Drinking Culture and Mead

Yesterday, I bought a bottle of mead that's indigenous to the local area I'm in.  It's a type of honey-wine.  A shout out to Alex Shields here.  I brought it back to my hostel, drank what I could, and had to toss the rest.

Today, I found outdoor markets selling the same kind of mead.  I found a smaller bottle of it and brought it back to my hostel that evening.

I cracked open the bottle, and was curled up with some TV ready to go.  I took a big swig of the stuff AAAANNDDDD syrup.  It was syrup.  Not delicious honey wine.

Now let me tell you.  Imagine you're really thirsty and you grab a glass of water and take a gulp.  To your horror, you find it's not water, it's vodka.  This was like that.

After I begrudgingly swallowed all the syrup, I took the bottle to the hostel man.  I asked him, "This is syrup, right?"  He affirmed my suspicions and then told me about a place I could go in town to have a tasting of all the different kinds of honey wine.

There I went.  For 5 bucks they give you 10 half-filled glasses of different wines to try.  I was the first one in the tasting room but was soon joined by a group of women who were also doing the tasting.

I was at my third glass, I had seven to go, and I realized I was drunk.  Meanwhile!  Meanwhile, the group of women that came in after me had finished all their wines and were headed out the door.  How.  How? RUSSIAN WOMEN. Let me tell you, by the time I was done with the tasting of what must have been equivalent to 5 glasses of wine, I WAS WASTED.  How did these women do it?  Hot. Damn.

This leads me into a segment about Russia's drinking culture. For those who don't know, Russia holds the record for the country with the 2nd highest alcohol consumption (mainly vodka) per capita.  By the way, which country is number 1?  Korea.

While Korea's drinking culture is very VERY obvious, Russia's, to my surprise, is not.

Before I came here, I had the impression that getting on the train was going to be a giant party and we'd all be passing around the vodka.  Now, people DO drink on the train.  But they do it in secret.  There is even a secret hand gesture for it.  Turns out, it's illegal.

I really expected to see a lot of partying and craziness go on, considering how much they are presumed to drink.  But the Russian drinking scene must be more subtle than I assumed it was going to be, especially having lived in Korea for so long.

That being said, it's not like I haven't seen people drinking.  I went to get tea at a cafe at 8am on a Wednesday last week and there was a man who walked in and got a shot of vodka and a beer.  8am.  Wednesday.

A few days ago, again very early-maybe 9am, I was at the train station waiting for my train when I passed a man who had just finished downing his second beer.  So...it is there.  Just not quite in the way I thought.

A week or so ago I found myself in a freezing cold town with nothing open.  Museums are closed on Monday's, planning fail on my end.  After much avail and freezing fingertips I decided, eh, I'll have a drink.  Why not.  It was around noon.  I was honestly shocked to find a bar, but I did and I was not the only one in there.

I met a guy here who teaches English.  He told me a lot of the bars here never even close, they are 24 hours.  Who's drinking a beer at 6am?  Not my business I guess.

THAT being said, drinking is frowned upon, or downright not allowed in a majority of the hostels I've stayed in.  It's baffling.  I feel like Russia's drinking culture is this quiet, underground subculture, and I want to learn more about it.