The takeover began soon after, with questions about how some of Kristall’s shares wound up offshore.

Seizing it would not only be immensely profitable, but would bring a potential presidential contender to heel.

For Putin, it was an irresistible target. Kristall was a moneymaker, officially contributing $89 million in taxes on $142 million in profits. The distillery was 51 percent owned by the Moscow city government run by longtime mayor Yuri Luzhkov, a powerful political rival. The Economy Ministry had ordered a 40 percent hike on the minimum price of vodka, and Russian television reports followed the announcement as a major news event. Muscovites carry boxes of Russian vodka past a queue outside the Kristall distillery's shop in Moscow on Feb. Unbowed - even as the Nazis drove on Moscow itself - the factory still pumped out both vodka and Molotov cocktails for the front. During World War II, the invading Germans repeatedly bombed the Kristall plant. The splendor of the house of Romanov - sprawling, opulent palaces full of amber, gold and jewels - was largely built atop the bloated livers and drunken poverty of the Russian peasantry.ĭespite a strict prohibition during the tumult of World War I and the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution, Kristall continued to churn out industrial alcohol for the war effort and high-end liquor to keep Moscow’s foreign embassies well-lubricated. 1,” the iconic red-brick factory just two miles due east of the Kremlin fueled Tsar Nicholas II’s vodka monopoly, providing the largest revenue source for the Russian empire. Founded in 1901 as “Moscow State Wine Warehouse No. Of the dozens of vodka factories strung across Russia’s 11 time zones, the crown jewel of the Russian liquor industry is the Kristall distillery in downtown Moscow, birthplace of the world-famous Stolichnaya brand.

2006 - Thanks for the Vodka by Harpie