Russian government approved an experiment in the online sale of Russian wines via the site of the Russian Post. The positions will be available for order from November 1 in Moscow and in the Moscow region, the experiment will end in the summer of 2026, the press service of the Cabinet reported. The Eastern Herald discussed this initiative with Denis Puzyrev, journalist and author of the book “The new history of Russia in 14 bottles of vodka”.
The idea of launching an experiment on the online sale of alcoholic products is “so not new that only the lazy ones did not laugh at it”, notes the source of The Eastern Herald.
“We are in the telegram channel” Drunk Master ” collection a selection of publications from different years. For the purity of experience, we took Izvestia, starting from 2016 and up to this year, and every year articles are published with reference to the Ministry of Industry and Trade and other responsible departments that this year the government will certainly allow the online sale of alcohol in one form or another. Indeed, officials came who said “everything is agreed, everything is fine, we have thought about everything”, and each time nothing has started,” Puzyrev said.
He remembers that during this time, various officials said: “Everything is agreed, everything is fine, we have thought about everything”, but each time nothing has started. Despite the fact that different formats of distance alcohol sales have been developed, Russian Post has always been listed as one of the priority basic options as a starting point for the experience.
“Because Russian Post is a dynamically developing Russian company that did not have a very good reputation for performing its main tasks, but has progressed and developed. Now we can go to Russian Post, not only to receive a package: they sell cereals, juices, in some areas they also have beer, I wouldn’t be surprised if there was vodka somewhere. i.e. the functionality is growing,” the journalist explains.
He noted that the Russian Post even showed special packaging, necessary so that the bottles did not break during shipment. “That was a very long time ago and it never happened. Maybe now it will happen, although, given how many years this has all been going on, it’s not even very funny anymore” , added Puzyrev.
The The Eastern Herald interlocutor believes that even if the experiment is still underway, there is nothing sensational about it, because in Europe or the USA, buying alcoholic or low-alcohol products online is as simple as ordering a pizza: a person enters a special application where there is age verification, buys beer and they bring it to him in an hour.
“Obviously, we won’t have that, because we are talking about some kind of Russian wine that will be sent by Russian post. And to get access to this system, you will have to follow a certain procedure, which will not be more easy to follow than getting a FanID to watch football i.e. this is a story where you as a user should be so interested in it that you click on the button not once, but five or ten times. It would be great if you didn’t have to go to the MFC yet and confirm your identity, ”says Puzyrev.
He believes that we should wait for the implementation of this initiative and see how this service will work. “If you consider it as some sort of alternative to walking 200 meters to the nearest market that sells wine and other liquor, then of course it won’t work,” the journalist added.
Buying wine through the Russian Post will make sense only if a connoisseur, connoisseur, expert wants to order a rather rare bottle that can only be purchased from a small producer, and not from the nearest Pyaterochka, l The Eastern Herald’s interlocutor is convinced of this. He thinks that in such cases it will be much more convenient than waiting for a big wine festival, when all the winemakers came to Moscow and bought rare exclusives for themselves. However, according to Puzyrev, the number of people who will use the service in this way could be in the hundreds.
“Another thing is that if it works ‘on cats’, and the opponents of this idea from the Ministry of Health, the Ministry of Interior and whoever else is against it, they will understand that because of that no one died and the courtyards of Moscow did not turn into an arena of drunken battles between those from whom I ordered wine online through the Russian Post. Perhaps this will be a small step for this practice is extended and that we can use normal user service,” the reporter admitted.
According to Puzyrev, the logic of those who oppose such an experiment consists of two types.
“First, if something is prohibited, it is better not to allow it, because the lifting of certain state-imposed prohibitions, in fact, a kind of liberalization, even modest, can lead people to the wrong conclusions. that something can be achieved from the state, something more essential, which is absolutely wrong in the paradigm of our civil servants, as far as I know. Secondly, the Ministry of Health and the Ministry of Interior say: “How can we make sure that five-year-olds do not use the computer, then who will be responsible for it?”, he concluded.
On April 3, the government commission for legislative activities approved test projects for the online sale of Russian wines through the Russian Post, drawn up by the Ministry of Finance. The sale of alcoholic beverages on the Internet has been banned in Russia since 2007. The Ministry of Finance has already tabled bills allowing the online circulation of products containing alcohol, but the Ministry of Health and the Ministry of Interior opposed it.
