Liquor in Pripyat
On April 26, there was an accident at the Chernobyl plant. On April 27, Pripyat was evacuated. And on the same day, a truck loaded with wine drove into the city.
Let me remind you that back then the country had a planned economy, the cities were supplied centrally through the ORS's (Departments of Workers Supply). Supplies were planned in advance, on schedule.
And so, a dazed truck driver drives into Pripyat along with columns of military vehicles, and buses with evacuees go in the opposite direction...
One of the many visiting bosses waved: "Go to the plant, everyone unloads there!"
This is how stacks of cases of wine appeared in the corridors of ABK-1 (administrative building, which became the headquarters of the liquidators). In the crazy turmoil of the first days of the accident, the liquidators used it to relieve stress after their shift, and rumors about the benefits of red wine in the event of radiation exposure spread all over the country.
Then the personnel moved from the bunkers of the administrative building to the pioneer camp "Skazochniy" / "Fairy Tale", then to the ships moored on the Pripyat River, and then to the hastily built shift camp "Zeleniy Mys" / "Green Cape".
When I came to work at Chernobyl NPP in 1987, "Dry Law" (Prohibition) reigned in the Zone and the shift camp. At that time, former hooligans from Pripyat found a way to make good money – they began supplying alcohol to the countless military camps around the Exclusion Zone. Such was the "bootlegging" of 1987.
In the winter of 1987-88, there was a sudden sugar shortage in Kiev. We nuclear workers, who were used to drinking tea during long shifts, had to switch to caramels. Thus began the mess of the dashing '90s...
In Soviet times, life in Pripyat was very steadily.
People drank in Pripyat, as at all Soviet construction sites, quite a lot. Northerners and Siberians traditionally preferred "shilo" / "awl", that is, pure alcohol.
95% alcohol by volume
There were about 40 dormitories in the city, where laborers from all over the Soviet Union lived. Every 15 days, after advances and paychecks, crowds of welders and installers headed from the shift buses to the liquor store.
For a long time there was only one liquor store in Pripyat. It was in the courtyard, opposite the House of Culture. There were three glassy-stores connected at the corners. The first one was a furniture store, the second one I don't remember anymore, but the third, the side one, had lines when the word got around the city that "vodka was delivered today!"
It was popularly called as the "tee", and wives who did not wait for their husbands after payday in the evening called it the "Bermuda triangle".
Here you could see a phenomenon that has completely disappeared these days. At the threshold of the store, men stood with a crumpled ruble and, finding others like them, offered: "Will you be the third?" They pooled "a ruble" and bought "halfaliter", which then cost 3.62.
This is how "troika" / "a set of three" were formed, often of completely different ages and social status, united only by a passion for booze.
The half-liter was accompanied by some processed cheese "Druzhba" / "Friendship", after which the trinity would go to the nearest green belt and leisurely discuss the brigadier's bastardy or the atrocities of the American military in Vietnam, passing each other a faceted glass taken from the nearest soda fountain.
I can only say that, this normal male desire to "socialize", which in the rest of the world takes place in civilized bars, pubs and clubs, in the Sovok ([dustpan] Soviet Union) was at best in beer halls and "rumochnaia" liquor stores, and at worst in a wooded area.
When we moved to Pripyat, we briefly rented an apartment in the village of Novye Shepelichi. Every day after school I went to the bus station and waited for my bus.
Photo restoration by chernobyl_archive
The wood behind the bus station looked like a fantastic landscape – all glittering with broken glass. And that glass was from the cologne "Triple"!
If stores with vodka and cologne were closed, there was another inexhaustible source.
Every adult man in Pripyat knew several "points" - apartments where some "Granny Galya" at any time of the day or night was selling moonshine "samogon" for 3 rubles per liter. This "smuga" or "samogray" was drunk by teenagers at "soldier's parties" every spring and fall, when they saw their friends off to the army.
Vodka was the drink of the technical intelligentsia and the "troikas" near the stores. Samogon and cologne were drank by the degenerate drunks.
And what did ordinary working people drink when they wanted "cheap and cheerful"?
They drank the famous "Biomycin", aka "Bile mitsne" (ukr. white strong). This fortified fruit-berry wine was sold in all stores. It only had 17% alcohol, but it knocked people down pretty good! And it only cost a ruble and two for a two half-liters.
In the last Brezhnev years in Kiev they used to sing a ditty:
"We drink ruble-seven ink, there is no fish, there is no meat, we see eggs only in a bathhouse, Happy New Year, Kievans!"
Those were the days when in Odessa people would ask in the stores, "Don't you have any fish?" And the answer was, "No fish across the street. We have no meat."
All those "Agdams", "Vermouths", and "Suns" in a glass had done their part in getting the Soviet people drunk. "Now don't you think this went to far? Our fathers are poisoned by Solntsedar"
As a result, the "party and government" began an ignominious struggle against drunkenness. In Pripyat, "Komsomol non-alcoholic weddings" were held, where vodka was served in teapots. "Sobriety Months" were held regularly, the last of which took place just a couple of months before the accident.
ACCORDING TO ORDER № 6 OF 18.01.1986 OF THE PRIPYAT CITY COUNCIL OF PEOPLE'S DEPUTIES, A MONTH OF SOBRIETY IS HELD IN THE CITY OF PRIPYAT FROM JANUARY 20 TO FEBRUARY 20, 1986.
IN THIS REGARD, DURING THIS PERIOD, THE SALE OF WINE AND LIQUOR PRODUCTS IN ALL RETAIL OUTLETS OF THE CITY AND PUBLIC CATERING ENTERPRISES IS PROHIBITED.
Non-alcoholic Beer appeared on the market. However, they could not make completely non-alcoholic at that time, so this drink still had 4% alcohol by volume...
We college students, of course, preferred real beer. In those days it was all "live," not pasteurized.
In those days of universal scarcity, we knew where to find fresh beer. We used to meet the "Raketa" from Kiev, which always had a supply of fresh amber beer in its cafeteria.
And then, at the end of April 1986, a truck with wine and a dazed driver drove into the deserted Pripyat...
Source: https://rusakkerman.livejournal.com/2900.html
Translation by chernobyl_archive
Soviet movie on the subject