December 1, 2008

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Russian Diplomat's Advice on Preventing Drunkenness and Hangover
What to do if you get drunk

 

At diplomatic and other international social functions, foreign diplomats and and guests accompanying them try to avoid getting drunk and causing their host and country needless embarrassment.


Above: Boris Yeltsin

The British had problems with Guy Burgess and Donald McClean, who engaged in homosexual acts when drunk.

Even worse was the fact that these diplomats were also card carrying communist spies who were involved in the theft of American and British Atomic Bomb military secrets.

In 1999, Andrey Knyazev, a Russian envoy in Ottawa,Canada's capitol, was charged with drunk driving and causing the death of Catherine MacLean. Although she had the same family as "Donald MacLean," the aforementioned British diplomat and communist spy, the two were not related. Canadian 

Police say Andrey Knyazev claimed diplomatic immunity immediately after the incident.

But it wasn't the diplomat's first drunk driving incident.

According to diplomatic notes released in late November 1999, Knyazev was stopped earlier for impaired driving in July of 1999, handcuffed, and detained by police.

The notes say the Russian embassy complained to Foreign Affairs, stating that it expected an apology for the way its diplomat was treated.

Incredibly, the Russian embassy not only received an apology, but Canada's Foreign Affairs  Department criticized the actions of the police, returned the diplomat's driver's license and reimbursed him for towing costs.

The impaired driving charges were also dropped.

"Why did the minister allow diplomatic niceties to take precedence over the safety of Canadian citizens?" asked Opposition MP Chuck Stahl.

He says Knyazev should have been kicked out of Canada after the first drunk driving incident.

"He should not have been on the road, where he killed someone last week," Stahl says. "If our ministry had done the job, that guy would have been out of the country."

Foreign Affairs Minister John Manley has vowed that diplomats who drink and drive will lose their license; those who drive without a license will be expelled.

Manley has ordered an internal investigation to find out why Knyazev was allowed to stay after the first incident.

Knyazev has returned to Moscow, after Russia rejected a request to have him tried in Canada. Authorities say he will face prosecution there.

Knyazev reportedly was sent to a Russian Gulag.  His survival and fate are unknown.

Illustrated here is a photos taken in Russian prison/gulag.


Above: Gulag workers

In the US, another Russian diplomat was involved in a fatal car crash.  His diplomatic immunity was waived by proper authorities.  He was prosecuted in Virginia.

Illustrated here are Russian leaders getting drunk, or staying sober while toasting and drinking.

Perhaps as a result of these drunken and deadly escapades, a Russian diplomat offered this sobriety tip before you go out partying and drinking.

Before the diplomat went out drinking or to a function, he drank a cup of olive oil to coat the inside of his stomach.   The alcohol was not absorbed by his system.  

An American, who was born on St. Vincent of Saragossa's day, the patron saint of wine making's birthday, offered these tips:  
  • Eat before you go out drinking.  don't drink on an empty stomach
  • while partying, sip don't swill
  • Alternate with water, preferably mineral water
  • fortify yourself  with plenty of vitamins
  • eat hot peppered foods and appetizers when partying
  • If you do get a hangover, drink plenty of liquids afterwards, pee it out.
  • "Hair of the Dog" doesn't work--or tying on another drunk
  • Saunas and Steam room treatment helps sweat it out
  • It's best not to drink any alcoholic beverage for at least another day 
  • have a designated driver or take a cab home
  • Enlightened societies--French-Spanish-Italian-- teach their children how to drink at an early age--Americans and Canadians learn drinking from their contemporaries.

http://juicyshoot.com/qvodka-anecdotes.htm

Russian diplomat drunken homicide case in Virginia

http://www.cicentre.com/CI_NEWS/2001_CI_News_Archives/NEWS_Jan_28_to_Feb_3_01.htm

Note: That Federal Military Personnel have the same rights in these cases as foreign diplomats.
"they can be arrested and detained, but special prior permission from proper authority must be obtained to prosecute them.   This was defied and ignored in the 1996 Steven Nary US Navy case, where San Francisco's corrupt District Attorney 's employees forged documents to get the sailor out of the USS Carl Vinson's Brig, and abuse him for three and half years at the notorious 850 Bryant Street City Prison and Criminal courts building.