‘We bought it, might as well drink it’ By restricting weekday liquor sales to a two-hour window, Russia’s Vologda region hopes to curb alcoholism. Here’s how it’s working out.

In Russia’s Vologda region, weekday alcohol sales have been restricted since March 1: liquor may be bought only between noon and 2:00 p.m. The new dry law is the brainchild of eccentric Governor Georgy Filimonov, known as a protégé of Vladimir Putin’s influential domestic policy czar Sergey Kiriyenko and a friend of Putin’s daughter, Katerina Tikhonova. Six months after the law was adopted, reporters from Bereg, a cooperative of independent journalists, traveled to Vologda to investigate how locals are coping with the inability to buy booze whenever they want.  

All names of those interviewed for this story have been changed for security reasons.

Not to be rude

“Can I grab my first bottle already?” asks a bespectacled gray-haired man, reaching for a whiskey bottle on the shelf. He hesitates before taking it. It’s almost noon. “Go right ahead,” the good-natured clerk tells him. They are at Bristol, a popular liquor store chain in Vologda. “Okay,” the man says, taking the bottle. “It feels rude just to take it without asking, but you want to get in line early — folks are about to pour in.” 

In Russia, there is no standard set of hours for selling alcohol: each region sets its own rules. Since March 1, the Vologda region has implemented measures that are unprecedented in most parts of Russia: on weekdays, alcohol sales are now permitted only between noon and 2:00 p.m. On weekends, liquor sales continue from 8:00 a.m. to 11:00 p.m. (A few regions in Russia, such as Tuva, Yakutia, and Chukotka, have even stricter limits.) Governor Georgy Filimonov, who has dubbed his measure the “12-to-14 law” in posts on social media, insists the restrictions are intended to make people “stop getting drunk.”

Before the law came into effect, Filimonov lamented the prevalence of alcohol dependence in the region, and cited a high mortality rate from “consequences of alcohol consumption,” including incidents of “stabbings, shootings, and drunk driving.” In 2024, the Vologda region indeed ranked among Russia’s top 10 for alcohol consumption: ninth in vodka sales per capita (8.9 liters per person), and sixth for other hard liquor sales. 

The gray-haired man takes the bottle of whiskey from the shelf and hands it to a friend. Another customer selects white wine in the same section, while yet another peruses the liqueur shelf. By noon, there are already more than 15 people in line: laborers in work clothes with Gazprom logos, office workers, elderly women, a man with a black eye — everyone’s basket holds at least one bottle. The cashier warns that the register won’t accept alcohol purchases until 12:01 p.m. — the system blocks earlier sales. 

“Well, shall we go have a quick drink?” the gray-haired man asks his friend after settling up for the whiskey. 

“In the middle of the day?” 

“Why not! We bought it, might as well drink it. Let’s have lunch, while we’re at it.”

The registers barely stop. In the afternoon’s first 15 minutes, nearly 50 people buy alcohol, and the flow of customers never lets up.

A man in rubber flip-flops, reeking sharply of stale alcohol and urine, asks for “his favorite cashier” so she can ring up two plastic bottles of cheap beer for him.

Out of the “Red & White” chain store on the next street emerges a man lugging a bag full of beer cans. No one is inside except the sales clerks. “[At Bristol,] they have vodka,” explains a staff member, “but we only have beer.” (Russian federal law does not require a license to sell beer, cider, perry, or mead.) Sure enough, the store’s hard-liquor shelves were covered by trash bags, with a notice explaining that sales were “suspended for technical reasons” as of July 26. The previous day, several Red & White locations in Vologda had their liquor licenses revoked, according to Governor Filimonov. 

By August 1, the same fate had affected all the chain’s stores throughout the region. Filimonov said Red & White had been stripped of its license due to alcohol sales violations. He did not specify what the violations were. Writing on his Telegram channel, the governor further claimed that the chain would leave the region entirely, adding: “We don’t want death merchants here.” Red & White’s representatives have not confirmed this information.

