VLADIVOSTOK, December 4 (RIA Novosti) - Sergei Darkin, governor for the Primorye Territory, said he is introducing a law controlling retail sales of alcoholic drinks after the night hours.
"The prohibition [on sales] has been introduced from 10:00 p.m. until 9:00 a.m.," the governor said.
Prohibition was briefly introduced in the Soviet Union in 1985 in an attempt to put a halt to rampant alcoholism that was taking its toll on the nation's economy and health system.
But the policy was an utter failure, and the illicit production of moonshine - "samogon"- rocketed, not to mention a sudden rise in sales of medicinal and industrial spirit. The never-popular policy of prohibition was later quietly dropped.
After the collapse of the Soviet Union, modern Russia quickly found itself engulfed in an epidemic of alcoholism of catastrophic proportions, as what was already a serious social and health problem transformed into something on an apocalyptic scale.
