Perfume, brake fluid, de-icer, meths, toilet cleaner, nail varnish remover ... "I drank them all," Boris Kuznetsov said. "Everything that burns."
Like many Russian alcoholics, the 53-year-old former laser specialist from a top Moscow physics institute slithered into his darkest drinking days during the turmoil of perestroika.
An estimated 500,000 Russians die each year from alcohol-related causes, a figure that covers about 30 percent of all male deaths. Vodka and other hard spirits remain the drink of choice, taking up three-quarters of official consumption.
Holidays such as new year and Orthodox Christmas, which occurred Saturday, are a traditional time for mammoth benders, or "drinking without drying out." Bottles of vodka are regularly downed around kitchen tables. All too often, poverty and stress push hard drinking over the edge into alcoholism.
With the help of a 12-step recovery programme, Kuznetsov is now in
control of his illness. Yet millions
remain trapped by the disease and new research suggests worrying trends in consumption.
Taxation on alcohol is low and production of over-proof moonshine vodka called samogon is rife -- an estimated four bottles are drunk in the countryside for every licensed one.
There is a rising scepticism about the common methods of treating alcoholics. Most state clinics rely on "coding," a method invented by the Soviet
psychiatrist Alexander Dovzhenko. Hypnosis or suggestion are used to scare patients into believing they will die or be permanently injured if they drink again.
For many it is a swift, brutal and rarely effective over a long period. "They gabble something at you, make a woo-woo sound in your ears and then tell you your testicles will fall off if you touch a drop," said Aleksei, a middle-aged alcoholic who has been coded several times. "It never worked for me."
Some doctors argue in favor of coding because it is occasionally
successful, and inexpensive. "There's been a lot of black PR for coding
recently saying it's inhumane and
dangerous but I think it's scaremon-gering by companies that sell cure-all pills," said the head of one state narcology clinic.
Alexander Nemtsov, one of the country's leading experts on alcoholism, is doubtful. "Coding worked to an extent on the Soviet person because he was suggestible," the professor from Moscow's state scientific and research institute of psychiatry said. "Now, as we become more sceptical, like people in the West, it's less and less effective."
Back on the rails, Kuznetsov thinks only long-term group therapy can wean a person off drink for good. "Without that I would never have managed."
However, Alcohol Anonymous has fewer than 300 groups in the country and only a few state clinics provide similar programs.
The Lee (李) family migrated to Taiwan in trickles many decades ago. Born in Myanmar, they are ethnically Chinese and their first language is Yunnanese, from China’s Yunnan Province. Today, they run a cozy little restaurant in Taipei’s student stomping ground, near National Taiwan University (NTU), serving up a daily pre-selected menu that pays homage to their blended Yunnan-Burmese heritage, where lemongrass and curry leaves sit beside century egg and pickled woodear mushrooms. Wu Yun (巫雲) is more akin to a family home that has set up tables and chairs and welcomed strangers to cozy up and share a meal
Dec. 8 to Dec. 14 Chang-Lee Te-ho (張李德和) had her father’s words etched into stone as her personal motto: “Even as a woman, you should master at least one art.” She went on to excel in seven — classical poetry, lyrical poetry, calligraphy, painting, music, chess and embroidery — and was also a respected educator, charity organizer and provincial assemblywoman. Among her many monikers was “Poetry Mother” (詩媽). While her father Lee Chao-yuan’s (李昭元) phrasing reflected the social norms of the 1890s, it was relatively progressive for the time. He personally taught Chang-Lee the Chinese classics until she entered public
Last week writer Wei Lingling (魏玲靈) unloaded a remarkably conventional pro-China column in the Wall Street Journal (“From Bush’s Rebuke to Trump’s Whisper: Navigating a Geopolitical Flashpoint,” Dec 2, 2025). Wei alleged that in a phone call, US President Donald Trump advised Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi not to provoke the People’s Republic of China (PRC) over Taiwan. Wei’s claim was categorically denied by Japanese government sources. Trump’s call to Takaichi, Wei said, was just like the moment in 2003 when former US president George Bush stood next to former Chinese premier Wen Jia-bao (溫家寶) and criticized former president Chen
President William Lai (賴清德) has proposed a NT$1.25 trillion (US$40 billion) special eight-year budget that intends to bolster Taiwan’s national defense, with a “T-Dome” plan to create “an unassailable Taiwan, safeguarded by innovation and technology” as its centerpiece. This is an interesting test for the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT), and how they handle it will likely provide some answers as to where the party currently stands. Naturally, the Lai administration and his Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) are for it, as are the Americans. The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is not. The interests and agendas of those three are clear, but
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