Mental Cafe

Mental Cafe is a cafe without food service and a permanent address where people come together to discuss topics related to mental health.

It is not a support group or a grief group. It does not provide psychological assistance. It is just a conversation club where you can share your experiences and ask any questions about mental disorders.

You can even choose not to participate in the conversation, but just listen. Anyone—not just people with mental disorders—can attend.

7 p.m., Saturday, July 15

Open Space in St. Petersburg, 25 Rubinstein Street

How to find us: https://t.me/spbopenspace/3704

Source: Open Space in Petersburg (Facebook), 15 July 2023. Translated by the Russian Reader

The war with Ukraine, which has been going on for more than a year, continues to intensify the psychoticization of Russian society. Russians spent 4.32 billion rubles on antidepressants in the period from January to May 2023, Vedomosti reports, citing statistics compiled by the DSM Group.

Sales increased by 2% compared to the same period last year. And yet the early months of the invasion of Ukraine were accompanied by a surge in demand for antidepressants, which increased by 87% year on year. Thus, in 2023, Russians set a new record for purchases of antidepressants, whose volumes nearly doubled compared to pre-war levels.

Players in the psychotropic drugs market confirmed to Vedomosti the further increase in demand for antidepressants, despite the high benchmark set last year. According to Eapteca, the demand for this category of medicines increased by 30% in the period from January to May 2023. According to Kirill Yakobenko, general director of Uteca, sales of such products “have grown in terms of both sheer numbers and turnover.”

The increase in demand for antidepressants may indicate that people have become more prone to mental disorders treated with antidepressants. These include not only depression but also adjustment and anxiety disorders, psychiatrist Viktor Lebedev told The Moscow Times.

He notes that his colleagues in Russia speak of their increased workload. “People come to see them more often and talk during their sessions about the special military operation and how it has affected their lives,” he says, adding that large-scaled emigration has also led to an increase in depression and other mental problems among Russians.

It will be possible to make a genuine assessment of the war’s impact on overall mental health only a few years from now, but we should not expect positive forecasts, psychiatrist Dmitry Kutovoy said pessimistically.

“After Putin, the new regime will face the daunting task of normalizing society’s mental state and we, as professionals, must be ready for this,” he adds.

Source: “Russians set record for purchases of antidepressants,” Moscow Times Russian Service, 14 July 2023. Translated by the Russian Reader

In 2022, alcohol sales in Petersburg increased by 4.8%, although prior to this they had been declining. The demand was powered by cheap and strong Russian drinks, which have replaced the beverages produced by departed foreign producers. At the same time, the reported incidence of alcohol dependence has been growing in Petersburg.

Bumaga requested data from official departments and analysts. We show how much alcohol is consumed both nationwide and in Petersburg, how many people have been diagnosed with alcoholism, and how alcohol consumption is associated with an increase in homicides.

Russians drinking more, alcohol consumption in Petersburg four times greater than in 2021

According to Rosalkogolregulirovanie (Federal Service for Alcohol Market Regulation), Russians are buying more and more alcohol every year. In 2022, this volume reached its peak: 2.2 billion liters of strong alcohol and beer were purchased. Rosalkogolregulirovanie told Bumaga that this was mainly due to an increase in sales of spirits and wine, while beer was bought in roughly the same quantities as a year earlier.

Alcohol consumption decreased in Petersburg from 2018 to 2020, but the trend was reversed in 2021, while growth in 2022 was four times higher than a year earlier.

Purchases of alcoholic beverages (in millions of liters) in Petersburg, 2017–2022

Strong and cheap alcohol more popular

In 2022, foreign alcohol producers such as Brown-Forman and William Grant & Sons left the Russian market. Because of this, the prices of imported alcohol increased by 10–20% from the beginning of the year, restaurateurs noted. Prices for foreign-made beer increased even more, by an average of 30–50%, Alexander Romanenko, the founder of Bakunin Brewery and several other Petersburg establishments, told Bumaga.

“If we take into account premium brands, then the price increase most likely did not affect their consumption in any way, since elite alcohol is drunk by wealthy people. The consumption of alcohol in the mid-price range has been changing the most. With the price rises of these products, consumers have been looking for cheaper substitutes or switching to other categories of drinks,” said Agvan Mikaelyan, who sits on the board of directors of the audit and consulting network FinExpertiza.

Rosalkogolregulirovanie notes that domestic producers have already more than doubled the volume of alcoholic beverages that were once imported to Russia.

However, new products often prover to be of poorer quality, Mikaelyan told Bumaga. According to him, Russian-made gin, rum, and whiskey are “imitations,” since they have not yet gone through a full production cycle.

