In Soviet days Russians were famous for not smiling, at least not in public. In private, smiling was strictly between consenting adults.

Now it is a marketing ploy of Sberbank — the state savings bank run by Yeltsin-era leftover, German Gref – to invite its customers to smile whenever they make payments. This combines several bank profit-making lures in two formulas — spending is more to smile about than saving; borrowing money you don’t have to spend is even more to smile about.

The bank is also selling facial recognition technology to reduce its cost of securing computer and smartphone transactions and cutting the compensation it must pay out for fraud. About that, Gref’s advertisement for the smile-as-you-pay scheme shows a popular television actor who plays a fraudster who is smiling because he has reformed himself and is spending money he hasn’t stolen.

So, are Russians happy because they are convinced their money is secure? Or are they smiling to con the bank that the money they are spending will not be paid back?

According to President Vladimir Putin a few days ago, telling Central Bank Governor Elvira Nabiullina to smile at a business conference: “Elvira Sakhipzadova, I’ll give you my word now. You see, smiles too, mean everything is all right. Everyone is smiling, everyone is in a good mood.�

Asking Russians if they feel happier these days, when the country is at war, is not as straightforward as several of the NATO warfighting countries may believe. This is because Russians have long been far more anxious about the threat of war than the populations of those countries fighting Russia. Russians know their history better and remember the past more accurately than the President of the United States and the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom.

According to the independent national pollster Levada Centre of Moscow, “since 1989, the main fears of Russians remain the diseases of loved ones (51% in April 2025), war (48%), and loss of employment due to illness or accident (38%). Also, one in four are afraid of old age and helplessness (27%), natural disasters (26%), and poverty (24%)…In recent years, respondents have become less afraid of illness among loved ones (decrease by 7 percentage points since July 2019); poverty (decrease by 15 percentage points since February 2021); the arbitrariness of the authorities (decrease by 11 percentage points since July 2019), and revival of mass repression (decrease by 6 percentage points since February 2021).�

Fear of war is on the rise in Europe, but this apprehension is still less than half the Russian level. Americans, by contrast, are much more anxious about domestic violence at home than war abroad.

Russians are measurably happier than Americans with the direction they think the country is taking. According to Levada’s last poll, “in February 2025, the mood of Russians improved slightly compared to the end of last year and the beginning of this year: the majority of respondents (68%) have been in a normal, calm state in recent days. Since the last measurement in January, the proportion of those who experienced tension, irritation, and fear or melancholy has slightly decreased (to 16%), and the proportion of those who were in a good mood has slightly increased (to 15%).�

“As the experience of recent years shows�, VTsIOM — the All-Russian Centre for the Study of Public Opinion – reports “the level of happiness demonstrates amazing resilience to external shocks. Let’s recall the pandemic. Contrary to the pessimistic forecasts, it did not discourage Russians: in April 2020, shortly after the introduction of the first coronavirus restrictions, the level of happiness was close to today. Moreover, until the end of 2020, the indicator didn’t fall below 80%; this partly indicates the psychological strength of our fellow citizens.� VTsIOM is state owned and contracted.

What Russians tell pollsters by telephone or face to face isn’t quite, much less all, they are feeling.

Three measurements of how they act are more revealing: that’s how much alcohol Russians drink; what painkiller tablets they swallow; and what the pharmaceutical companies report to be the volume of their sales of anti-depressant drugs. Since the Covid pandemic began in 2020 and ended in 2021, and then the Special Military Operation commenced in February 2022, the figures show that vodka consumption is almost unchanged but whisky, brandy (cognac) and cocktail mixes are on the rise. Painkillers and analgesics are falling in volume of off-the-shelf sales. But by contrast, doctors’ prescription sales of anti-depressants have hit an all-time record high in 2024; the consumption through February of this year has been growing at a rate of between 15% and 17%.

This is either a dramatic change in the Russian mind; or it’s a revolution in the Russian treatment of pain; or it’s the result of more money, more doctors — more smiles at the bank, as Putin recommended.

The impact of the sanctions war against Russia has been to accelerate Russian wine production to replace imports from traditional sources like France and Italy. Last year, for example, wine production fell in France and the US. This year the punitive tariff threats from the Trump Administration are likely to accelerate the cut in European wine output and exports. But in Russia, wine production in 2024 jumped 19% over 2023; and in Georgia, a replacement exporter of low-price wine to the Russian market, jumped 26%.