At regular supermarkets, the crowds during these two hours resemble the rush at “Bristol,” and almost everyone in line is there for alcohol. Seeing people with bottles makes even those who hadn’t planned on buying spirits give in. After a minute in line, a fiftyish blonde woman sets down her basket of toilet paper, condensed milk, chicken breast, and instant coffee. She heads quickly to the alcohol section and returns with a bottle of vodka.

Locals say they’ve grown accustomed to the midday lines at supermarkets. “It’s not so bad now, but back in March, checkout lines were like in the Soviet era, during the deficit years,” says Yana, a Vologda resident. She works at an office on weekdays and has to ask permission to leave work just to buy alcohol. Some of her colleagues, she says, are embarrassed to admit they’re going for liquor, and tell the boss they’re going out for cigarettes.

Bereg also spoke to a married couple, Alexey and Irina, who buy their alcohol on the weekends because they can’t leave their offices during the workday. He is a lawyer, and she is a teacher. “I used to buy one bottle of wine,” says Irina, “but now I buy as much as I can carry. I wouldn’t call myself an alcoholic, but having to buy several bottles at a time is not a good feeling.”

Since the restrictions came into effect, Yana, too, has assembled a modest bar at home, stocked with vodka, cognac, champagne, and prosecco. “Friends who drink come over, so I have to keep some around,” she explains. According to Yana, the governor’s restrictions haven’t affected the amount of alcohol she drinks, but some acquaintances now drink more than before. “You stock up ahead of time, get home, and there it is, calling to you,” she jokes, quoting her friends.

Alexey and Irina agree: people who want to drink will still do so, whatever the restrictions. “We’ve been through this before: 1985, the anti-alcohol campaign,” recalls Alexey. “We tried everything: smearing shoe polish on bread so the alcohol would soak in, then scraping off the polish and eating the bread. Or I remember a cologne called ‘Citron’ — people drank that, first thing in the morning.”

Some people in Vologda are already resorting to drinking household liquids that contain alcohol. In parks and courtyards, you can find empty dark brown bottles once filled with medicinal skin lotions — products known locally as bomiki when consumed as intoxicants.

Yana says drinking bomiki is nevertheless rare today — people with dependencies generally head to grocery stores rather than pharmacies for alcohol. Recalling those who show up to buy liquor during the legal window and are already drunk, Yana calls them “blue walkers” — a nod to the “white walkers” from Game of Thrones. She says the resemblance is especially strong on days when the region suspends all liquor sales and people can’t find anything to ease their hangovers. In 2025, for example, Vologda prohibited all alcohol sales on World Health Day, Youth Day, Family Day, and Russia Day. “You’d see a bunch of drunks come along, all needing a drink to beat their hangover, and as they passed, other drunks would yell, ‘They’re not selling!’” Yana says. “I’d think, they could’ve filmed the show right here.”

On weekdays, Vologda’s streets have no shortage of drunk people. Locals who spoke to Bereg said they run into them more frequently now, ever since the alcohol restrictions took effect.

Outside a Pyaterochka supermarket near the city center, a drunk old man in a gray shirt and sweatpants holds out his smartphone to passersby, asking someone to call him a taxi home — he can’t manage the buttons himself. His younger companions — a man in a black T-shirt and a blond in a checked shirt — ask people not to intervene. Even so, two teenagers come to the old man’s aid and order a taxi from his phone. Soon, a gray sedan pulls up outside the store. The friends reluctantly drag him to the car. 

“He’s not gonna puke, is he?” asks the driver. The friends shrug and give the old man one last instruction: “Don’t make a mess in the car, behave!”

‘There’s nothing else to buy’

On a narrow sidewalk, a very drunk man collapses at the feet of Bereg’s correspondent and begins to kiss her shoes. He says he is ashamed but can’t explain why. She has to forgive him (for what, she doesn’t know) before he’ll get up off the ground.

Standing upright is a real effort for this man. His jeans are filthy, and the sleeves of his leather jacket have ripped under the arms. “I’ve actually got responsibilities, you know. I just partied a little too hard,” the man explains. When asked to show where in the city you can find alcohol during prohibited hours, he instantly perks up: “You’re cool! Let’s go.”