Purchases of alcoholic beverages stronger than 9% ABV (in millions of liters) in Petersburg, 2017–2022

In 2022, the level of consumption of beverages with a strength greater than 9% ABV increased by 6% in Petersburg. In the first four months of 2023, Petersburg residents purchased a third of what they had bought during the whole of last year—that is, there has been no slowdown in sales.

According to FinExpertiza, Petersburgers bought 3.2% more strong alcohol (i.e., vodka, cognac, and other distilled beverages), raising their consumption to 6.9 liters per capita. At the same time, in Russia as a whole, purchases of these beverages rose by 7.5%, thus increasing per capita consumptions to 6.8 liters. In 2021, this figure had increased by only 1.2%, while it went up by 3.3% in the pandemic year of 2020.

Purchases of vodka (in millions of liters) in Petersburg, 2017–2022

Mikaelyan added that vodka consumption has been growing, as it remains the cheapest strong drink. In Petersburg, as in all of Russia, 2022 saw a 6% increase in purchases of vodka. Vodka consumption had decreased by about the same percentage in 2021.

Level of alcoholism falling, but more new cases reported in Petersburg every year

Despite the recent rise in alcohol consumption (especially of strong beverages), the number of residents with diagnosed alcohol addiction has been decreasing in Petersburg for the past five years. In 2022, there were a little more than 18,000 people official diagnosed with alcoholism in the city, according to data provided to Bumaga by Petrostat.

Diagnoses of alcoholism in Petersburg, 2018–2022. Total diagnoses are indicated by the figures inside the dark green bars, while first-time diagnoses are indicated by the figures next to the light-green bars.

However, the number of Petersburgers who were diagnosed with alcoholism for the first time increased last year. It exceeded one thousand people for the first time in five years.

The latest data we have on deaths due to alcohol poisoning is for 2021. In that year, according to Rosstat, 9,274 Russians died of alcohol poisoning, 199 of them from Petersburg.

Only incidents of “accidental alcohol poisoning,” which is classified as an external cause of death, are counted in the official statistics, and so these figures do not show how many people died from diseases caused by alcohol consumption. At the same time, Rosstat points out that among those who died from diseases of the circulatory, nervous or digestive systems, as well as from neoplasms, there are also those who suffered from alcoholism.

The more Russians drink, the more murders occur

Every year, between a quarter and a third of the crimes in Russia are committed under the influence of alcohol, according to data from the Judicial Department. In 2022, however, this figure fell by 2.7% compared to the previous year.

The states in which crimes for which people were convicted in 2022 were committed:
sober – 74%, alcohol inebriation – 25%, narcotic intoxication – 0.5%, other – 0.2%

The Trauma Center Lawyers Association claim that up to 80% of murders in Russia occur after alcohol is consumed. The lawyers point out that in 2022, for the first time in twenty years, the number of murders and attempted murders increased by 4% in Russia. The lawyers attribute this increase to the growth in sales of alcoholic beverages.

Due to alcohol consumption, there are more murders on holidays than on other days. On New Year’s Eve, for example, the murder rate increases as much as fivefold, criminologist Vladimir Kudryavtsev, an associate researcher at the Institute for the Rule of Law, explained to Bumaga.

“During the holidays, a certain standard scenario is replayed that leads to lethal violence: people sit together in a closed room, consuming alcohol. And most often people kill people they know, people with whom they must share things. The holidays are a ‘petri dish’ that reproduces the environment for conflicts,” he said.

Source: “More vodka means more murders: how has alcohol consumption in Russia and Petersburg changed amid the war?” Bumaga, 18 May 2023. Translated by the Russian Reader

The war in Ukraine, which began on 24 February 2022 at the whim of the President of Russia, destroyed the lives of thousands of people overnight. Almost immediately after the outbreak of hostilities, the government of my country issued decrees that cut off the oxygen to independent journalists, forbidding them to cover events truthfully and without partiality toward Russian politicians. News websites were blocked, freedom of speech ceased to exist. As a freelance photographer, I was forced to leave Russia on 4 March 2022 to avoid the risks associated with my work.

Like other Russians who do not support the war, I departed for points unknown, taking with me only a backpack and hope for change. I left tormented by feelings of guilt and shame, which still haunt me at every step. I have been having nightmares the entire time since I left. The news from the frontline and Ukrainian cities has been even more unbearable, however. I still can’t believe that all these events are real. My current project, based on self-portraits, visualizes my nightmares and explores feelings of shame and guilt. The visual sequence also incorporates drawings from the diary I have kept since my departure from Russia and screenshots of the news from Ukraine. All these layers recreate my personal space, thus enabling the viewer to dive deeply into my state of mind. I hope that this work will show that not all Russians support this terrible war or have been brainwashed by propaganda.