State statistics for the volume of Russian alcohol sales reveal a change of consumer preference. On the one hand, in 2023 191.7 million decalitres of alcoholic beverages were produced at Russian factories. Then in 2024 the volume went down. In the first ten months of the year the production of all types of alcoholic beverages, except for beer, cider, poiré and mead, fell to 151.2 million decalitres, a decline of 0.5% compared to the same period of 2023. For more on the Russian poiré (pear cider) business, read this.

Comparing retail sales of alcohol drinks in the first nine months of 2024 with the same period of the year before, vodka and still wines rose by less than 1%, while sparkling wine jumped by 11%; brandy (cognac) by 4%. A different measurement shows that in 2023 alcohol consumption amounted to just over 8 liters of pure alcohol per capita per year. As of June 2024, however, alcohol consumption per capita dropped to an annual level of 7.98 litres. The mix was changing, however. Vodka was dropping in preference; brandy, whisky, gin and rum were increasing.

Beer consumption was reportedly up by 2.5%, according to one report.

According to another report, sales of brewed drinks — beer, cider, poiré and mead – rose by 8% on the year and hit an all-time Russian record. In general, the volume of sales of brewed drinks has been outstripping all other alcohol by more than 3.5 times. “The annual consumption of beer per capita is 57.7 litres (in Soviet times it was 21 litres). Wine consumption is 6 litres per person per year (in the USSR it was about 15 litres).�

“Today,� according to one industry forecast, “consumers connect with wine not only directly, but also through cocktails. In almost every bar, you can find a cocktail that includes sparkling or still wine,� says Alexander Afonin, brand director at Luding, a leading wholesaler, importer and distributor in Moscow. He believes that wine consumption will increase; and that the fashion for cocktails, the collaboration of the government with the distributors on the development of Russian wines, and the taste for sparkling wines all contribute to this.

Source: https://smart-lab.ru/blog/1099421.php

THE RUSSIAN HAPPINESS INDEX AS MEASURED BY VTsIOM, 1990-2025

Source: https://wciom.ru/
VTsIOM defines its happiness index as the difference between the sums of positive and negative responses to the polled questions. VTsIOM also reports its measure of “social happiness�. This is based on the question: “Do you think there are more happy or unhappy people among your friends and family?@ For details of the methodology of the polling, read this.

Vladimir Drobiz, director of the Centre for Federal and Regional Alcohol Markets (TsIFRRA) and the leading expert on the Russian alcohol market, has analyzed the latest data on alcohol consumption and sales in this April 21 publication. He disputes that beer and other alcohol consumption is falling in the aggregate. He believes there are significant differences between male and female consumption patterns, and he notes with irony the impact of government campaigning to reduce alcohol consumption. “Roughly, 5% of men who drank strong alcohol in 2024, plus 15% of men who drank beer, plus 6% of women who drank wine and sparkling wine, zeroed out in our market in 2025 in the 1st quarter… But not as a result of rising excise tax rates, rising prices, etc. Let these excuses operate for the state…The price increase is not the right reason for abandoning beer or substituting imported wines with vodka…I do not know what really happened…Either there has been a massive clouding of the mind, or a massive lightening of the mind by the desire for unexpected sobriety. For myself, I’ve decided that what’s happening is a process of returning to the levels of pre-war consumption…I am waiting for production adjustments in the 2nd quarter from April 2025 in response to consumer and retail demand…Talking from the figures, I can understand the decrease in vodka and wine consumption, but I cannot understand the drop in beer by minus 17%.�

“Let’s say we have about 55 litres of beer (excluding the ladies’ portion of beer drinks) per year per average soul. No more than 40 million people drink beer. The average Russian beer drinker drank about 200 litres per year in 2024. 17 litres per month or 34 bottles each… And suddenly, in Q1 2025, for some reason, he starts drinking not 34 bottles, but 29 bottles!!! For what reason — .. Because of the prices? Rubbish…The average price of a bottle has increased by just 5 rubles. 170 rubles a month. Did the guy really regret it? Well, I don’t believe it! Well, it can’t happen overnight, not without manual intervention in the statistics, or some kind of religious miracle happening all over Russia at the same time…We are returning to pre-war consumption levels in 2025, not only for spirits and wine products, but even for beer products.�

According to Drobiz, a switch from vodka to whisky may be under way, but this has a long history in the Soviet period and for centuries before. This was starka.

