Is Russia Running Out of Beer? World Cup Fans Drink Cities Dry

Of all the problems Russia expected to encounter while hosting the World Cup, a booze shortage was not one. But that is precisely what soccer fans are facing in Moscow and other cities hosting the tournament as high demand has caught suppliers by surprise.

"We just didn't think they would only want beer," a waiter at an upmarket restaurant in the Russian capital told Reuters, asking not to be identified for fear of driving away thirsty customers.

Although alcohol plays an important role in Russian cuisine and culture—and shortages are virtually unheard of— beer is seen as simply not strong enough to make the grade. It was only reclassified from soft to alcoholic beverage in 2011.

In recent days, multiple reports from the host cities of Moscow, Kazan and Nizhny Novgorod suggested that cafes and bars around tournament venues are running low. Martin Freidman, security chief for the Swedish soccer assosciation (SvFF), said that fans of the Scandinavian nation were struggling to find places able to serve them a pint in Nizhny Novgorod, with a day to go until the team’s opening match earlier this week, the Aftonbladet newspaper has reported.

Separation of immigrant children

As part of the 2018 Trump administration's family separation policy, nearly 2,000 children of asylum-seeking families have been separated from their parents and placed in "detention centers." These centers have been described by commentators as "prisons" and "concentration camps". Former First Lady of the United States, Laura Bush, compared the images of the centers to internment camps. 16 out of 34 of the centers located in Texas had previously been cited by Texas officials for more than 150 health violations. Actor George Takei, who lived through the internment of Japanese Americans, described the separation of children as "worse" due to the separation of children from their parents.

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