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7 responses to “Russians turn off vodka smuggling pipeline”

1. 2006/10/04

   Clive

   Don’t forget they had the option of picking a bit of border that sloped downhill in the Latvian direction. There’s no reason the pipeline had to be on the level.

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2. 2006/10/05

   Katz

   More pipeline ideas

   Even if the pipe was perfectly level the “sending” end just needs a 90 degree bend up and the weight of the incoming fluid will just drain through…

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3. 2006/10/05

   alecm

   re: Russians turn off vodka smuggling pipeline

   OK, let’s phrase the concern a different way;

   If it’s bootleg vodka then there’s nothing to stop them using a cheap way (air, water) to flush the pipe through; but for the moment let’s assume it’s like network connectivity with a continual vodka drip.

   I don’t feel it really be economic to use a pipeline with a standing capacity of 3200 litres to move (say) 100 litres per day.

   At very least you’ld not want to spend a month (32 days) loading-up the pipe, if it was a continual feed.

   So 1000+ litres/day would be more sensible. That’s a lotta booze.

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4. 2006/10/05

   alecm

   re: Russians turn off vodka smuggling pipeline

   ps: anyone wanna compute the maximal possible flow rate through a 1″ copper pipe, just as a guess at the upper limit?

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5. 2006/10/05

   Alexander Bokovoy

   re: Russians turn off vodka smuggling pipeline

   I looked up this story in Russian media. It appears that ElReg mixed things. Pipeline was a 1km long and diameter is about 12-15cm, not 1″. Names of villages are different (Ublinka and Grebnevo — on Russian and Latvian sides correspondently). The guy actually made a pump to push the flow slow so that it wouldn’t be noticed.

   What amazed me is that it is not the first one. There is a story about 3km long pipeline on Belarus-Lithuania border which was 2-10cm deep, crossed several roads and was found incidently by a borderman when he tried to get water from local river and noticed a pipe under water fixed to bottom. That article mentions that it is fourth case of such incidents (December 2004) in last 3 years (i.e., 2001-2004) and one of them was between Latvia and Lithuania — contrary to common belief that it could only be done from Russia and Belarus.

   🙂

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6. 2006/10/05

   alecm

   re: Russians turn off vodka smuggling pipeline

   Ah, the 1″ / 25mm was my personal guess to try and determine how much flow you could get through a pipe, it just seemed a good number. 12cm is a much more impressive number, with consequent suggestion of a vastly larger amount of booze.

   I am staggered at the thought of how much vodka needs to be in demand, for such a device to exist.

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7. 2006/10/08

   Alexander Bokovoy

   re: Russians turn off vodka smuggling pipeline

   Given that it costs 2-3 times more on Latvian side than in Russia, the amount to pass through to be sustainable business isn’t that big. I think they actually paid the setup off already. Given the fact that they had to artificially slow down the pipe flow, actual demand was probably not that big. On the other hand, I could imagine amounts of resources needed to produce that amount of home-made vodka, it certainly can’t go unnoticed if looked carefully (which wasn’t happened).

   As for demand itself, people often use vodka as a currency to pay for hard-working job. My mother used to produce samogon 10-15 years ago when she was establishing a house in a village to cover the work villagers were doing on construction. This was only viable currency for them then.

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