He also cautions that state statistics on the trend in Russian drinking volumes between 2020 and the present have been affected by changes in the travel direction of Russian tourists. Firstly because of the Covid restrictions, and then because of flight and visa bans after the start of the war, there has been a large increase in domestic tourism, with the result that more Russians did their holiday drinking inside Russia than abroad. This statistic is now returning to the pre-war norm as tourism abroad is recovering. According to a recent report, “30% more tourists will go abroad for the May holidays than a year ago. About 900,000 Russian tourists will go on organized tours abroad for the May 2025 holidays, which is 30% more than a year ago, the Association of Tour Operators of Russia (ATOR) has reported.�

In the sale and consumption of painkillers (analgesics), the statistical trend is clearly downward in volume, but the meaning for the Russian mood is less than clear.

Pharmacy data show that from January to October 2024, pharmacies sold 296.6 million packages of analgesic and antipyretic (fever reduction) drugs for Rb46.4 billion. This indicated that the market for painkillers was growing in rubles while it was decreasing in volume. Counted alone, rouble sales of analgesics, one of the most popular Russian pharmacy products, increased by 13% over the first ten months of 2024, compared to the same period in 2023. By contrast, in volume of packages sold there was drop of 8%.

Source: https://pharmvestnik.ru/

While industry reports suggest there has been a trend for the pharmaceutical companies to market their analgesics in larger packs containing more tablets, the trend of consumption is clearly downward for both. This indicates a dwindling of demand for painkillers.

The experts don’t know why this is happening. They note that the trend has been a stable one for the largest Russian pharmaceutical companies, a relatively large boost for PFK, and a decline in sales growth and market share for the US corporation, Johnson & Johnson.

Alexei Repik of R-Pharm meets President Putin as head of the business lobby Delovaya Rossiya on December 6, 2022.

At meeting with Putin on December 26, 2018 – left to right: Anatoly Chubais, Victor Kharitonin of Biocad, Sergei Frank (shipping), and Alisher Usmanov (steel and telecommunications).

For pains and aches, there appears to be less Russian demand for drugs or the traditional standby, vodka. For anxiety and panic attacks, however, the demand for antidepressant drugs set a record in 2024, and will grow this year at a rate of between 16% and 20%. In money terms, the sales of antidepressants jumped by 32% to Rb13.5 billion in the period, January to November 2024. Rosstat, the state statistics agency, has reported the price of anti-depressants was rising by 11% while overall inflation was 9.5%. “Patients experiencing depressive states have become less likely to use traditional medicine and more likely to consult doctors,� explains Nikolai Bespalov, Director of Development at RNC Pharma, an industry consultancy in Moscow.

Pharmaceutical industry consultants don’t believe the reason is that Russians are more unhappy now. The reasons for the jump in antidepressant consumption, the experts claim, is that consumers have more money to spend on doctors, psychiatrists and psychotherapists; they are less socially inhibited to do so; and the number of specialists selling their anti-depression services has been growing in parallel, especially in the big cities.

“People have anxiety, depressive disorder, and so on,� said one medical research consultant. “In general, we see an increase in the number of patients seeking medical help; that is, psychological assistance and psychological consultations by specialists have increased significantly in recent years. The number of referrals to specialist psychotherapists has increased. If that used to be a highly personal, intimate matter when many had a fear of treatment, now patients are either referred by doctors, other specialists, or psychologists, and such appointments have been conducted by the professional community. Accordingly, the number of detectable depressive states has increased.�

[*]“In the Moodâ€� was a Glenn Miller hit when it was first broadcast in 1939 on the eve of World War II. The lyrics include the lines: “Hope you’re in the mood, because I’m feelin’ just right…There’s no chance romancin’ with a blue attitude/You’ve got to do some dancin’ to get in the mood.â€� The lead image chart of the Russian mood, according to the nationwide poll of February 20-26, 2025, was published by the Levada Centre on March 5.