Russia: Alcohol Use Steadily Declining
The number of Russians who do not consume alcohol has grown to 39% over the past eight years, a poll conducted by the Russian Public Opinion Research Center shows.
The results of the surveys show a decrease in the level of alcohol consumption in our country.
While in 2009, 25% of Russians said they did not consume alcohol at all, in 2017 their number was 39%,” the pollster said.
The poll was conducted by the Russian Public Opinion Research Center on August 3 to 4, 2017. 1,200 people aged 18 and older were interviewed. The margin of error does not exceed 3.5%, according to the research center.
Other poll results
The poll confirms the trend that Russians are becoming increasingly health conscious and choose more often to live free from alcohol.
- 25% of those polled said they consume alcohol less often than once a month
- 16% of the respondents said they consumed alcohol two or three times per month
- Just 5% of those polled said they use alcohol every day or several times per week.
Sociologists also registered a positive trend in terms of reducing alcohol consumption. About 44% of the respondents said they consume less alcohol than last year. At the same time, half of those polled (50%) said they consume the same volume of alcoholic beverages as a year ago.
According to the poll, most Russians (80%) believe that all alcoholic beverages have an adverse effect on one’s health, and there are no “harmless” alcoholic beverages. Only 15% of those polled thought that some types of alcohol pose no threat to one’s health (citing primarily wine as an example).
 The important trend that we have registered over the past several years is a steady decline in the consumption…
… a healthy lifestyle as an inherent value is becoming more widespread,” Kirill Rodin, head of the pollster’s Information Policy and Communication Technologies Department, said commenting on the results of the poll.
Policies and economy play a role in trend
Euromonitor, the world’s leading independent provider of strategic market research, reports that in 2016, alcohol beverages continued to decline in total volume terms. Sales of alcohol beverages declined across the course of the review period, impacted by the Russian government’s alcohol policy measures and by weakened purchasing power of consumers, due to economic struggles.
