Do Russians drink a lot of vodka?

Of course, provide the wide availabity of vodka, many Russians do indeed drink.

Vodka (водка) is simply a nickname for the Russian word for water, 'voda' (вода) and the words are interchangable.

In Russian homes, one can obtain hot water as well as cold vodka from taps. Vodka has cleaning and anti-freeze (because of the high alcohol content) properties and is used for a wide varity of purposes as well. Vodka is used as a household cleaner, to melt snow on windowpanes and used as an anti-freeze in cars. And of course, it can be drunk.

Many of the new plumbing in Russian apartmens and dachas have vodka and water meters, but hey often have been tampered with to fool the authorities. Thus, they've introduced a fixed utilities fee for vodka and water. Russians thus have no limits to how much vodka they can drink.

Bottled vodka is also availabe in stores for areas who often have plumbing faults due to such tampering. Some Russians often collect these bottles to store vodka from taps when the plumbing does work so that they will not be left without drinking-vodka. Such Russians are usually poor and plod around the city in tattered clothing and a rickety trolley-bag, looking for discarded bottles to collect.