[...] 'Probably this whole settlement is drunk around us ...

[...] 'Probably this whole settlement is drunk around us at this moment. Almost everyone'.

He dreaded the monthly arrival of pensions. 'Single parents get an allowance for each child, so a man with five children and no wife can feel a millionaire! He'll drink himself sick while the children starve. The women do it too. Everybody. And when the vodka gives out, they'll search for anything. There's an American machine oil which is bought galore here. Our machines are all broken, of course, but people drink this fluid by the bottle. Within two or three hours they're asphyxiated. If they get to the hospital I can save them, but they die in their homes in the street'.

Thubron, In Siberia