Happy Hour

Who thought that leaving Russia to babysit was a good idea?

@SiriaEdenbreath Maybe Finland? Getting the kids started on softdrinks and knifefighting early?

@SiriaEdenbreath
England or Denmark. Take your pick. I'm leaning slightly towards Denmark cause I doubt England can remember that Sealand exists long enough to contact a babysitter, and if he did he'd probably shove him off to Canada.

Until 2011 beer was actually considered just that: beer. Some regulation of advertisement was self-imposed by manufacturers as early as in 2003. The only significant effect was that beverages with low enough alcohol content were regulated slightly differently and weren't subjected to excise tax (edit: it was, but tax rate was very small).

In 2006, new rules were implemented for licensing, accounting, transportation and sales of drinks with high alcohol content, which still didn't include beer, beer-like products and some cocktails with low alcohol content. In 2011 law was modified to cover everything with alcohol content over 0.5%... Including perfume.
2006 law actually made it mandatory to register production and movement of products containing specified percentage of ethyl alcohol in unified federal database (EGAIS), which didn't work properly even in 2015. Perfume industry eventually was excluded from this law by an executive order, but only after it took a serious financial hit from not being prepared for new regulation and then being unable to work with EGAIS due to technical issues.
Same waiver was, apparently, later issued to wholesale distributors as well, which in combination with technical limitations of software made that database useless for it's stated purpose of monitoring production and tracking movement of ethyl alcohol from producer to consumer.

@comrade_Comrade I hate to summarize-it just seems rude, and I don't mean to be-but I'm having a little trouble following. Beer was considered alcohol by Russian society, but not by the government until 2011, when the 2006 laws concerning the production and transportation of alcoholic products were modified to include beer. On a side note, perfume was included in the 2011 laws, which caused a lot of problems for perfume companies until an executive order excluded them. Is that right?

@MoralCode
yep. Also dry hours were introduced recently (no alcohol is sold at night)

'@MoralCode' yes, that's a good summary. Socially, even back in Soviet Union beer and wine were (as far as I know) were always seen as a class of their own - not hard liquor yet, but not something appropriate to kids, at least for regular consumption.

@comrade_Comrade
#9787777

Sounds like one big pain in the ass.

Russia was always a wonderful place so long as you were too drunk to know the difference. That's why the Soviets, for all the delays and shortages, prioritized alcohol as well as food. The entire system worked, poorly but it worked, until Gorbachev decided to reduce the availability of alcohol. Out of a total coincidence, Russia experienced a fermentable crop shortage soon after, combined with the lack of tax revenue from alcohol sales, as well as Perastroyka, resulted in enough angry hangovers to end the USSR.

@CorruptUser Shit, makes sense.

@minando
#9788476
The boy in the red shirt with three yellow dots is Christiania. The real-life Christiania is a district in southeastern Copenhagen which is known for being a self-declared "freetown", largely populated by weed-smoking hippie-like people. Within the universe of this webcomic, Christiania is a child of Denmark and an unkown mother (probably Sister Netherlands, according to my own theories).

The boy in the blue shirt and green hat is Kven. The Kvens are descendants of Finnish farmers and fishermen who settled in Northern Norway back in the 18th and 19th century. Within this webcomic, Kven is a child of Norway and an unknown mother (probably Sister Finland).

The sleeping dark-haired boy with a crown on his head is Sealand. The real-life Sealand is a self-declared micronation (in a very literal sense of that word) that occupies the offshore platform Roughs Tower, about 12 kilometres from the coast of Suffolk, England. Within this webcomic, he's a child of England and an unknown mother.

The boy in a red shirt with yellow cross and sunglasses is Fennoswede. The Fenno-Swedes are Finland's Swedish-speaking minority. Within this webcomic, Fennoswede is a child of Sweden and Sister Finland.

@EricTheRedAndWhite Separatism seems to be pretty complicated :-)

@EricTheRedAndWhite
Hmmmmmmmmmm, Sealand's mother. I've narrowed it down to a few candidates (though personally I don't feel any of them quite fit the bill)
1. Sister Germany, as Sealand claims that Germany recognizes them (they really don't)
2. Sister Netherlands, no reason other than geographic proximity to Sealand
3. Sister Belgium, no reason other than geographic proximity to Sealand
4. France, due to geographic proximity to Sealand and her *ahem* complex relationship with England
5. Sister Sweden, because one time a Swedish company tried to buy Sealand (and later failed) and because England has, uh, you know what he does while he's out "watching birds"

@Yeehaw0 i would say France because sealand looks most like a combination of england and france.

If I lived in Russia, I would drink large amounts of alcohol, too.

