Beer was not considered an alcoholic beverage in Russia until 2013.
Beer's origins in Russia date back more than a thousand years to the creation of "kvass," a delicious sour beverage made from rye bread and flavored with fruit, apples, herbs, and spices. But in modern-day Russia, kvass is made with a low alcohol level and is more like soda than beer. Baltika Brewery is the undisputed leader of the Russian beer market. Although the first brewery was built in 1978, it did not start brewing until 1990.
Russia's beer industry boomed in the early 2000s, eventually overtaking vodka. A profile of the craft brewer Oleg Pivovar, who started brewing as a hobby in 2016, was published in The Moscow Times in 2019. "Ten years ago I never would have thought I'd be doing this job here. Beer wasn't that common when I first started. But things started to change after what I call the 'craft movement'." Pivovar continued by saying that "hipsters" and today's youth prefer beer to vodka because beer is new and different.
Russia has spent much of the last forty years trying to reduce its citizens' propensity to binge, which may explain why beer has become so popular in Russia. According to a 1985 article by Quartz, then-Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev responded to claims that male Soviet citizens had a shorter life expectancy than male citizens of other countries, including the United States, due to high alcohol consumption and the resulting increase in accidents and murders due to drunkenness. Raised the prices of vodka, beer, and wine to reduce consumption; It prevented the public from getting drunk and banned the sale of alcoholic beverages in restaurants before 14:00. People in the countryside started distilling a moonshine called samogon, but people in cities were vodka was very expensive to buy but easier to find solitude began to consume cheaper beer. After the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, restrictions on liquor were lifted and Russians were able to purchase a wider variety of beer.
Until 2011, beers with less than 10% alcohol, meaning most beers, were classified as "foodstuffs" rather than alcohol. Not only was beer marketed as a healthier alternative to vodka, but it could also be sold in any shop at any time of the day, and people could drink beer the same way they drink bottled water or soda. In 2013, then-President Dmitry Medvedev approved a law envisaging that the regulations previously applied to the sale of liquor should also be applied to the sale of beer.
By a decision taken by Dmitri Medvedev, the sale of alcohol was banned in places such as street kiosks, subway stops, and gas stations, which accounted for 30% of all sales, and between 11:00 am and 8:00 am. Beer sales were already subject to a 200% tax increase due to laws passed in 2010 and 2011 that made the consumption of alcohol in public illegal. The abuse of alcohol in Russia was called a "national disaster" by President Medvedev, and in 2011 Russian officials calculated that alcohol contributed to 500,000 deaths annually in the country. In 2019, the World Health Organization reported that per capita alcohol consumption in Russia decreased by an astonishing 43% between 2003 and 2016, contributing to a 39% reduction in "all-cause mortality" in men and 36% in women.
Answer to the question in the title:
Dmitry Medvedev
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