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When holidaying in Russia a few years back, we did a home-stay in the suburbs of Moscow with a strange lady who had an apartment full of cats. We had a private room and came and went as we pleased.
In our time in Moscow we had seen so much public drinking that we found ourselves drinking quite a lot ourselves. One morning, getting up at 5am in order to wander Red Square, we were amazed at the amount of people we encountered drinking beer – these people weren’t down and outs, and they hadn’t been up all night, they we simply going about their business.
On our way home from another hard day’s sightseeing we stopped in at the local corner store where we joined the lineup at the cash register with the intention of buying a few beers. Ahead of us were several Russians, in whose eyes we stood out for the Westerners we are.
At the front of the queue was a short-ish man with broad shoulders and the standard Popeye forearms many Russian men seem to have; he ordered and paid for a bottle of Vodka, and while still at the counter, ripped off the lid, took a lengthy swig and roared, “Aaaaaaah, Wodka!” in a loud voice whilst striking a manic pose.
No one else in the shop seemed to think this out of the ordinary, and he hadn’t seen us, so he wasn’t playing to the crowd. We had to presume that such behaviour was the norm for a working man on his way home of a Russian evening.
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