Russians are famous for drinking vodka, right?
So I met a girl… and she is Russian.
Although we have been dating for several years I have to admit that I’m still surprised at how often we find ourselves drinking champagne and wine.
Champagne and wine? But, Michael, Russians are famous for drinking vodka, right?
Interestingly enough vodka is not something we two drink often, and also if I count the trips to see her family in Krasnodar, Russia, it is still not the dominant drink in any way. The only drinks that come to mind are wine and champagne.
So I decided to my recently acquired data wrangling skills to the test and shed some light on the alcohol sales in Russia. For this I found a few data sets describing the regional sales in different alcohol types between 1998 and 2016.
What kinds of alcoholic beverages were consumed in Russia over the observed period?
Beer is the dominant type of alcohol across the complete timeframe. Vodka takes seconds place with wine at its heels. Champagne and brandy however seem to be on average much less popular in comparison to other alcohol types.
The total volume of alcohol per capita has doubled from 1998 to 2008 reaching a plateau around the turn of the decade. The 2010s show a decline in alcohol consumption.
Even though the general trend of total alcohol volume consumed is decreasing, beer volumes in 2016 amount to more than double the volume at the start of the millennium. With vodka, it is a different story, representing in 2016 one about half of the value in 98'.
What is the composition of the total average volume on a yearly level?
Let’s take a closer look at the relative mix of alcoholic beverages on a yearly level.
While the proportion of wine, champagne, and brandy in the total mix is not overly different over the years, beer and vodka are competing heavily and beer is winning!
Since the total volumes were similar in 2002 and 2016 we can compare the proportions directly. While in 2002 more than a quarter of the mix was vodka, in 2016 it is less than half of that.
One should also keep in mind that the alcohol content of these beverages is radically different! Let’s assume beer is 5% alcohol while vodka is 40% and calculate the amount of pure alcohol consumed.
Focusing on the dominant alcoholic beverages, what is the total and relative volume of pure alcohol per year?
So even-tough according to the first figure, the total volume of alcoholic beverages in 2016 is still greater than at the start of the observed time, the volume of pure alcohol consumed is ca. 20% lower! The larger proportion of beer and lesser that of vodka in the mix provides a good explanation.
Are there any regional differences in total consumption?
Let’s zoom in to to the top five regions in Russia in terms of the consumption of alcoholic beverages.
It isn’t surprising that the two regions with the most alcohol sales are Moscow and Saint-Petersburg, but it is however interesting that the following few regions are very remote regions such as Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Okrug or the Komi republic. (Investigating why this is the case could be a topic for another story).
The republic with the lowest alcohol sales per capita is the Chechen Republic. Not entirely surprising since the population is predominantly Muslim (95% according to Wikipedia). Similar goes for the other five regions with the lowest alcohol sales. Interestingly the Chechen Republic still reports on average a few liters of beer per capita a year but not a drop of stronger spirits.
Ok, that’s all fine and good, but I mentioned at the beginning that my girlfriend and her family prefer wine and champagne to other drinks, so is it a regional thing in Krasnodar?
What is the average yearly distribution of alcoholic beverages consumed in Krasnodar Krai?
The total volume is greater than average in recent years, but the mix is different. Wine is generally preferred to vodka, especially in recent years with wine and champagne almost doubling the volume of the spirit.
So that explains it. And also reminds me to buy a good wine next time I visit my girlfriends’ parents.
And if the popularity of vodka continuous to decline in the future, I can still do with the occasional toast!
На здоро́вье ! (Na zdarovya!)
The code I used in the analysis is available in the form of a notebook on Github. Feel free to take a look. I am very much a beginner in data analysis and have created this article and notebook as one of my projects in an online course. Please don’t take the conclusions I have made too seriously. If you have suggestions for improvement or insight into maybe some errors I’ve made, please feel free to let me know.
Cover photo by freepic.diller — www.freepik.com
