments and took vows to refuse alcohol. This greatly frightened the government, which lost a significant part of the "drunken money". The authorities used both "stick" and "carrot". On the one hand, up to 11 thousand protesting peasants were arrested, on the other - in order to stimulate trips to drinking establishments, the prices for alcohol were reduced.
In 1861, a scandal in society was caused by V. Perov's painting "Rural procession at Easter". Actually, the artist did not depict the traditional procession around the church, but the so-called "glorification": after Easter (on Bright Week), village priests went from door to door and sang church hymns, receiving gifts and treats from parishioners in the form of "bread wine". In general, it looked, on the one hand, like pagan carols, and on the other hand, like the pre-New Year visits of "Santa Clauses" in Soviet times and today. At the end of the "glorification", its participants literally could not stand on their feet. In the picture we see a completely drunk priest and a priest who has fallen to the ground. And the drunken old man does not notice that the icon is turned upside down in his hands.
At the request of the authorities, Tretyakov, who bought this painting, was forced to remove it from the exhibition. And they even tried to bring Perov to court for blasphemy, but he managed to prove that in the Moscow region of Mytishchi such “religious processions” are organized regularly and do not surprise anyone.
In 1863, the ransom system, which caused widespread discontent, was finally abolished. Instead, a system of excise taxes was introduced. This led to a decrease in the price of alcohol, but its quality also decreased. Spirits made from quality grain were sent abroad. In the domestic market, they were increasingly replaced by vodka made from potato alcohol. The result was an increase in drunkenness and an increase in the number of alcohol poisoning.
At the same time, by the way, the famous Shustov vodka appeared. To promote it, NL Shustov hired students who went to drinking establishments and asked for "vodka from Shustov." Having received a refusal, they left with indignation, and sometimes they made loud scandals, which they wrote about in the newspapers. It was also allowed to cheat, on the condition that the amount of damage to the institution does not exceed 10 rubles.
In the same 1863, a vodka distillery “P. A. Smirnov.
In 1881, it was decided to replace the old drinking establishments with taverns and taverns, in which it was now possible to order not only vodka, but also a snack to it. At the same time, for the first time, they thought about the possibility of selling take-away vodka and portions less than a bucket.
Yes, there was simply no smaller container for vodka then. Only imported wine was sold in bottles (which already came from abroad in bottles).
The strength of vodka then did not have clearly defined boundaries, the strength of 38 to 45 degrees was considered permissible. And only on December 6, 1886 in the "Charter on Drinking Fees" a standard was approved, according to which vodka had to have a strength of 40 degrees. This was done for the convenience of calculations. And DI Mendeleev with his theoretical work of 1865 "On the combination of alcohol with water" has nothing to do with it. By the way, Mendeleev himself considered the optimal dilution of alcohol to 38 degrees.
Meanwhile, protests against the local taverns continued. Moreover, they received the support of world famous writers and scientists, among whom were, for example, F. Dostoevsky, N. Nekrasov, L. Tolstoy, D. Mamin-Sibiryak, I. Sechenov, I. Sikorsky, A. Engelgart.
As a result, on May 14, 1885, the government allowed rural communities to close down drinking establishments through "village sentences."
Under Alexander II, planting of vineyards began on the territory of the Northern Black Sea region. In 1880, Russian champagne was received in Abrau-Dyurso, which from the beginning of the century replaced French at the imperial receptions.
And at the end of the XIX - beginning of the XX centuries. there was also a rehabilitation of beer, the production of which began to grow. True, two-thirds of the empire's breweries produced one sort - "Bavarskoe".
On July 20, 1893, the state monopoly on distilling was restored. And in 1894, finally, the first state-owned shops were opened, in which they sold vodka in bottles. This was done at the suggestion of the Minister of Finance of the Russian Empire S. Yu. Witte.
