Читать книгу The Red Reign. The True Story of an Adventurous Year in Russia онлайн

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Happy he who in the strife

Bravely, like a Cossack, dies.

Happy he who, at the feast,

Drinks till he can’t ope’ his eyes.

One man explained to me, when I was questioning him about Cossack massacres of Jews, that when the Cossacks were called upon to do particularly disagreeable work, that it was customary for them to get drunk first. Vodka looks like simple water or gin. The taste, to me, is of wood alcohol. It is gulped rather than drunk, as is an ordinary beverage, consequently vodka drinkers seek only the effect. It is slightly warming, though not so strong as whisky, being only forty, or little over forty, per cent. alcohol. The effects are marked. First a warming, then a numbing, dulling sensation. In excess it produces wild hilarity and jocularity, and intensifies the passions. In later stages it besots. Vodka drinkers soon become overpowered by sleep. This is why so many drunkards in Russia lie about the streets. Overcome by drowsiness they sink into sleep wherever they fall. The Cossack looks upon excessive drinking as his prerogative. Drink and plunder were what his ancestors fought for and in this the Cossack of to-day has not much altered. In the Don country the Cossacks are of distinctly inferior race to the Mountain Cossacks. There I saw excessive drinking among women as well as men. In the Terek and Kuban I saw none. This does not mean that it does not exist, but simply that I did not see it, and, therefore, it is probably less common.