15 liters a year? Pfft.

FTFA: Americans take in 8.4 litres.

They must not have included farkers in their study.

/alcoholism is better than the alternative

He meant to say "amiss". but his speech was slurred.

Every time there's a new story about someone found to have an outlandishly high (seemingly lethal) BAC, it always seems to be someone of Slavic origin. I think the highest ever recorded was a Bulgarian man.

Despite statistics that prove otherwise, Bryun said the image of the average Russian man as a vodka-swilling beer lover was simply a myth.

If they love beer, why would they swill vodka?

On it.

/linked quite warmly

swarms909: FTFA: Americans take in 8.4 litres.

They must not have included farkers in their study.

/alcoholism is better than the alternative

8.4 Liters in a year? Try 8.4 liters in a month. One 12 pack of beer is about 4.26 liters...If you're REAL conservative with it, it will last 2 weeks(not likely though). I don't know where the hell they're getting their numbers.

In related news Siberia is very,very warm.

I think they mean 15 litres of pure alcohol, not 15 litres of beer or vodka.

definitely not a myth. i spent this last summer in russia. I went fishing with a bunch of guys in Nizhnivartovsk (its real, look it up) and had 3 vodka shots for breakfast, 5 more for lunch, and another 8-10 at the bath (which is really a sauna) later in the evening. big shots. they eat greasy meat and raw fat the entire time so you actually don't get as drunk as you'd think.

What he meant to say was that the Russians drink the equivalent of 8.4 [Fark] liters.

Having recently been a liter myself (and may be again in the future), I can vouch for the fact that that drinking as much alcohol as 8.4 liters do, is quite a lot.

Er, 15 liters.

Yeah.

This from the people who sell vodka by the can? I disagree.

Been to Russia. The Unlikely tag would've been more appropriate.

Translation error. They actually meant "legendargoodbomb: they eat greasy meat and raw fat the entire time so you actually don't get as drunk as you'd think.

So what you're saying is you had some quality time in a gay bathhouse with some Russian fishermen.

hukedanfonix: 8.4 Liters in a year? Try 8.4 liters in a month. One 12 pack of beer is about 4.26 liters...If you're REAL conservative with it, it will last 2 weeks(not likely though). I don't know where the hell they're getting their numbers.

8.4 liters of PURE alcohol. How much is in those beers, 5% at the max?

It's true. Next to the Ukranians, they drink like little girls. Nobody puts away the vodka like they do in Kiev.

Ugh, I couldn't do it with vodka. Whiskey, oh yeah, I could drink a lot of that. Vodka tastes like rubbing alcohol to me. Nasty shiat.

hukedanfonix: swarms909: FTFA: Americans take in 8.4 litres.

They must not have included farkers in their study.

/alcoholism is better than the alternative

8.4 Liters in a year? Try 8.4 liters in a month. One 12 pack of beer is about 4.26 liters...If you're REAL conservative with it, it will last 2 weeks(not likely though). I don't know where the hell they're getting their numbers.

I was under the impression this is based on an across the board average, including all the non-drinkers.

Sybarite: Every time there's a new story about someone found to have an outlandishly high (seemingly lethal) BAC, it always seems to be someone of Slavic origin. I think the highest ever recorded was a Bulgarian man.

That's down to genetics. Slavs have the right enzymes, as opposed to Asians who don't.

Every Russian I have ever known could drink me under the table and that included the women.

We would go toe to toe with drinks and they NEVER seemed to be drunk.

/Loves Russian girls

Russians claim their legendary drinking prowess is "a myth"

Right. How drunk were they when they said that?

As a Finn the only nationality that (even the wimmenfolk) can easily outdrink us based on my experience on drinking with other nationalities is the Russians. One Finn for 10 Russians might have been true during WW2, but at drinking it's about 2 Finns for one Russian.

So the Russians are turning into "12 Steppers"?

ScottTenorman: , vodka drinks you.
/obligatory

So there seems to be a filter I was unaware of.

Too drink or not to drink that is the question Link

If I calculate it correctly, 8.4 liters in pure alcohol and beer having about 5% of alcohol comes to about 40 12 packs of beer per year.

El Sleezo Patron: Hello, sailor, buy me a drink?
Kermit: Well, you see, I'm not a sailor, I'm a frog.
El Sleezo Patron: Oh, cut the small talk and buy me a drink.
Kermit: I don't even know you.
El Sleezo Tough: Hey. Did you make a move with my girl?
Kermit: No, sir.
El Sleezo Patron: He did too. He touched me.
El Sleezo Tough: Ugh. Wash up, you'll get warts.
Kermit: That's a myth.
El Sleezo Tough: Yeah, but she's my "myth"!
Kermit: No, no, myth, myth!
Myth: Yeth?

I used to drink with a friend of mine who's from Belarus. It ain't no myth.

It's not genetics, or even alcoholism. They just know how to consume large amounts of alcohol.

How to Drink Like a Russian (new window)

i call shenigans. married to vodak guzzling drunk as my profile says

I'd drink a Russian sailor under the table then run a mile.
Finns. Now those f*ckers can put it away.

why is there a soviet russia filter on these forums?