However, the people did not immediately get used to this innovation, and at first the so-called "glass-makers" were constantly spinning near these shops, offering the suffering ones their dishes "for rent." At the same time, restrictions were introduced on the sale of alcoholic beverages: in large cities, vodka began to be sold from 7:00 to 22:00, in rural areas - in winter and autumn until 18:00, in summer and spring - until 20:00. The sale of alcohol was prohibited on the days of any public events (elections, community meetings, etc.).
In 1894, the famous "Moscow special vodka" was patented, which was also produced in the USSR. It was no longer a kind of bread wine, but a mixture of rectified alcohol and water.
Finally, in 1895, by order of Witte, vodka was sold instead of bread wine. There were two varieties of vodka on sale in state-owned shops: the cheaper one with a red wax lid (that was the one most accessible to the people) and the more expensive one with a white lid, which was called “dining room”.
In addition to state-owned wine shops in large cities at that time there were also “porter shops”, where they sold beer, and “Renskoye cellars” (distorted “Rhine”), which sold imported wine. In addition, at the beginning of the 20th century, bars were opened at some of the capital's restaurants where cocktails could be ordered (the first was in 1905 at the Medved restaurant). Then cocktail bars appeared in Moscow.
Meanwhile, the situation with popular drunkenness continued to deteriorate. According to statistics, the consumption of wine drinks per capita in 1890 was 2.46 liters, in 1910 - 4.7 liters, in 1913 - just over 6 liters.
At the beginning of the 20th century in some Russian cities (for example, in Saratov, Kiev, Yaroslavl, Tula), sobering-up stations appeared on the initiative of local authorities. By 1917, such establishments were opened in all provincial cities.
On March 30, 1908, 50 peasant deputies of the State Duma issued a statement:
"Let the vodka be removed to the cities, if they need it, but in the villages it finally destroys our youth."
And in 1909, the First All-Russian Congress on the Fight against Drunkenness was held in St. Petersburg.
Even Grigory Rasputin criticized the government's alcohol policy at the time.
No alcohol law
During the First World War, the Russian government took unprecedented measures, for the first time in history, completely banning the use of spirits. On the one hand, there were some positive aspects. In the second half of 1914, the number of drunken people arrested in St. Petersburg turned out to be 70% less. The number of alcoholic psychoses has decreased. Contributions to savings banks have increased significantly. And the consumption of alcohol that has become inaccessible has dropped to 0.2 liters per capita. But the ban, as expected, led to a sharp increase in home brewing, which the authorities were unable to cope with.
Initially, alcohol was only allowed to be served in expensive first-class restaurants. In other establishments, colored vodka and cognac were served under the guise of tea.
All kinds of denatured alcohol began to be used everywhere. So, for example, according to the results of 1915, it turned out that in Russia the purchases of cologne by the population had doubled. And the Voronezh perfumery factory "Partnership of L. I. Mufke and Co." this year produced cologne 10 times more than in 1914. Moreover, this enterprise launched the production of the so-called "Economic cologne" of extremely low quality, but cheap, which was bought specifically for consumption "inside".
The number of drug addicts increased sharply, and in all strata of the population of the empire. There were also invented "cocktails" in which alcohol was mixed with drugs. "Baltic tea" was called a mixture of alcohol and cocaine, "raspberry" - alcohol with opium.
A. Vertinsky recalled:
“At first, cocaine was sold openly in pharmacies in sealed brown cans … Many were addicted to it. The actors carried bubbles in their vest pocket and "charged" each time they went on stage. Actresses carried cocaine in powder boxes … I remember once I looked out of the attic window where we lived (the window looked out onto the roof) and saw that the entire slope under my window was strewn with brown empty cans of Moscow cocaine."
The Bolsheviks then, with great difficulty, managed to stop this "epidemic" of drug addiction that swept the entire Russian society.
The losses of the Russian budget turned out to be huge, which in 1913 was formed by 26% at the expense of revenues from the state sale of alcohol.
In the next articles, we will continue our story and talk about the use of alcohol in the USSR and post-Soviet Russia.
