Mortality calling
You may have heard that Russian life expectancy is lower than in the west, but did you know that currently 25% of Russian men (males get the worst deal from the Grim Reaper) will die before the age of 55? And that the average life expectancy is only 64? These are outrageous statistics, especially when viewed from our UK perspective, where state pension age is planned to increase to 68 (for both sexes) by 2039. That’s according to a July article on the Telegraph’s web page. Related projections commissioned by the UK government also envisage a person’s pension years to amount to roughly one third of a lifespan, pushing expected upper limits of longevity easily into the 90’s and even beyond.
Currently though, one in five UK males are expected to die by age 65; still a whole magnitude greater in terms of longevity than their Russian counterparts. In direct figurative comparison to Russia, an age of 55 will see only 7% male mortality in the UK and an astounding 1% in the USA.
Perhaps there has never been such a clear-cut (though apparently acceptable) prime culprit behind Russia’s mortality problem: in a word, alcohol. Russia is currently the fourth largest consumer of alcohol in the world, with the former Soviet territory, Belarus coming first. Vodka misuse seems to garner the bulk of the blame through the ubiquity of it’s accepted and normalised consumption; it wouldn’t be Russia without it, though other factors are at hand.
The highest-risk group consists of male smokers who drink at least 1.5 litres of vodka per week and in doing so roughly double their chances of departing early, compared to their lightweight 0.5 litre/week colleagues. Russian vodkas are routinely found containing 40% alcohol by volume, but this figure can reach well beyond 90% at it’s most extreme, by which time it has surely ceased being “drink” and instead has become “fuel” by any reasonable definition.
Aside from the obvious, “alcohol poisoning”, the demonic brew can visit death upon its consumers in a multitude of of insidious ways. Liver and heart disease, cancer and pancreatitis are perhaps to be expected but alcohol also factors in mortality due to pneumonia and tuberculosis. It is also routinely found to have played a role in related deaths by violence, suicide and physical accident as well as through further poisonings following the intake of toxic ‘budget’ vodkas/alcohols. These black market cocktails may consist of practically anything in liquid form: cheap industrial alcohol, acetone, screen-wash, antifreeze, bleach and other such delights.
The Guardian reported on an ‘outbreak’ of a lethal “surrogate alcohol” masquerading as “Boyaryshnik” (a liquid relaxant added to bathwater!) as recently as 2016. Yes; some people were consuming a fake version of an alcohol-based bath additive, itself drunk by those who can’t afford alcohol, proper. That’s desperation. The article states:
“According to the label, Boyaryshnik contains 93% ethanol, hawthorn extract and lemon oils but tests on the Irkutsk consignment suggested it also contained methanol, an ingredient in antifreeze”.
If you think such nightmares couldn’t happen here: you’re wrong. Witness this article on the Independent’s website. Aside from headline-grabbing mortality figures, there is also a silent plague of peripheral factors such as progressive nerve damage, amnesia, behavioral problems, foetal alcohol syndrome etc. that all contribute extra levels of misery to everyday existence, without causing immediate death per se.
Russia mortality due to routine alcohol abuse has, perhaps surprisingly, fluctuated over the past three decades under Gorbachev, Yeltsin and Putin respectively, due to clamp-downs on illegal/hazardous manufacture, new alcohol restrictions or, conversely, relaxations of legislature. It’s a delicate balancing act: allowing the population legitimate access to its favourite poison -whilst at the same time trying to prevent it from killing too many of them in any given period. A grim compromise indeed.
From 2006, certain alcohol restrictions under Putin have reduced the number of deaths encouragingly, but the problem remains. What to do? The Russian Cancer Research Centre has also delivered some positive news, that the most reckless and “hazardous” drinkers can quickly offload their extreme risk level if they curb the excesses of their behaviour. If only they would.