[…]

Source: Sergei Stroitelev, “‘I wish it was just a nightmare’: a visual story about emotional states amid the war in Ukraine,” Republic, 18 July 2023. Translated by the Russian Reader, who would like to remind you that he does not necessarily endorse any of the views expressed on this website.

“Snarling Dogs and Monkeys Chasing Each Other Through the Streets”

Leader of World Proletariat with Female Gate Attendant Reflected in Security Mirror, SUV, and New Year’s Tree. December 18, 2016, 11 Lomanaya Street, St. Petersburg

Monument to V.I. Lenin

Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov (pseudonym – Lenin) (1870-1924) was a Russian and Soviet world-class politician and statesman, revolutionary, founder of the Russian Social Democratic Workers Party (Bolsheviks), and one of the organizers and leaders of the 1917 October Revolution in Russia. The monument was erected on the 87th anniversary of Lenin’s birth on the premises of the former Proletarian Victory shoe factory. Unveiled on April 22 , 1957. Cast from a model by the sculptor P.I. Bondarenko.

Source: 2gis.ru. Photo and translation by the Russian Reader

• • • • •

In Petrograd, “cryptic” messages like this one (spray painted on the fence of the now-defunct Krupskaya Confectionery Factory) are giving the sex ads stenciled everywhere on the pavements and walls a stiff run for their money. Basically, if you want to get whacked out of your mind on “bath salts” and then have sex with a prostitute, this town is the place for you. And it visually reminds you of that fact a thousand times a day, every which way you look. But don’t dream of holding a spontaneous political protest: then the law will come down hard on you. But gnarly, highly addictive drugs and prostitution (amidst an HIV epidemic) it can live with. ||| TRR, December 18, 2015

An important public service message from the kleptocratic post-fascist hybrid regime: Make your family strong, not your liquor! “In Russia, 16% of families break up due to alcoholism.” Uff da! ||| TRR, December 18, 2015

Post-Soviet “ethnic diversity” gone bad. Four “folk singers” from god knows what republic or “little people of the north” lip-synching a folk song at the New Year’s bazaar on Pioneer Square in Petrograd. ||| TRR, December 18, 2015

Darya Apahonchich: No Exit?

“You must die.” ∴ “Wicked Russia.” Downtown Petersburg, May 6, 2018

Darya Apahonchich
Facebook
June 15, 2018

My father died two years ago; my mom, a year and a half ago. Both of them were fifty-nine. They worked their whole lives, my mom a little longer. She taught physical therapy and physical education. Dad was a military man and volcanologist. He went into business after perestroika.

I don’t want to generalize, but they had very different, very complicated lives. They did not communicate with each other for the last twenty years. But they had one thing in common: they did not think in terms of the future. They did not look forward to anything. They did not dream of traveling. They did not plan to move house or look for better housing. They did not want new friends. They did not pursue hobbies. They never got the hang of computers. (Although Dad used them, he did not like them at all.)

One another annoying but important thing was that they drank a lot. When they were on binges, they would turn into people who could not care less whether there was a future or not. In the aftermath of their binges, they would experience an agonizing sense of guilt.

I find it horribly painful to write this, but it is not only my family’s story. It is the story of many families in Russia.

When we cannot choose our own reality, we do not think in terms of the future. Along with poverty and helplessness, we learn the important lesson that we cannot change anything, and all that awaits us is death.

I have always asked myself whether anything would have been different if my parents had more money and opportunities. When it comes to alcoholism, I don’t know. Maybe nothing would have changed. As far as despair was concerned, maybe they would have made a difference.

The new retirement age in Russia will be sixty-three for women, and sixty-five for men. The government has been instituting this reform hastily, while people are watching the World Cup.

Photo and translation by the Russian Reader. Thanks to Ms. Apahonchich for her kind permission to translate and publish her piece on this website.

Genre Scene

“Wanna drink?”

The question was addressed to my dog, not to me.

And indeed there was something to drink (or rather, lick up) because huge puddles of pungent alcohol had been splashed on the pavement all round the morning’s tragic heroes.

The particular genre scene had been made possible and has become more frequent due to the fact that the neighborhood outlet of the mighty Dixie supermarket chain, opposite where the drunks were hunched, had recently begun operating round the clock, and several months earlier, a 24-hour RosAl chain liquor shop had opened just round the corner too.

In Petersburg, retail, over-the-counter sale of liquor is illegal after ten o’clock in the evening. So in the wee hours, RosAl transforms itself into an impromptu dive, a poorly concealed ryumochnaya, the name for the humbly appointed but essential proletarian after-work bars that used to exist in abundance in Leningrad and early post-perestroika Petersburg.

