At New Year, Medvedev resolves: no more cheap vodka

It looks like one of Russian President Dmitri Medvedev’s New Year’s resolutions is to encourage all Russians to think twice about reaching for their favorite drink.

As of January 1st, he’s setting a higher minimum price for Vodka in Russia. It’s an attempt to cut alcoholism in the country with the highest per-capita alcohol consumption in the world.

But how popular is a forced New Year’s detox with ordinary Russians? We ask Boris Maksimov, a reporter with the BBC Russian service; he joins us from London.