Comment by danielodievich | Hacker News Reader

Comment by danielodievich | Hacker News Reader

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I have a favorite Utah story that is I think appropriate here. Many years ago as a young and green consultant I was sent to Salt Lake to help with some ASP.NET/C# app with Utah Department of Liquor. I was told to look for the tallest building in SLC and the warehouse did not disappoint, it was huge (well, SLC is really flat and squat too). They showed me the warehouse full of really fancy robotic stuff (all made in Utah, and they were correct to be proud of it). We got to work looking over the code of the app, and along the way they learn that I am originally from USSR/Russia. "Oh" the devs say, "do you want to see our Russia module"? I am of course intrigued, and discover that during the process of organization of 2002 SLC winter Olympics (Mitt Romney's baby/rise to prominence), there was a huge diplomatic incident. The rules of State of UT at the time limit the number of bottles sold to any one in a given transaction, and the Russian delegation was refusing to come to Utah because they would not be allowed to buy as much liquor (likely vodka) as they wanted to. This got escalated to the highest levels of State department, and the intrepid UT legislature found a way! They [very quickly] passed the law that any person with Russian citizenship could buy whatever the heck they want in any amount. Now it was up to the poor saps in the UT Dept. of Liquor to implement it. But you couldn't just rely on people showing passport! No, the software team feverishly coded up the "Russian Module" that implemented passport number validation, making sure that if you did show a red passport with double-headed eagle, its number was valid. There was serious collaboration on the numbering schemes and maybe even some proto API validation to the Russian Federation servers. Yeah, legit module. Used for 2 weeks, and then decommissioned as the law sunset very rapidly.

So, where there is a will, there is a way. And a VPN.

I've been an avid Hacker News reader for over a decade and this is by far the funnest/funniest/most fun anecdote I've read. That includes all of the comments on the HN highlights page [1].

My nationality has nothing to do with it ;)

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/highlights

I googled to try to find some reference to this alleged law, but found nothing.

This seems to be referring to it[0]:

“During the 2002 Winter Olympic Games, the Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control (UDABC) relaxed enforcement of Utah's alcohol laws. This led to the passing of less restrictive laws effected in May 2003. This came after complaints, particularly after an incident in which an International Olympic Committee official complained.”

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alcohol_laws_of_Utah

The only result I found was this thread.

Funny story if true.

But honestly, the whole "Russian vodka bears blyat" stuff is disrespectful (and wrong). Because Russians actually prefer whiskey & brandy!!

Also, Russia is not even in the top 15 countries in terms of alcohol consumption. Ukraine is higher, Finland is higher, Ireland is higher.

But the worst offender: Russian vodka is not made of potatoes!! They use grains. It's actually the Polish who use potatoes.

Many sources put Russia in the top five for incidence of alcoholism, and the life expectancy of Russian men is famously diminished due to their high intake of alcohol. The life expectancy of Russian women is 13 years longer than for men.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alcohol_consumption_in_Russia

"A recent study blamed alcohol for more than half the deaths (52%) among Russians aged 15 to 54 from 1990 to 2001.[14] For the same demographic, this compares to 4% of deaths for the rest of the world."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Health_in_Russia#Alcohol_consu...

I don't think it's just a stereotype.

2001 was 22 years ago.

And some of the worst times in post Soviet Russia (and former union states). Truly hopeless and desperate times.

In reality, alcohol consumption there is down significantly despite all the grasping around to hate on them:

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/oct/01/russian-alcoho...

In fairness, the original anecdote is about 2002

I guess it doesn't take long to fall back on old habits when you're in the trenches though. A lot of translated intercepted calls posted at https://www.youtube.com/@insightsfromukraineandrussia and reports from the front line talk about drunk Russians like it's an epidemic of alchoholism. They also talk about drunk Ukrainians on another one of the podcasts I follow so it's not only the Russians drinking on the front line.

That being said, I have a few Russian friends that immigrated years ago to Florida and they're not big drinkers. They were all from well off families though. Kinda like here, I suspect alcoholism follows poverty.