More of RosAl's early morning clientele — More of RosAl’s early morning clientele

But RosAl utterly lacks the charm possessed by the legendary Little Twenty bar, a proper Soviet ryumochnaya, which had the stuff in spades. The Little Twenty was disappeared several years ago by the new proprietors of the large commercial premises on the corner, which had housed both the bar and the Soviet style Loaf grocery story. The Loaf had been a hundred times more human, humane, and convenient than the wretched Dixie chain supermarket that usurped it.

Back in the allegedly wild 90s, this café had been the semi-legendary Palmyra, a lively eatery with excellent borscht, frequented by artists from the nearby art squat. Then it was made into a bland pastries and coffee shop, which has just as suddenly closed.

The Little Twenty had been lively and colorful and, sometimes, scary. Most of all, it was dripping with a specific kind of post-war Leningrad and 1990s-era Petersburg history. As more and more such joints disappear, it will be harder to retell this history in a way that would make sense to listeners. The new urban environment will simply not incline them to believe what you tell them.

How can you explain to the decent, clean-cut Russian kids of today or newly arrived foreigners that the neighborhood was a lot nicer and cozier when you had to get your groceries not by grabbing them off the shelf and dashing to the checkout, but by asking for them from not always friendly female store clerks on the other side of the dairy counter, the bread counter, the meat counter, the produce counter, the newspapers and magazines counter, the coffee, tea, and sugar counter, and so on?

The flip side was that once these microlocally powerful grocery matrons and maidens finally recognized you as a local, if not by name, then at least visually, they would treat you much more warmly and “loyally,” as they say nowadays. How do you explain to these rosy-cheeked Russian kids and eager tourists, who are either used to the new consumerist order or relieved to find it firmly in place in the former Evil Empire, that next door to this inconvenient grocery store was an outwardly nondescript saloon, where fights broke out much too often, and more than a few times you saw its patrons carried out feet first (because for whatever reason they were no longer able to walk out on their own two), and all this apparent awfulness and backwardness made the neighborhood a better, literally more democratic place to live?

The picture gets worse if you are a nominal old-timer. In the spot where the cynical filling station for binge drinkers known as RosAl now does its land office business between the hours of one and six o’clock in the morning, not long ago there was a flagrantly old-fashioned and utterly unfashionable but incredibly handy and inexpensive clothing and notions shop. Among other things the shop housed a clothing repair workshop.

The calm and quiet queen of this workshop was a seamstress in her sixties, who could handle whatever darning, hemming or other repair job you set her gracefully and quickly. She was probably the reason the people of our neighborhood looked more or less decent sartorially.

I have no clue where this wonderful seamstress has now ended up. Instead of her, this morning the night staff of the RosAl dive greeted us, so to speak, or rather, sniggered at the sight of a large, middle-aged man and a tiny dog out walking so early. They are probably nice young folks, but their only visible life skills are selling liter bottles of vodka and plastic cups to clinical alcoholics, like the sad duo slowly slipping into total incoherence on the corner.

A little further down the same alley as RosAl, dog and man happened upon a newish police van, parked right next to the so-called Orchid spa-salon (i.e., a brothel). Out of the corner of my eye I saw sleeping bodies in the back seat. It had been a tough watch, I suppose.

At the other end of our block, the well-known and seemingly beloved Technical Books bookstore has been closed and empty for several years now. One would imagine the spot would be a gold mine (right on the corner of the Nevsky, the city’s main main street), but the windows of its former premises have been boarded up long ago, and just to be safe, apparently, now they have been walled up too. It produces a scary and sad impression nor does it make any sense.

On the same side of the street as Technical Books, but much closer to the former Loaf grocery shop and current Dixie supermarket is another mysteriously long-abandoned commercial space, the former grocery shop Fairy Tale. (That was its name if memory serves me.) Since it opened round the same time as the Dixiecrats were savagely killing off my dearly beloved Loaf shop and the Little Twenty bar, I stubbornly patronized this ridiculous, badly managed grocer’s to the point they issued me a discount card.

I was not particularly sorry to see it go, but its premises have also stood empty for many years, although in the last month or so there have been vague signs of life as though something were on the verge of opening in the place, god knows what. By the way things have been going, it will probably be another Dixie. They have been breeding unaccountably in our district like mushrooms, quietly pushing all other forms of commercial life closer to oblivion.

“Life is serious, but not that serious.”

When I started this story, I just wanted to sketch a quick genre scene, but in the writing it has turned into a full-fledged albeit half-assed socio-economic portrait of our block.

Having read it, who would dare say the invisible hand of the market has managed the immovable objects and animated beings on our little street for the best? I wouldn’t.

Translation and photos by the Russian Reader