As they walk, he tries to talk about himself but trails off with every sentence. He does manage to say his name is Shamil. This is his second or third day on a bender — he usually goes for beer or vodka.

“What about bomiki?” 

“You trying to insult me?” Shamil snaps, looking annoyed.

After half an hour, they reach a five-story building. The basement door hangs open, a faded sign reading “Groceries” dangling from it. To reach the store, you have to walk down a long, dimly lit hallway that twists around a corner. From there, a drunk, gray-haired man appears, bottles rattling in his bag.

“They selling?” asks Shamil, pointing at the bag. The man mutters something in reply and, swaying slightly, heads for the stairs.

Half-empty shelves and fridges contain a random assortment of goods. Shamil gives the clerk a suggestive smile, and she hesitantly smiles back. An awkward silence follows. “Well…” Shamil says to the Bereg reporter.

“Could I get some vodka or cognac?” 

“There’s nothing.”

“But someone just walked out of here…” 

The clerk shakes her head.

“You’re too cool, they’re all scared of you!” Shamil says to the Bereg reporter once they’re out on the street, then collapses at her feet again.

Vendors are wary of strangers. Shamil figures the cashier may have thought the journalist was running a sting for the police. But he knows another spot. Forty minutes later, Shamil stops at a two-story house covered in siding. He knocks a few times outside a curtained window, but there’s no answer.

“You sure it’s here?” 

“Totally sure!” 

He knocks again on the window frame — no response. “Just wait here. I know another spot!” Shamil says and sets off again, giving no explanation.

“You’re going to have a drink with me, right?” he suddenly checks, pausing near a long metal fence.

“I’ll drink, depending on what it is.”

“There’s some wine, I think,” says Shamil, sounding unsure.

There’s a small square window cut into the door of a wooden house. Shamil pulls some crumpled bills from his pocket and leans in.

“Come back later, we’re out right now,” a woman’s voice calls from inside.

Shamil steps away from the house and suggests they wait on a bench in the nearest park until the delivery arrives. Fifteen minutes later, after leaving the Bereg reporter on the bench, he heads back to the window, but he soon returns, walking fast and looking anxious. He taps his shoulders to indicate police epaulets: two officers have shown up at the house selling alcohol under the table.

“What do you usually buy there?”

“Well, sometimes I just want something to drink,” Shamil says evasively.

“What exactly?”

“Alcohol! Bomiki!” he snaps.

“But you said you don’t drink bomiki?”

“There’s nothing else to buy.”

Shamil is offended that the Bereg reporter didn’t believe his story about the police officers and decides to show her their patrol car, which is parked outside the house. Sure enough, the officers emerge from the building. “I don’t want to get locked up for a day. Don’t want to, don’t want to,” Shamil babbles, nodding rapidly. The window in the wooden door remains open, and the woman is still there.

Late the next evening, the Bereg correspondent retraces the route Shamil had shown her. The grocery store with the faded sign has locked its doors — it closes at 9 p.m. The spot where they saw the police is still open. In the two-story house where no one had answered Shamil, bomiki are for sale. It seems he mixed up the windows — the right one is just a bit further down.

Haggard men stumble up to the window, hand over cash, and collect dark brown bottles.

“One.”

“You look too young — let me see your ID,” the saleswoman with a shaved head says to Bereg’s correspondent.

Once satisfied, she hands over a warm glass bottle of “Chisty Lux Cleansing Lotion.” Alcohol content: 95 percent. Cost: 90 rubles — a little more than $1.

A six-pack to go

Although it’s become much harder to get quality alcohol during restricted hours, it’s not impossible, says a local resident, Yana. You can even buy it in chain grocery stores. Clerks are cautious, but some will agree to sell liquor for cash if they’ve known the client for a long time. More often than not, these customers are the heavy drinkers Governor Filimonov described when he announced Vologda’s “12-14” law.

