ABSTRACT
This chapter addresses the appearance of that alcoholic beverage with which Muscovite drinking and Russia would be inextricably linked not only in the modern period, but in subsequent centuries as well: vodka. Consideration of Russia's taverns - under whatever nomenclature adopted by Tsarist authorities to describe them - must necessarily end with the dawn of a new century and the transformation of Muscovy into the Russian Empire. Yet obviously the dynamics of the Russian drink houses and the problems associated with them continued to haunt the country. Sometimes more elaborate, sometimes more crude, Russia function in the redistribution of wealth along with their value as generators of large revenues for the state remained unchanged until the creation of the state liquor shops in the nineteenth century. It is safe to say that once having achieved the purpose in the early modern period; Russian drink houses would retain their essential nature and practices until late in the modern age.
