Questions For Our Russian Friends

[Estreeter]

Originally Posted by Mosco Vito

According to statistics, every six months in Russia for drunk driving police arrest 40,000 people.

That makes me wonder how many drive drunk and are not caught
Does palo drive

[Reclaimedwg]

Originally Posted by Mosco Vito

According to statistics, every six months in Russia for drunk driving police arrest 40,000 people.

That's nothing.

We in the USA got them beat.

About 2 million folks, licensed drivers and non licensed drivers, are arrested each year for driving under the influence (which by law not only includes alcohol, it also includes drugs legal or non legal).

[palo5]

Originally Posted by Estreeter

Does palo drive

Not any more. My license expired some years ago

[Roubignol]

Originally Posted by palo5

Not any more. My license expired some years ago

Did you drive a Lada when you lived in USSR ?
How was the examination to get a driving lesson ?

When I had mine, I had to follow several practical courses and learn a theory book about signalling.
Then I had to pass two exams. One on the theory (50 multiple choice questions and 3 mistakes allowed) and one on my practical hability to drive the car with an examinator.

Was it different for you ?

I've listened that a long time ago, when in France people had to get a driving license, in Belgium it was not mandatory to get one to drive his own car.

[haroldeye]

I've driven in Belgium. Bloody dangerous. Mind Poland wasn't much better.

[deepsepia]

Question: I know Russians like their drink as much as anyone-- but I never had the impression that they drank in bars, all the pictures I have in my head from movies are always in someone's home.

Was that a Soviet thing, that they discouraged bars?

[Mosco Vito]

Originally Posted by deepsepia

Question: I know Russians like their drink as much as anyone-- but I never had the impression that they drank in bars, all the pictures I have in my head from movies are always in someone's home.

Was that a Soviet thing, that they discouraged bars?

There were practically no bars in the Western sense of the term in the USSR. Instead, there were beer houses where visitors drank standing at high tables on one leg. Real bars were very few, they were usually part of large hotels and focused on the service of foreigners. For example, in 1970 there were only two or three bars in Moscow that Soviet citizens could visit.

In the USSR and Russia has not formed a culture of drinking, so often here prefer to drink at home or on the street.

[Roubignol]

Which kind of news do you have about Venezuela in Russia?
I read that your governement helps Maduro. Is it correct?

[Mosco Vito]

Originally Posted by xyzde69

Which kind of news do you have about Venezuela in Russia?
I read that your governement helps Maduro. Is it correct?

News about Venezuela has recently taken a lot of place in the Russian Media. Official media focus on the aggressive plans of the United States, which wants to overthrow Maduro and eliminate the Russian and Chinese bridgehead in Latin America. The situation is funny and sad at the same time: the country's economy is in a deplorable state, but Russia makes recommendations to Venezuela (on January 11, the Deputy Minister of Finance of Russia proposed a plan to save the Venezuelan economy). Putin's and Maduro's regimes are very similar, they are based on the idea of enriching a narrow circle of people at any cost. This leads to the collapse of the country, but the authorities do not want to understand it. In recent years, Russia has invested billions of dollars in the Venezuelan economy, which are now irretrievably lost. But the Kremlin wants to continue funding the brotherly mafia regime of Maduro, believing that in this way he opposes the United States.

[scoundrel]

Originally Posted by Mosco Vito

There were practically no bars in the Western sense of the term in the USSR. Instead, there were beer houses where visitors drank standing at high tables on one leg. Real bars were very few, they were usually part of large hotels and focused on the service of foreigners. For example, in 1970 there were only two or three bars in Moscow that Soviet citizens could visit.

In the USSR and Russia has not formed a culture of drinking, so often here prefer to drink at home or on the street.

Interestingly, people in many western countries (inc. Britain) are tending to reduce their alcohol intake. For example we are in the middle of "Dry January", a thing I had never heard of until 2019 but which seems to be fashionable.
https://www.nhs.uk/live-well/alcohol...joannas-story/

Pub chains have been heard grumbling about it, but it doesn't automatically mean that people don't want to meet and socialise.

I myself have given up booze since last June, when a friend of mine entered a world of personal hell because his partner went down with acute liver failure caused by cirrhosis. Mercifully, she survived (despite some very hit and miss hospital care, sometimes excellent, sometimes very poor) and she is now on a long slow convalescence, basically learning to walk again and recovering nerve sensation in her extremities. I gave up alcohol in solidarity with her, as a mark of faith that she can do it too. So far she recoils from the stuff, knowing full well that as things now are, it would be like drinking neat prussic acid.

But this has made me pay attention to what others are doing and a lot of people I know are cutting back.

Is there any evidence of a trend away from alcohol in the Russian Federation?