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In the early nineties, I happened to be present at the “eviction” of former secretaries from the offices of the city party committee. Then the Communist Party of the Soviet Union was canceled, and the vacated areas were quickly rented by firms.
So, after taking out papers and tables, I found batteries of empty cognac bottles in the closet. At that time, it was not easy to get good cognac from us. But they had, apparently, in assortment.
In the absence of cognac, however, they did not disdain vodka either, at that time there was a saying in those circles: “And how non-party people drink it!”
I remembered this episode, and it became interesting: what did party functionaries drink in Soviet times? What drinks did the elite consume?
What kind of alcohol did Soviet politicians prefer?
As you know, only teetotalers and ulcers do not drink with a good snack. And the power in the USSR loved to have a snack, as well as drink.
A snapshot of a banquet table – the cover of a book about tasty and healthy food
In general, there were practically no teetotalers among the top management. Stalin preferred Georgian wines Khvanchkara and Kindzmarauli from light drinks, and from strong drinks he could drink old cognac. Although it follows from Khrushchev’s memoirs that the future generalissimo knew the taste of vodka from infancy.
His father, a shoemaker and a drunkard, used to dip his finger in vodka and let the baby suck in the cradle. So told, in any case, the leader of the peoples. A lover of organizing magnificent feasts with associates, at which drunken guests blurted out too much.
In many photographs, the General Secretary of the Central Committee of the CPSU, L. I. Brezhnev, is depicted with a wine glass
Stalin once used this technique in a political dialogue with Churchill. There is a well-known story about how the Secretary General got the British Prime Minister drunk so that he was taken under the arms. One can imagine how he rushed about when in the morning they reported to him that he had talked on a drunken bench …
Tomorrow the guest seems to have a hard time
“Don’t be afraid, I won’t drink Russia away!” – Stalin said at that moment to the eyewitness of the event, Marshal Yevgeny Golovanov. At the same time, he added that when solving important political issues, any drink should seem like water.
“Tsinandali” went down in history as the favorite drink of Lavrenty Beria
Khrushchev loved vodka with pepper and moonshine more than others, and preferred to eat bacon and pickles.
Nikita Sergeevich was not very picky, and sometimes unbridled in the “reception” of intoxicating
Once, wanting to outshine Stalin in a drunken sparring with a political interlocutor, he invited Urho Kekkonen, the President of Finland, to Zavidovo, placing crystal glasses and vodka instead of glasses on the table.
Nikita Sergeevich, it seems, did not calculate the strength
The result of that battle was the following: ours was cut to the bone, and Urho, an athlete and a healthy man, drank another glass on the staff and left.
Years of work in Moldova were not in vain for Leonid Brezhnev, he fell in love with cognac or good wine.
It was the years of the reign of “dear Leonid Ilyich” that began to be called a period of stagnation and feasts
Yuri Andropov could drink hard and without consequences in his youth, at a later time he sipped Rhine wine.
Konstantin Chernenko, when he was General Secretary, could afford a little pure alcohol with a sick stomach, although, they say, from his youth he drank everything that burns.
Mikhail Gorbachev was remembered for his anti-alcohol campaign, but he himself drank quite normally.
Strong alcoholic drinks
Other members of the Soviet political elite also had their preferences. At different times, many drinks of different strengths were present on the tables of members of the Politburo and other high-ranking persons. You look, and you can choke on saliva. The following was drunk from the strong:
- Georgian or Dagestan cognac was used under Stalin; made by Tbilisi or Kizlyar cognac factories;
- cognac Moldovan “White Stork” was exhibited at the Kremlin banquets at a later date, although many, including Alexei Kosygin, preferred the product of the Kizlyar plant;
- vodka from a special workshop in Moscow.
The favorite vodka of the “late” Leonid Ilyich was “Zubrovka”, a kind of Belarusian analogue of absinthe on herbs. Although at this time he could get drunk from a small amount of alcohol.
This is what the label of the legendary Zubrovka looked like
There is no evidence of the attitude of the authorities to the popular drinks of the chic series of the Soviet years. This is a 45-degree “Riga Balsam”, Cuban rum “Havana Club” which was brought from the Island of Freedom in tanks and bottled in the USSR.
And there was also the most fragrant vermouth “Kichskemet”, produced in Hungary and tasted better than the current “Martini”.
Weak alcohol
Of course, it could not do without women’s options for alcohol. Champagne exhibited sweet and semi-sweet “Soviet”.
In addition to the “Stalinist” red wines, Georgian “Ojaleshi”, as well as white “Teliani”, “Kakheti” were among the popular ones.
In the memoirs of contemporaries, the light wine of Stalin’s feasts “Madzhari” remained. The habit of putting numbers on factory wines remained until the end of the seventies. The numbering usually referred to Georgian wines.
Frivolous champagne was drunk only in protocol situations, in public and for photos. For example, at a meeting with US President Nixon.
Were there non-drinking politicians in the USSR
It was supposed to drink according to the protocol, but for those who could not drink much, and the situation required it, it turns out that tea was slowly substituted instead of cognac, and water instead of vodka.
It is known that Kosygin, if he was in shock, was sometimes addressed by an assistant with the words: “Aleksey Nikolaevich, maybe a cup of tea?” What he either agreed to or dismissed: I know myself.
Andropov almost did not drink at the moment when he became the head of the country. And although the cheapest low-grade vodka was called “andropovka”, the Secretary General himself, of course, did not even try it.
Well, almost a teetotaler from the top leadership of the party was, perhaps, only Vladimir Lenin. Firstly, Ilyich quickly realized the danger of a drunken proletarian, and secondly, he himself was practically indifferent to alcohol.
It is known that if he abused anything, it was only tea. Although no, there was one sin, about which sister Anna was sad, reporting in letters to her mother that her brother had completely “spoiled, drinking Chianti instead of milk.”
Who would have thought? In general, somehow stagnant-feasting was drawn into the past. Kind, calm, nostalgic… What do you think about this?