Russia's drunkards to be 'shamed' in the press

As well as classifieds, football reports and lengthy accounts of Vladimir Putin's speeches, there might soon be a new section in Russian newspapers – photos of alcoholics. That, at least, is the plan of Vladimir Pronin, Moscow's top policeman.

Last week, Moscow traffic police who had stopped a car for a routine document check were assaulted by its severely inebriated female driver. When the story got to Mr Pronin, he was furious and came up with an unusual idea of how to punish the offender and stop others from repeating it – shame her in the press.

"We need to place a photograph of the girl together with her name and a detailed account of her morning adventures," said Mr Pronin at a meeting with the city's judges. Indeed, Mr Pronin was so proud of his idea that he wants to make the naming and shaming of rowdy drunks a permanent police policy. According to the newspaper Novye Izvestia, the police chief has already contacted Moscow newspapers asking them to set up sections entitled "Shame!" where misbehaving Muscovites can be publically humiliated.

He said the process had its antecedent in Tsarist times when one of the main Moscow papers regularly published stories of drunken brawls and details of the participants. More recently, during the Soviet period "boards of shame" were often displayed in public places displaying pictures of notorious drunks and others engaging in "socially undesirable behaviour".

Russia's drink problem is the stuff of legend, and is one of the main reasons why male life expectancy in the country hovers around the mark of 60. In 2006, nearly 60,000 Russians died from alcohol poisoning or related illnesses. Things these days are not quite as bad as in the 1980s, when Mikhail Gorbachev's attempts to wean Russians off vodka ended up with millions of Russians drinking lethal home brews, or the poverty-stricken 1990s, when people drank aftershave, brake fluid or anything else they could get their hands on.

Although a bottle of vodka in a Moscow supermarket still goes for about £2, a recent survey showed that vodka sales were down by 10 per cent, with more Russians going for beer and wine. Alcohol-related deaths also fell significantly in 2007.

Nevertheless, there's no doubting drinking is still a huge problem, and one that contributes to Russia's grim demographic situation as well as to high levels of domestic violence.

In a photo-free precursor of what Mr Pronin would like to see more of, the English-language Moscow bi-weekly The Exile has a column devoted to murders in Russian provinces and, more often than not, they involve alcohol. One recent report involved a 40-year-old Siberian police officer who, having knocked back several vodkas with friends and then decided to drive home, got so enraged with another motorist overtaking him that he increased his speed, caught up with the offender, and shot him in the head.

He then drove off, ploughed into two teenage girls, killing both, before stopping the car and falling asleep drunk at the wheel.

Although that is an extreme example, law enforcement officials say drinking is responsible for a huge number of crimes and public order offences each week.

But medical experts say the idea of publishing photos of drunks in the press might provide titillation for readers but is unlikely to stop anyone from getting drunk. "I've never heard such a ridiculous idea," said one Moscow doctor. "You need to address the reasons why people get drunk, not shame them. In any case, if they're drunk all the time, they're hardly going to care that their photo is in the paper."

Another throwback to Soviet times could also soon be back – forced treatment for alcoholics. A bill is going through Russian parliament to bring back the labour-treatment facilities closed during Mikhail Gorbachev's rule. They simply isolate heavy drinkers from society and place them into isolation, in institutions that were, in effect, labour camps.