EVEN REAGAN WAS EASIER ON THEM:

Over the past few weeks hundreds of people have died from drinking a liquid that is supposed to be used in your bath - although looking at the ingredients it's hard to know why you'd even put it there. It usually contains ethanol alcohol and at 18 rubles (3 euro cents) for a liter it's a whole lot cheaper than a bottle of vodka at around 200 rubles a bottle. But somehow the ethanol got swapped to methanol and in one town alone 60 people died in a week. That's 60 more to add to the average annual death rate of more than 15,000 from alcohol poisoning. And let's be clear here - that's straight alcohol poisoning, not alcohol-related deaths which include car crashes, alcohol-related violence and accidental drownings. This is just those who have drunk themselves quite literally into oblivion.

These are often Russia's poorest - and their numbers are growing rapidly. In 2014 before the sanctions were placed on Russia for its annexation of Crimea, some 16 million people were living below the poverty line. By the first quarter of 2016 that figure had risen to almost 22 million or 15.7 percent of its 140 million or so people.

A survey of 1,500 Russians earlier this year showed that 70 percent considered inflation and rising prices to be their most acute problem, according to the Interfax news agency. Some 66 percent of respondents said they were worried about poverty and low wages and 41 percent named unemployment as a major problem. Another study in July by Moscow's Higher School of Economics showed that 41 percent of Russian families struggled to find the money to buy food or clothing, with 23 percent describing their situation as "bad" or "very bad."

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