I find most guys wildly exaggerate 1) Their sexual prowess and 2) their capacity to drink.

What a load of bolshevik.

I've also got a massive nob.

nekulor: why is there a soviet russia filter on these forums?

Because in WARRRRGARBLE they WARRRRGARBLE YOU!

Myths aren't false. Myths explain something about a culture. And I think alcohol explains a lot about the Russians.

One of my favourite stories from my Russian History course in undergrad was about how Peter the Great would have these wild parties in which the chief point was to get as drunk as possible. Accounts from the time talk about making everyone at the function drink a lot, followed up by the competition where everyone was challenged to drink a bowl of wine in one draught. Eventually, he'd send everyone to bed for an hour, then wake them up to go off and do crazy stuff- cut down trees, go swimming in the frozen rivers.

xdedd: Every Russian I have ever known could drink me under the table and that included the women.

We would go toe to toe with drinks and they NEVER seemed to be drunk.

/Loves Russian girls

Agreed, and the women are better at it than the men. Been to many Russian parties (don't ask). One time a woman had to pull me out of an OPEN FIRE I had just fallen on. Ok shame on me for getting that drunk but that's how it goes with these things and I've never seen one unable to work the nest day (or two hours later as the case may be).

skinnyartist: What a load of bolshevik.

You should curse menshevik or silovik will ban you

Not a myth, but fact. And we never, ever get hungover.

Seriously, what is that? Am I just a gifted man or is it the Russian way of drinking? By Russian standards I am a "moderate drinker" (meaning that everyone I know in the West thinks I have a serious problem) but I just about never get hungover no matter how much I drink. At worst I feel slightly crap. Until I have some orange juice or breakfast and then I perk right up, no problem. Except sometimes the day after I'll feel horribly depressed and even suicidal, for no real reason at all. Is it logical that I never feel a hangover physically but suffer them entirely emotionally? (If that's how most Russians experience hangovers, it explains the vast bulk of our literary tradition.)

"In addition to his other amiable characteristics, the Russian has no regard for human life and they are all out sons-of-biatches, barbarians, and chronic drunks."

- General George S. Patton

As someone whose family is Ukrainian I can attest that it takes forever for me to get drunk. Hence when I'm out, I'll end up drinking a lot more than I really want just in order to feel the buzz. Thus it makes me look like an alcoholic to non-Slavs, while I'm basically a prohibitionist compared to other Russians and/or true alcoholics. (I actually hate drinking, and would rather toke). It also explains my preference for vodka as opposed to other liquors, since they taste farking horrible in comparison. Though I do make exceptions for tequila, and beer if I don't want to get drunk or the craving for it hits.

A related note: It's great to invite non-Russians to parties at Russian restaurants. Every time they've been blown away by the copious of vodka, variety of food, and how great the live shows are when you're wasted. Seriously if any of you can, go to one. You'll love it.

fireclown: It's true. Next to the Ukranians, they drink like little girls. Nobody puts away the vodka like they do in Kiev.

This is true. Our exchange-student friend from Ukraine once managed to drink the Aussie, the Brit, the Irish-American female (me,) the Czech-American and the Russian kids under the table. She then proceeded to inform us, as we horked, that American vodka (i.e., cheap Burnett's,) was "so weak, it is for the baby cat," and to sing what we think was Ukraine's national anthem to our pet kitten. Another half a bottle elapsed before she decided "Okay. Time for beer, so we do not get too drunk."

I swear, she must have a liver the size of a basketball. Out-drinking the Aussie! I'd never seen that shiat!

Yeth?

Elak Jaevel: As a Finn the only nationality that (even the wimmenfolk) can easily outdrink us based on my experience on drinking with other nationalities is the Russians. One Finn for 10 Russians might have been true during WW2, but at drinking it's about 2 Finns for one Russian.

As a northern Norwegian (which equals out at about 2/3 of a Finn) I will gladly succumb to this piece of narrative evidence, and say that a Russian could drink anything and everything under the table, drink by drink.

I've carried both U.S. and English marines out of pubs after trying this stunt, and the surgeon general sees it as highly inadvisable, although quite an experience, to ever even try at this sort of an endeavor.

Alcohol was only created to keep the Irish from taking over the world.

Irish, and don't drink, heh heh heh.

(Mr. Rhelaien but don't tell the wife)

I think I've drunk about 10gal of everclear this year.
I have the bottles, but I haven't counted them. Pretty sure it's less than last year.

/ I'm not an alcoholic
// I'm just married with a kid.
//// dunno why my liver growls at me like a lapdog on speed

From another article linked in this one:

"Where the leaders have led, ordinary Russians have followed. The country consumes seven billion bottles of vodka a year. More than 30,000 die annually from alcohol poisoning and hundreds of thousands more from drink-related diseases."

Holy crap that's a lot of vodka!

/and a lot of dead people

I am of German and Irish ancestry, I can put away the booze, but yeah I am not a professional. I do get added tolerance being a 5th generation Wisconsinite. Drinking is part of our culture, only those with high alcohol tolerance survived the winter. My drink of choice is polish vodka.