100+ russians die in Nightclub fire

[vesley1987]

Well, Russian males must be doing a lot of dangerous stuff, considering that their average lifespan is 14 years shorter than russian females.

 

[Winner]

You never lose your chance, Winner, yes?

Typical - I am actually horrified by what's happening in Russia because I wish things were better, but somehow it will be construed as a sign of my hatred of Russia.

What can I say?

 

[Winner]

Well, Russian males must be doing a lot of dangerous stuff, considering that their average lifespan is 14 years shorter than russian females.

Male life expectancy in Russia is 59 years - that's roughly the same as in Haiti or Ghana. It's actually a bit better in Eritrea, Cambodia and Madagascar.

Seriously, what the hell?!

 

[Cheetah]

You never lose your chance, Winner, yes?

Come on, he is actually feeling sympathy for the 18,000 people who die in Russia because of fires every year. He's not trying to ridicule it (like some other posters in this thread are).

Male life expectancy in Russia is 59 years - that's roughly the same as in Haiti or Ghana. It's actually a bit better in Eritrea, Cambodia and Madagascar.

Seriously, what the hell?!

If we're to believe the stereotypes, it's too much Vodka...

Both Putin and Medvedev have at least mentioned the drinking problem, so hopefully they are trying to do something about it.

I also expect that as the Russian economy continues to improve, many of the social problems will become smaller or at least more manageable.

 

[Cheetah]

On a related topic:
How big is the use of smoke detectors in Russia?

I'm wondering, because in Norway every house - both private, business and public - is required by law to have enough working smoke detectors in the building to alert about a fire. I.e. typically one or two for every floor in a private home.

While I know that in Austria smoke detectors are not required, at least in private houses. (Which, I have to say, is completely idiotic.)

Are there any laws in Russia about smoke detectors in buildings? What about other places?

 

[Eran of Arcadia]

Moderator Action: Off topic spam and tasteless jokes removed.

 

[Aleksey_aka_al]

Male life expectancy in Russia is 59 years - that's roughly the same as in Haiti or Ghana. It's actually a bit better in Eritrea, Cambodia and Madagascar.

Seriously, what the hell?!

First of all, it's not 59:
"As of 2008, the average life expectancy in Russia was 61.83 years for males and 74.16 years for females".

Secondly:





Some dates to compare with:

USSR ... < 1992 > ... ex-USSR
1998 - Financial crisis in Russia.

 

[Winner]

If we're to believe the stereotypes, it's too much Vodka...

It's not just alcoholism. Diseases combined with bad health care play a huge part, safety standards in industry are low, abuses in the military are widespread (dozens of conscripts die each year as a result of bullying - would any Western country tolerate something like that?), drug abuse is rampant... It's a bleak picture, really.

Both Putin and Medvedev have at least mentioned the drinking problem, so hopefully they are trying to do something about it.

I doubt that.

I also expect that as the Russian economy continues to improve, many of the social problems will become smaller or at least more manageable.

I doubt that too. So far the problem seems to be ignored. Take a look at these graphs:

Male life expectancy in Russia, the Western CIS, and Baltic States, 1964-2005 (in years)

Male life expectancy in the CIS (1985-2005, in years)

Changes in life expectancy during 1990-2005 (in years)

Source

Looks like that under Putin, male life expectancy has frozen; there is literally no improvement at all, despite the fast economic growth. In other words, the government doesn't give a damn about its own people. Problems are being ignored, which is now easier than ever due to renewed state control over the media. It's scandalous.

 

[RedRalph]

The demographic problem is not deliberately being ignored, Putin made it the centrepice of his Presidential address two years ago. There may be incompetence at play but no malice. What could they possibly have to gain? But of course the male life expectancy is scandalous. but its a cultural issue, at least he alcohol part of it. You beinf from Czechia and me being from Ireland know that it's not that easy to stop people from drinking when its so ingrained in a culture.

 

[Shekwan]

Can the low male life expectancy in Russia be attributed to drinking issues though? I mean there isn't that much of a gap here, and as a nation we're addicted to alcohol. Is it only the men who drink in Russia?

 

[Godwynn]

Can the low male life expectancy in Russia be attributed to drinking issues though? I mean there isn't that much of a gap here, and as a nation we're addicted to alcohol. Is it only the men who drink in Russia?

But are the Irish addicted to alcohol so much that they turn to cologne?

 

[RedRalph]

Can the low male life expectancy in Russia be attributed to drinking issues though? I mean there isn't that much of a gap here, and as a nation we're addicted to alcohol. Is it only the men who drink in Russia?

I'm sketchy on the details but its a large part of it. Not just cirrossis, heart disease, but a lot of them die violently from being so drunk, and apparently drunks freezing to death is fairly common there too. And, dont forget, we're addicted to beer, them to vodka - a very different ball game.

