Software bugs lead to deaths from alcohol poisoning.

We all know that software bugs are annoying and sometimes dangerous. When you are in Russia, software bugs can harm your health or cause your death.

This year is the worst of almost 20 years for Russian alcoholics. Our government has decided to put in some order to the alcohol market, centralize and computerize it. The idea was to develop a computer database to store all the operations performed between players on the alcohol market. It’s aim is to stop cheap illegal alcohol products circulating here. What we get when our government tries to make something ordered? Right. Even more disorder.

The computer database was full of bugs. Actually, legal alcohol manufactures, importers and intermediaries were unable to operate. The database was down almost all the time during summer. Unfortunately by that time the law prohibiting alcohol operations that are not reflected in this database was already in action. There was almost no alcohol at shops. It was a perfect situation for criminal alcohol market to grow. And it did.

What is the criminal alcohol like? It is produced from spirit that is not intended to be used by humans as a drink. It’s a poison. Today we almost have an epidemic of alcohol poisoning. Large amount of the poisoned people are pensioners. I saw an interview with one woman suffering from toxic hepatitis caused by illegal alcohol. Correspondent asked her «Did you know that this is dangerous alcohol?» - «Yes» - «Why did you drink it?» - «It’s cheap».

What can I say. Russian people still combine extreme genius with extreme stupidity.

"Thank you for smoking" - In the Russian way

According to the recent research conducted at Arkhangelsk, 38% teenage boys and 28% teenage girls are smokers. It's amazing how tobacco compamies are receiving this amount of young customers even without television ads (that are illegal in Russia). Back to Soviet Union, a smoking kid was a kind of outcast or a misfit. Now it is "cool" to smoke.
The average age of death for the male population of Russian North is about 50 years. The generation that is dying today at this age is far more healthy than those smoking kids. What we will get in the near future? 40 years of life or less...

Kindergarten problem

The last Russian baby boom was long ago in the early 80s. Then came perestroika, fall of Soviet Union and Boris Yeltsin. The country was in ruins, almost everyone except criminals were too poor. Child birth rate has significantly decreased. Kindergartens were empty and there was no perspective for them. Big part of them got closed. Now the buildings used earlier as kindergartens are used as offices or shops. But due to high oil prices Russian economic is now getting better, people are getting richer and the number of children born is increasing. And again it is a very big surprise for Russian government. Kondergartens are full, it is almost impossible to find a place for your child. And as always is Russia it is causing a great source of bribes for bureaucrats that have any affection on what kids will get their places at kindergartens. The amount of bribe now is too high for the majority of people.
There can be a way around it - non-government kindergartens. But... They are prohibited by the same bureaucrats.