Mostly for Perdita

[Mhari]

OMG, my very first Lit thread!

I read this in the paper yesterday, Perdita, and thought you (and maybe others) might be interested: The Sad Natashas

The article does have one error, AFAIK, about alcoholism becoming an epidemic after the fall of the USSR. It's *always* been a freakin' epidemic there.

It's a very sad article, about trafficking in women. Most of them seem to be coming from the former Soviet Union these days. Another one of those monetary/societal problems that no one seems to want to do anything about...

 

[Guest]

Hi Mhari. That wasn't news to me, though sad still. I've seen docs. on the subject and in the past couple years, there have been films with such stories behind the plots. There's an element of racism in this too as Russian women are 'white', yet exotic.

Re. alcoholism, when I took Russian in college about 15 years ago my teacher (from Russia) told us, at the time, that a new law was passed that limited the selling of vodka to "only one bottle" per day per person. I suppose that's not the case now.

thanks, Perdita


(edited to correct addressee name, pardon me, Mhari)

 

[Mhari]

Re. alcoholism, when I took Russian in college about 15 years ago my teacher (from Russia) told us, at the time, that a new law was passed that limited the selling of vodka to "only one bottle" per day per person. I suppose that's not the case now.

Ah yes, Gorbachev's extremely short-lived anti-alcoholism campaign. He tried, he really did. But to a Russian, "only one bottle" per person per day is a hardship. I have absolutely no idea how they all manage to drink so much. Of course, Russian life-expectancy is appallingly low, especially for the men, in part because of how much they drink. Some stats are here: http://www.who.int/country/rus/en/

But no, it isn't in place any more. IIRC, it only lasted about 6 months. Glasnost' permitted Soviet citizens to yell and scream about being deprived of their vodka. That and the "bathtub vodka" industry that was killing a lot of its customers made Gorbi rethink his policy. Now, one can buy as much vodka as one wants. And the really cheap stuff goes for about 12 rubles per liter...or less than 50 US cents.