“If someone’s been buying alcohol from the same clerks for the last decade or something, he’s not about to report them to the police,” Yana says, referring to the fines of 20,000–40,000 rubles (roughly $375) that vendors risk for selling booze outside the designated hours. “He’s a known customer — and he brings in good business.” Yana, too, knows clerks who’d sell her booze outside the legal hours, but she’s reluctant: “I keep asking myself, where do they get this cognac, and how much can I really trust it?”

Those without personal connections to sellers buy their alcohol in so-called nalivayki or razlivayki (“watering holes” or “dives,” essentially). These are businesses that have registered as food establishments (bars, cafes, and restaurants in Vologda are still allowed to sell alcohol around the clock). The main difference from a regular store is that drinks must be consumed on the premises — getting drinks to go during banned hours is technically forbidden. But both buyers and sellers understand this is just a formality.

On a Tuesday night, the line at the register of one of the city’s central nalivayki is more than a dozen people long, with just as many already drinking outside. Though it looks the part, there’s nowhere to sit. There are no barstools by the counter, and the only “reserved” marker is lying atop some tables pushed into a corner. The “barkeeps” hand over plastic bottles of draft beer already opened, with spare caps in a box near the register. They also open the glass bottles before handing them over, but a nearby box contains metal caps and a capping device for resealing.

Vendors also open any beer sold in bottles with screw caps, but they hand over the cap with the purchase, so customers just screw it back on. There are no other alcoholic options on the menu.

At razlivayki farther out from downtown, vendors pay even less attention to formalities: not only do they skip opening bottles before the sale, they don’t check IDs either. On average, bottled beer here costs 30–40 percent more than in shops, and draft beer ranges from 200 to 400 rubles a liter (about $1.75 per pint).

Nalivayki used to sell hard alcohol, but they stopped when word got out in the news media and online. At first, they would just pull vodka bottles from the shelves and keep pouring under the counter for people they knew, according to regulars. That eventually ended, as well, but people still line up outside Vologda’s nalivayki. “I try to avoid those places — I don’t feel safe there. Just walking past when you’re with your kids is genuinely scary,” Yana told Bereg.

At several restaurants, Bereg’s correspondent managed to buy wine to go. The staff made it clear that they would have to open the bottle before handing it over. “We have some screw-cap wines — maybe we can find one that works,” a waitress said. Buying wine at a restaurant is expensive: the most affordable screw-cap bottle ran nearly 2,000 rubles ($25) — three times what it costs at the supermarket.

Local media in Vologda report that activists from patriotic groups — like “Municipal Guard” and “Russian Community” — sometimes patrol the city streets, looking for people consuming alcohol in public. But this has achieved little deterrence: on benches, in parks, and even while out walking, people drink. In a park on Pirogov Boulevard, just outside the city center, two men drink beer from plastic bottles in full view. They tell Bereg’s reporter they’re here every evening and no one hassles them: “So what if we have bottles? There’s nothing written on them. We’re not loud, we don’t litter. If the [police] show up, I’ll say it’s kvass. Let him prove it’s beer. You can’t press charges on a hunch.”

Three young people lounge by the waterfront near Mira Park. A young man finishes off a bottle of wine, while the girls sip beer. None of them has ever had a run-in with the police. “I haven’t started drinking any less — I drink just like before,” the man says proudly, explaining that his friend owns a bar, so he can get any drinks he wants outside official sales hours. His companions add that you can always order liquor from an “alco-taxi”: drivers will deliver alcohol at any hour. They decline to share their contacts with Bereg — “so this doesn’t get shut down, too.”

After some hesitation, the young man finally agrees to show the Telegram bot for alcohol delivery that his friends recommended. It’s expensive, they admit, but “when you’re drunk, you don’t care how much you’re spending — you just go for it.”

‘People say good things’

The menu in the Telegram bot suggested by the young man has just six options: two types of canned beer (listed at double the price you’d pay in a shop), red or white wine (four to five times the price), and vodka and cognac (with a 300-percent markup). “You can always pass and remain healthy like our governor,” says the channel’s pinned message.