@Rolfbart Partly as you traveled back in time some 30-45 years!

@Rolfbart ...das Land ist wohl nur im Suff zu ertragen...?

@Rolfbart
But Germans are drinking almost as much as Russians.

Pure alcohol consumption among persons (age 15+) in liters per capita per year
Russia - 14 liters
Germany - 11 liters

Do you live so badly or do you just like to drink beer?

@ABCat 11 liters is less than 14 liters. Additional alcohol intake must be required to keep warm during the winters in Russia.

@Rolfbart
Well, now *that* would be a suicidal thing to do. Didn't anybody told you, that alcohol only gives you an *illusion* of warmth? It actually makes your blood flow from your core to your skin, rather - resulting in feeling of warmth and actual *decrease* of core body temperature, effectively getting you colder.

Rather it is related to part of population still following the idea that "drinking well" equals "drinking as much as you can before you drop", even if they aren't actually alcoholics, who are bit of another story. That group is not big, but probably bigger than in another countries of the world, since at a moment of recent history drinking was almost propagandized via entertainment media as our national idea.

On one hand, we indeed, for a while now, look at people getting drunk and getting into some troubles rather with pity and humor, than a disgust. On the other turns out *nobody* likes some drunkard sleeping at entrance to their apartment flat, or at children's playground.

Also, to point attention to obvious, indeed alcohol was the most popular means of achieving mental oblivion for most of people in time of extreme stress here, especially in times after dissolution of USSR, currency devaluation, and other massive and local crisises, due to it being highly available. It left it's imprint in form of legions of people with drinking problem, who either get their lives straight, or eventually they *end*.

So, as long as we don't drop in some society-shattering crisis, the number of alcoholics will go on decreasing, and we may eventually reach *lesser* alcohol consumption level than, for example, Germany. Those who do not smoke and do not drink may die eventually as anybody else, but still statistically they die *later*.

@ABCat Honestly if I had access to good quality Russian vodka and beer I'd be drinking up too. It's all pretty good stuff. So is Russian food. No one thinks of russian as a good cuisine but it's underappreciated. Good stuff.

Then again I am drunk on the cheapest of American boilermakers rn so maybe I don't have any taste

@Rolfbart What stops you in Germany?

@Keremline Stops me from going to a bar in Germany? Self control

Russia considering beer as a soft drink has a lot of sense

@marce Mead used to be a soft drink during the Viking age, men, women and children would drink it all the time

@North-Sea-Empire Wow

@EricTheRedAndWhite

#9788495

"Within this webcomic, Kven is a child of Norway and an unknown mother (probably Sister Finland)."

First I was like ...*wut*... and then I thought... I'd like to see a comic of that. Norway and Sister Finland on a date.

"Fennoswede is a child of Sweden and Sister Finland."

And then I read that and thought about all the possibilities of making the most awkward comic to date here.

context: beer with less than 10% alcohol had been considered a foodstuff, and was thus regulated like softdrinks in regards to where it could be sold and consumed. (also drinking ages.) with alcohol abuse on the rise (in particular, a rise in people getting drunk on beer instead of harder alcohol like vodka,) they redefined the limits.

beer with less than 0.5% alcohol is considered a softdrink in America, mind you. (most "non-alcoholic' beers are in fact just such low alcohol varieties of beer)

most of europe treated beer not too different from Russia up till the start of the industrial revolution.. beer with lower than average alcohol amounts (either through careful brewing or just being watered down) was acceptable for everyone to drink, even kids, in large part because the water just wasn't all that safe. tea, wine, and other options were there obviously, but beer was cheap and common, unlike everything else. once sanitation and water quality improved, beer as a 'soft drink' (a term originally used to refer to drinks with low alcohol content specifically, same origin as the term 'hard liquor') stopped being as socially acceptable. especially once the temperance movements started up, and Beer was seen as a gateway to harder spirits like Whiskey and Rum.

@mithril I remeber hearing about a steel mill, where the workers had to stay hydrated in the harsh work-environment, that had lines and beer-taps all over the mill.

And in the rest of Europe some other despicable things are considered "normal" these days. The west will succumb to its own degeneracy, and Russia will win.

@Keremline Really? Examples?

@Keremline the day russia "wins" anything, without steroids... well, it is inconcievable.

@Keremline Cultural issues are nothing more than a mere distraction from the real important questions of running a nation (economics, corruption, effective rule of law). And if you were talking about demographics, it's not exactly like Russia is in good shape at the moment.

@Keremline Win what? Bragging rights?

@Keremline
Eh. The entire world is broken. May as well just drop the bomb and start over again.

At least Fennoswede seems to be enjoying himself still, I'm happy for him.