Drinking and Public Space in Leningrad/St. Petersburg and Helsinki in the Interwar Period

Summary

---

Public drinking has aroused long-lasting debates in St. Petersburg/ Leningrad and Helsinki. Taverns, pubs, restaurants but also streets and parks as well as workplaces in the city have been the main arenas of public drinking. My central concern is the impact of policy and police regimes on public drinking. The state was heavily involved in controlling public drinking in both cities; it simultaneously monopolized and regulated the alcohol trade and condemned drunkenness. The suppression of public drinking places was common for both cities. Still, the high number of arrests for public drunkenness in open spaces and the growth of total consumption indicate that drinkers moved to open urban spaces or to private places. Police control of the public spaces and the weakening role of the licensed drinking facilities as a place for neighborhood clientele affected the sociability of drinking and the uses of public space in general.

See the full content of this document

Extract

---

Drinking and Public Space in Leningrad/St. Petersburg and Helsinki in the Interwar Period

Public drinking has aroused long-lasting debates in St. Petersburg/ Leningrad and Helsinki since the 19th century. Questions about drinking and disorderly drinking reflect larger political, cultural and social concerns. Since early times people have celebrated, relaxed or suffered with alcohol in various places in the city, both public and private. Taverns, pubs, restaurants but also streets and parks as well as workplaces in the city have been the main arenas of public drinking. Gender and social class also strongly influence the times, locations, forms and rituals of drinking. Since pre-industrial times the state has intervened to regulate and control public drinking, affecting its format. Public drinking is therefore a complex phenomenon with numerous variables. My central concern is the impact of policy and police regimes on public drinking. During the interwar period the state was heavily involved in controlling public drinking in both Leningrad and Helsinki; it simultaneously monopolized and regulated the alcohol trade and condemned drunkenness. What were the results of this policy in two different systems, one communist, the other capitalist? How was public drinking controlled, and how did it affect the uses of public space? Did the regulation of drinking facilities increase drinking in other public places such as streets or other illicit places? What were the parallels and differences between the two cities? A key aim of this paper is to look at the development in public drinking and its control in the two cities from a historical perspective.

Helsinki and St. Petersburg/Leningrad1 were chosen for this study because they are major Baltic cities, both principal centers, with strong historic connections. There are important parallels and divergences between them. Both have expanded rapidly in the period since World War I. At the beginning of the 20th century, St. Petersburg, the capital of Russia till the October Revolution, had been transformed from a planned and orderly imperial capital into an industrial city with a substantial worker population and visible social problems. The radical politics after the revolution, with the nationalization of the economy and strict prohibition of private trade, brought immense problems to Russian cities. The collapse of the national and urban economy resulted in famine and massive, unprecedented migration to the countryside. In 1917 Petrograd housed 2.5 million people and in 1920 only 0.7 million. With the introduction of New Economic Policy (NEP) the situation stabilized and the city started to regain its population. ...

See the full content of this document

---