Searching for keywords on Telegram, Bereg easily found another bot for alcohol deliveries — this one with a far wider selection, including whisky, gin, rum, vermouth, tinctures, liqueurs, and tequila. The listed prices were generally twice the retail rates. To place an order, you need to share a phone number and an address. Afterward, the bot matches you with a delivery driver, like an ordinary ride-hailing service. The delivery itself is an additional 200 rubles (about $2.50). Cash is accepted. The service reveals neither the driver’s name nor phone number, and all contact is made through the bot.

Just 10 minutes later, a notification arrives in the chat: “I’m at your building, come down.” A young man in a black T-shirt hands over a crumpled blue bag. There’s no branding, but one of the local liquor store chains uses these same bags. Inside are two cans of cold beer.

The next day, Bereg’s correspondent tries the alcohol delivery service again. The bot promises a bottle of dry white wine and a 0.25-liter bottle of vodka within 20 minutes. There’s no delivery fee because the order’s total exceeds 1,000 rubles ($13). On delivery, the courier apologizes: the white wine from the catalog is out of stock, and he offers a substitute. “This one’s popular too — people say good things,” he insists. The same bottle costs about 300 rubles (almost $4) at an actual store, but the price here is three times higher.

Recently, alcohol prices have also climbed in stores, locals told Bereg. Irina, a teacher, says the price of her favorite wine has increased by a third. “A friend of mine, who always drank only wine, has started making his own infusions — opting for something more affordable that can be made in larger batches and stored at home,” says Irina. Alexey, her husband, says his colleagues have taken up home distilling: at work, they swap recipes and share apples from their dachas to use for brewing.

Finding home-distilling equipment in Vologda is easy: the city has around a dozen specialty stores. At many, there’s no single product labeled as moonshine hardware; instead, each component — boiler, column, distiller — is sold separately. Vendors worry that the governor might someday introduce a new law banning the sale of home-distilling equipment.

A fully assembled distilling kit goes for about 10,000 rubles ($125), according to one shop assistant. They used to be cheaper, he says, but the price jumped this summer. You can make moonshine on an ordinary kitchen stovetop. By Bereg’s calculations, the cost per liter is just over 100 rubles, but the shop assistant maintains that it can be done for as little as 90. At home, you can make more than just moonshine, he says: swap out the sugar for cane sugar, and you can make rum; with oak chips to age it, you can get whiskey.

According to the shop assistant, some customers make no secret of their plans to distill alcohol for sale (illegal without a license), but most clients buy the equipment for personal use. “People had thought about this before, but now the idea just makes more sense. Folks have realized that the prices [for home-distilling equipment] aren’t so steep.”

* * *

By Governor Filimonov’s count, Vologda had 610 alcohol vendors in March 2025, and 346 of them had either closed down or stopped selling liquor by July. (The government hasn’t reported how many new vendors entered the market.) The authorities say alcohol sales have fallen by more than 20 percent, and alcohol poisoning deaths have plummeted by more than 70 percent. However, there are no figures to gauge the size of the region’s black market.

Bereg’s correspondent visited three locations that had closed down after Vologda’s “12-to-14” restrictions took effect. Each establishment was a former liquor store now functioning as an ordinary grocery store — and still selling alcohol. “It’s all just an act. That’s how things work around here,” Irina says. “Sometimes you even find yourself missing the last governor, though people used to complain about him.” 

Yana is of the same mind: “Alcohol is just a smokescreen.” She views Governor Filimonov’s campaign as a means to create the “appearance of intense activity,” which distracts from more pressing issues.

“It’s all just populism,” says local lawyer Alexey, commenting on the governor’s claims. He and others who spoke to Bereg say they don’t trust the official data. They claim there are now more establishments selling alcohol than before, with old liquor stores simply rebranding as cafes or grill joints.

Yana leads Bereg’s correspondent to one of these rebranded venues. Outside, it appears to be a typical lunch stop, with an electronic menu displayed by the door offering shawarma and various milkshakes. “This used to be a total dive selling beer, now they pose as a cafe,” she says. An empty vodka bottle lies discarded near the entrance.