I doubt Russia is doing all that well 22 years later either..

It really doesn’t matter what you think or how you feel. That’s not how it works.

It’s an objective fact that drinking is down and life expectancy is up there.

Some people are so Rusaphobic on here that they are borderline racist. It’s gross.

> It’s an objective fact that drinking is down and life expectancy is up there

Which doesn’t mean that people are doing fine there.

Maybe not in alcohol consumption. But in alcoholism, Russia takes an honorable second place after Hungary: https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/alcoholis...

Haha and USA female alcoholism beats Russia.

> Also, Russia is not even in the top 15 countries in terms of alcohol consumption

That depends on which stats you take and for which country.

But Russians are always among the top in the world, especially males.

Also don't forget in Russia muslims make 14% of the population which lowers the nation averages a lot.

That’s actually a really good point regarding Muslims.

In general, it seems like heavy alcohol consumption is a northern peoples trend, no?

Alcohol makes you feel warmer.

The divergence could be because plenty of Russians distill their own liquor

But they didn’t twenty years ago? (Also, Wikipedia shows both recorded and estimated total consumption.)

There's a great Russian restaurant in NYC known for their infused vodkas, and this part of their website sheds some light on the history of vodka in that region: https://www.russiansamovar.com/vodka/

Not doubting you in the slightest, just adding some flavor.

An article a few years ago in New Scientist said that alcohol consumption was nothing exceptional in Russia but the way it was consumed was contributing to excess deaths. Something to do with fall-on benders called Zapoi

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zapoy

More: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_alcohol_c...

Germany #6 with 13.4 litres/year pure alcohol equivalent

Russia #18 with 11.7

UK at #25 with 11.4

united states at #46 with 9.8

china at #83 with 7.2

I dunno man. Unless I'm misremembering the show, there's a pretty good video record of Anthony Bourdain constantly being served Vodka like it's water in Russia.

The impression I got was that they just consume a lot of strong booze, which happens to be vodka due to being the cheap default, not that it's their preferred drink. Whiskey and such is aged costly stuff, isn't vodka much cheaper to bring to market?

You watched a show -No single moment of that was 'candid' in the sense of 'the participants did not know they were being filmed' -And it was if not scripted, certainly constructed.

Bourdain could have gone to visit vegan monks who only drank lemonade. It would have been as entertaining and 'candid' and 'real'

No disrespect to the dead, but it's not evidence, its a show

vodkas and rum. in the recentish boon in craft whiskey makers, they seem to all come out with a vodka and/or rum. makes sense though seeing as your first real whiskey product is going to be in a barrel for 8 years. i could see lots of investors wanting some sort of return before then, so faster liquors are made in the mean time.

It’s a tv show. They play up stereotypes.

Also, there is absolutely nothing “flat” about Salt Lake City.

It's surrounded by mountains, but the urban part of the city is indeed very flat.

Maybe a decade ago, but there are now over a dozen buildings over 300 feet in downtown SLC[1].

I was there last week; it's not a "big" city by any means, but it's also certainly not flat by any means. Compare this to Buffalo, which is bigger, older, and still has fewer buildings over 300 feet[2].

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_tallest_buildings_in_S...

[2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_tallest_buildings_in_B...

Pretty sure we're talking about ground elevation, not building height.

The original context was "flat and squat," so I assumed we were including building height. But it's entirely possible that was wrong!

Fair, I may have missed "squat"!

Huh? The city itself is really flat - I've been through it, and a quick image search confirms as much. There are mountains nearby, but saying "there is absolutely nothing 'flat'" about it is pretty disingenuous.

I mean, sure, there are flat parts - as with all cities. But if we are ranking cities by flatness, SLC would be somewhere in the bottom 10 percent. "Flat" is just a horrible descriptor for that city.

I lived in SLC city and it is flat in a similar way a bowl is "flat" The middle valley is very flat with a pretty steady elevation around 4500 ft or so IIRC but nestled between 2 very big mountain ranges and the great salt lake up north.

See for yourself

https://en-us.topographic-map.com/map-nptp/Salt-Lake-City/?c...

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