Chapter 70: Vodka in Russia
In the morning, I struggled to get up from the bed with a splitting headache, looked at the time, hurriedly called Brother Chao, and hurriedly washed up, and Varoga arrived. I have to admire the fighting nation, last night Varoga drank like a cow drink cup after glass, walking in the middle of the night was already shaky, but after the dinner was over, he was able to drive us back to the hotel very smoothly, and now there is no trace of a hangover on him. Super Brother Kwavaroga has a good amount of alcohol, and Valroga smiled and said: "Vodka is the pillar of our Russia, whether we are sad or happy, we can't do without vodka, so as a Russian man, you must be able to drink vodka." ”
No wonder it is said that vodka was created for Russians, and Russians have a saying: Russians believe in God, but Russians do not think that before God created the world, heaven and earth were chaos, at least there was vodka in chaos. In the vast land of Russia, all qiē originates from vodka, and one qiē belongs to vodka. Even Russian soldiers rely on vodka to train in the harshest cold, but vodka has done more damage to the country than any war. During the 10 years of Soviet occupation of Afghanistan, 14,000 soldiers died, but more than 30,000 people died of alcohol poisoning in Russia every year. No other country in the world drinks more alcohol per year than Russia: the average person consumes fifteen kilograms of liquor per year, at least half of which is vodka. Leonid Brezhnev once said that the Russian people could not do anything without vodka. Thinking of the drunkards everywhere in Russia, I think that the Russian people can't do anything with vodka
When I was in Luning, Danya told me that during the Soviet era, Gorbachev tried to ban alcohol, but in the end failed, Gorbachev closed vodka distilleries, banned most liquor stores, banned Soviet embassies from serving alcohol, and even bulldozed vineyards in Crimea, Georgia, Moldova and the Kuban River basin. Hence Gorbachev got the nickname "General Secretary of Mineral Water". With the implementation of Prohibition, as Gorbachev expected, Russian men spent more time with their wives, the fertility rate naturally increased, and the average life expectancy increased. However, what Gorbachev did not expect was that there was a shortage of sugar in the Soviet Union. People snapped up and stored sugar in order to make wine at home. What Gorbachev did not expect was that someone began to drink all kinds of toxic intoxicating products, such as brake fluid, industrial alcohol, and perfume. It's ridiculous that some shops have signs in front of their doors that say "Perfume Afternoon Supply". It can be seen that the power of vodka is far stronger than the power in Gorbachev's hands, and in the end Gorbachev had to cancel the prohibition of alcohol. Vodka is different from any other kind of liquor, such as our Chinese liquor, there are various aromas, we pay attention to a careful and slow drinking, what we want is a process of tasting, and vodka, which is colorless and odorless and tasteless, is still very choking to drink. Russians have never studied the taste of vodka, Russians drink vodka, the process is not important, what matters is the result: madness and contempt after a sip of cow drinking. For Russians, injecting vodka directly into the blood vessels is no different from drinking it, so for Russians, as long as it contains alcohol that can bring intoxication, it can be drunk. In this chaotic country, it is vodka that supports the Russian people to face all kinds of setbacks in life, people drink for joy, people drink for sadness, anyway, vodka is inseparable for every occasion, this is the Russian character. During my month in Russia, I have already felt the power and magic of vodka.
While having breakfast in the hotel café, Chao Ge said while drinking coffee, Russia's transportation is too backward, we will go to Ulan-Ude now, and then return from Ulan-Ude to Baikal, it is too much toss on the road, if only there was a direct train. I suddenly thought of the international train, pinched my fingers and calculated, if we can go to Ulan-Ude tomorrow morning, if we can load timber tomorrow afternoon, then we can take the international train the day after tomorrow to Zabaikal. So I said what I thought, and as soon as I heard it, Brother Chao immediately said: "Yes, why didn't I think of the international train, we can take the international train from Ulan-Ude to Zabaikal, and if the time is just in time, take the return international train back to Novosibirsk." "I thought, if that were the case, I would have spent a few days in the car helping Sveta with acupuncture.
After a hangover, without a little appetite, I barely ate a slice of bread and ham sausage. After a cup of coffee, my headache lessened a bit, but my brain was still groggy and weak, and it seemed that I was not Russian, and I really couldn't adjust to this angel-devil mixture of vodka. Seeing that Brother Chao and I were both very uncomfortable, Valroga walked out, took out a large bottle of pickled cucumbers from the car, asked the waiter for two glasses, and then poured two cups of sour cucumber juice and asked us to drink it. After a while, my stomach was less uncomfortable, but I still didn't have an appetite. Varoga said that after a while, find an Uzbek restaurant on the road, drink some mutton soup, and be completely fine.
When we got out of the café, we first found a coin-operated phone on the side of the road, called Sasha, told him that we were going to Ulan-Ude tomorrow, and asked him to talk to Bart about arranging for the timber to be loaded tomorrow afternoon. After making the call, Varoga was ready to drive us to Chita in his Lada, but thinking of the road conditions from Zabaikal to Redstone yesterday, the distance from Redstone to Chita was almost five or six hundred kilometers, and the drive was very hard, and I was afraid that the time would not be able to catch up with the train from Chita to Ulan-Ude in the evening. Seeing that it was only eight o'clock in the morning, we decided to take the train to Chita, and asked Varoga, who patted his head and said, "I almost forgot about it, we have an airport here, and we have a noon flight to Chita." Brother Chao hurriedly asked: "Is there a flight to Ulan-Ude?" Varroga shook his head and said, "It seems that there are only small planes flying to Chita now, but you can take a plane from Chita to Ulan-Ude, and it just so happens that there is a plane flying to Ulan-Ude in Chita." "It's really unexpected that such a small city of 70,000 or 80,000 people would have an airport, and I think this should be an airport built during the heyday of redstone uranium mining, when there may have been direct flights from Moscow to redstone. So we decided to take a plane to Chita first, and then take a plane from Chita to Ulan-Ude, and if we have a qiē shun lì, we can get to Ulan-Ude tonight, so that there will be plenty of time.
Varoga drove us straight to the airport, the airport is very close to the city, the airport is naturally needless to say, the small poor and tattered, the airport hall is deserted and there are few people. I bought a ticket to Chita at noon, the ticket is very cheap, not much more expensive than the train sleeper. Then I bought a ticket from Chita to Ulan-Ude. I called Sasha at the airport and asked him to pick us up at Ulan-Ude airport in the afternoon and arrange for the lumber to be loaded tomorrow morning.
Seeing that it was still early, Varoga drove us to the city, and found a small Uzbek restaurant next to the open-air market in the center of the city, and everyone asked for a bowl of steaming mutton soup and bread, and ate half a bowl of mutton soup, sweating all over, and suddenly felt a lot more comfortable in the stomach, and the appetite also came up, and ate a large piece of fragrant bread that had just been baked with the mutton soup. After eating, the groggy feeling in my brain disappeared all at once, and my whole body was full of vitality again. Varroga looked at us with a smile and asked, "How is my dear friend?" Is it alive again? Chao Brother and I gave a thumbs up at the same time and said in unison, "Atrizina (amazing)"