 

[Cutlass]

Can the low male life expectancy in Russia be attributed to drinking issues though? I mean there isn't that much of a gap here, and as a nation we're addicted to alcohol. Is it only the men who drink in Russia?

It's a factor among several. A crap healthcare system. Bad diets. Unhealthy work environments. And it's not just heavy drinking, it's an extremely heavy drinking even by the standards of heavy drinkers. Russian men are mired in misery and are drinking themselves to death because of it.

 

[Shekwan]

I'm sketchy on the details but its a large part of it. Not just cirrossis, heart disease, but a lot of them die violently from being so drunk, and apparently drunks freezing to death is fairly common there too. And, dont forget, we're addicted to beer, them to vodka - a very different ball game.

Yeah that seems like the main thing, they really like their strong spirits. Although from what I've seen working in an off lisence is that young people here are really into vodka now, maybe the next generation here too will be vodka louts.

In that article Godwynn linked it said that Russians drink the most in the world, so perhaps they are just the worst example. Although I don't get why they'd drink cologne. Surely cologne is more expensive than vodka? And if you're going to rob something to drink it, why not rob the real thing? Meh, I don't get it.

 

[vesley1987]

I remember that the first time I read about people drinking cologne or antiseptic, the source is about russian inmates. (Can't find it now.)
That makes more sense, since in jail alcohol are usually strictly banned.

 

[Winner]

Time for my favorite article has come again:

Behind the Bluster, Russia Is Collapsing

By Murray Feshbach
Sunday, October 5, 2008

(...)

Something even larger is blocking Russia's march. Recent decades, most notably since the breakup of the Soviet Union in 1991, have seen an appalling deterioration in the health of the Russian population, anchoring Russia not in the forefront of developed countries but among the most backward of nations.

This is a tragedy of huge proportions -- but not a particularly surprising one, at least to me. I followed population, health and environmental issues in the Soviet Union for decades, and more recently, I have reported on diseases such as the HIV/AIDS epidemic ravaging the Russian population. I've visited Russia more than 50 times over the years, so I can say from firsthand experience that this national calamity isn't happening suddenly. It's happening inexorably.

According to U.N. figures, the average life expectancy for a Russian man is 59 years -- putting the country at about 166th place in the world longevity sweepstakes, one notch above Gambia. For women, the picture is somewhat rosier: They can expect to live, on average, 73 years, barely beating out the Moldovans. But there are still some 126 countries where they could expect to live longer. And the gap between expected longevity for men and for women -- 14 years -- is the largest in the developed world.

So what's killing the Russians? All the usual suspects -- HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, alcoholism, cancer, cardiovascular and circulatory diseases, suicides, smoking, traffic accidents -- but they occur in alarmingly large numbers, and Moscow has neither the resources nor the will to stem the tide. Consider this:

Three times as many Russians die from heart-related illnesses as do Americans or Europeans, per each 100,000 people.

Tuberculosis deaths in Russia are about triple the World Health Organization's definition of an epidemic, which is based on a new-case rate of 50 cases per 100,000 people.

Average alcohol consumption per capita is double the rate the WHO considers dangerous to one's health.

About 1 million people in Russia have been diagnosed with HIV or AIDS, according to WHO estimates.

Using mid-year figures, it's estimated that 25 percent more new HIV/AIDS cases will be recorded this year than were logged in 2007.​

And none of this is likely to get better any time soon. Peter Piot, the head of UNAIDS, the U.N. agency created in response to the epidemic, told a press conference this summer that he is "very pessimistic about what is going on in Russia and Eastern Europe . . . where there is the least progress." This should be all the more worrisome because young people are most at risk in Russia. In the United States and Western Europe, 70 percent of those with HIV/AIDS are men over age 30; in Russia, 80 percent of this group are aged 15 to 29. And although injected-drug users represent about 65 percent of Russia's cases, the country has officially rejected methadone as a treatment, even though it would likely reduce the potential for HIV infections that lead to AIDS.

And then there's tuberculosis -- remember tuberculosis? In the United States, with a population of 303 million, 650 people died of the disease in 2007. In Russia, which has a total of 142 million people, an astonishing 24,000 of them died of tuberculosis in 2007. Can it possibly be coincidental that, according to Gennady Onishchenko, the country's chief public health physician, only 9 percent of Russian TB hospitals meet current hygienic standards, 21 percent lack either hot or cold running water, 11 percent lack a sewer system, and 20 percent have a shortage of TB drugs? Hardly.

