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Cologne and antiseptic: Russia’s killer drinks
Level 1
Elementary
Key words
1
Find the information
2
Look in the text and find this information as quickly as possible.
1. What percentage of murders in Russia are linked to alcohol? 
2. What percentage of suicides in Russia are linked to alcohol?
3. How much pure alcohol does the average Russian drink each year?
4. How much alcohol do some household products contain?
5. What is the life expectancy for men in Russia?
6. What is the life expectancy for women in Russia?
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Cologne and antiseptic: Russia’s 
killer drinks
Sarah Boseley, health editor, and Luke 
Harding in Moscow
June 15, 2007
 
A new medical study about alcoholism reports 
that almost half the men of working age who die 
in Russia die as a result of alcohol. The report 
says that large numbers of Russian men die 
young not just because they drink a lot of vodka 
but because they also drink household products 
containing alcohol, such as perfume, aftershave 
and medicines. Some products contain
95% alcohol. 
An international group of scientists looked at 
one city in the Ural mountains. They wanted to 
discover the effects of drinking in Russia. They 
chose the city of Izhevsk because it is a typical 
industrial city where life is the same as in other 
large cities in Russia and where the death rate is 
the same as the Russian average. The scientists 
wanted to find out why life expectancy in Russia 
is so low: in 2004 it was 59 years for men and 72 
for women. As a result of the low life expectancy 
and a low birth rate, the population of Russia is 
falling by 700,000 a year. 
Alcohol has always been an important factor in 
death and disease in Russia. Changes in the 
death rate which are linked to changes in lifestyle 
and politics support this fact. Life expectancy 
increased during the mid-1980s when President 
Gorbachev tried to stop people in Russia drinking 
so much alcohol. After the end of communism 
the death rate in Russia increased in the early 
1990s. This was probably because of alcohol. 
One study found that Russians, and people in 
other countries of the former Soviet Union, drank 
more than anybody else in the world - about 15.2 
litres of pure alcohol per person each year for 
people over 15 years of age. They also drank 
more dangerously and often drank for two days 
or more without stopping. 
The scientists examined the medical records and 
interviewed the families of 1,750 men who had 
died in Izhevsk from 2003-05. They compared 
these men with 1,750 who were still alive. They 
found that problem drinkers and people who 
drank alcohol from products like perfume and 
aftershave often died younger than those who did 
not have a drinking problem. 
The scientists say that men who lost their jobs 
because of drinking had very little money and 
often drank household products containing pure 
alcohol. In the group of men who were still alive, 
47% who drank household products containing 
alcohol were out of work compared with 13% 
who drank only vodka and beer. In total, 43% 
of deaths of men aged 25 to 54 in Izhevsk were 
because of alcohol. This is probably because 
they drank household products with very high 
levels of alcohol. 
Another report says that people who get their 
alcohol from household products often live in 
poor housing and have bad diets, and this could 
also lead to an early death. The report also says 
that many people also drink illegally produced 
alcoholic drinks. 
The Russian government agrees that alcoholism 
is a huge problem and calls it a “national 
tragedy”. With Vladimir Putin as president, the 
Russian economy has grown very quickly since 
2000 but people are still drinking a lot of alcohol. 
Russian alcoholics - drinking perfume, aftershave 
and cheap local alcohol - face great dangers. In 
winter they fall through ice or freeze to death in 
the snow. 
According to 2005 figures, Russia has 2,348,567 
registered alcoholics, and alcohol is linked to 
72% of murders and 42% of suicides. The World 
Health Organisation says Russia is one of the 
most alcoholic countries in the world.