On the other end of the lifeline, the news isn't much better. Russia's birth rate has been declining for more than a decade, and even a recent increase in births will be limited by the fact that the number of women age 20 to 29 (those responsible for two-thirds of all babies) will drop markedly in the next four or five years to mirror the 50 percent drop in the birth rate in the late 1980s and the 1990s. And, sadly, the health of Russia's newborns is quite poor, with about 70 percent of them experiencing complications at birth.

Last summer, Piot of UNAIDS said that bringing Russia's HIV/AIDS epidemic under control was "a matter of political leadership and of changing the policy." He might just as well have been talking about the much larger public health crisis that threatens this vast country. But the policies seem unlikely to change as the bear lumbers along, driven by disastrously misplaced priorities and the blindingly unrealistic expectations of a resentment-driven political leadership. Moscow remains bent on ignoring the devastating truth: The nation is not just sick but dying.

murray.feshbach@wilsoncenter.org

Murray Feshbach is a senior scholar at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars and a research professor emeritus at Georgetown University's School of Foreign Service.

Source

 

[Aleksey_aka_al]

List of countries by alcohol consumption:

[b]Rank  	Country  	Report[sup]1[/sup]  Database[sup]2[/sup][/b]
1	 Uganda		19.47	
2	 Luxembourg	17.54	15.56
3	 Czech Republic	16.21	12.99
4	 Ireland	14.45	13.69
5	 Moldova	13.88	13.18
6	 Hungary	11.92	13.60
7	 France		13.54	11.43
8	 Réunion	13.39	
9	 Bermuda	12.92	
10	 Germany	12.89	11.99
11	 Croatia	12.66	12.25
12	 Austria	12.58	11.08
13	 Portugal	12.49	11.54
14	 Slovakia	12.41	10.35
15	 Lithuania	12.32	9.89
16	 Spain		12.25	11.68
17	 Denmark	11.93	11.71
18	 United Kingdom	10.39	11.75
19	 Switzerland	11.53	10.83
20	 Cyprus		6.67	11.52
21	 Saint Lucia	10.45	11.48
22	 Belgium	10.06	10.63
23	 [b]Russia[/b]		10.58	10.32

[sup]1[/sup] WHO Global Status Report on Alcohol 2004
[sup]2[/sup] WHO Statistical Information System (WHOSIS)

But are the Irish addicted to alcohol so much that they turn to cologne?

"Almost half of working-age men in Russia who die are killed by alcohol abuse"
O RLY?

Such articles are **** insulting! And have nothing to do with reality.

They made similar idiotic article on bbc with poll in it several years ago. The reaction to it was flash mob.

 

[Godwynn]

"Almost half of working-age men in Russia who die are killed by alcohol abuse"
O RLY?

Such articles are **** insulting! And have nothing to do with reality.

Almighty Wiki

Almost half of working-age men in Russia who die are killed by alcohol abuse, reducing Russia's male life expectancy significantly.[24][25][26]

 

[Aleksey_aka_al]

Almost half of working-age men in Russia who die are killed by alcohol abuse, reducing Russia's male life expectancy significantly.[24][25][26]

Again: O RLY???

What is under [24]? - "Nemtsov, Alexander (2005). Russia: alcohol yesterday and today. Addiction 100 (2), 146&#8211;149."

Who is he? Statistics analyzer? Medic? Scientist? No! He is just some political loser of opposition.

Almighty wiki you say? OK: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Russia#Health:

"In 2008, 1,185,993, or 57% of all deaths in Russia were caused by cardiovascular disease. The second leading cause of death was cancer which claimed 289,257 lives (14%). External causes of death such as suicide (1.8%), road accidents (1.7%), murders (1.1%), accidental alcohol poisoning (1.1%), and accidental drowning (0.5%), claimed 244,463 lives in total (11%). Other major causes of death were diseases of the digestive system (4.3%), respiratory disease (3.8%), infectious and parasitic diseases (1.6%), and tuberculosis (1.2%). The infant mortality rate in 2008 was 8.5 deaths per 1,000, down from 9.6 in 2007."

 

[Winner]

It's interesting that in the Czech Rep. with its high alcohol consumption levels, life expectancy is on par with other Western European nations, whereas in Russia alcohol is a major killer.

In general, I have a feeling that Russians have not yet learned to value human life on the "cultural" level, as a society. Russian history is a history of wasting lives by the millions. People were always treated as easily renewable resource. It seems that Russia has a trouble adjusting to the new situation.

In the EU, any loss of life is treated as a tragedy, hence the oversensitivity to military casualties, for example. In fact, it's part of the reason why we don't practice death penalty anymore, why we have extensive publicly funded health care or why we're so big on consumer protection, pollution control and regulations of chemicals.

I am afraid that Russia is still partially stuck in the past, refusing to realize that people's lives are not expendable anymore.