On the eve of the birthday of vodka in Moscow, a book was published, the authors of which, after conducting a unique historical investigation, proved that the birthplace of the national Russian drink is Balchug Island in Moscow. The island begins at the feet of the tall Peter the Great, at the buildings of the Krasny Oktyabr chocolate factory and stretches for 4.5 kilometers along the Kremlin, the Kremlin embankment, past the skyscraper on Kotelniki to the House of Music and Paveletsky railway station.
The island has many names – Garden, Bolotny, Bezymyanny, Kremlin, Golden, but the most familiar is Balchug Island, between the Moscow River and the Vodootvodny Canal.
The book is called “Balchug. History of Russian vodka. The authors built their evidence both on primary sources and on indirect data. The study resembles a fascinating historical quest. If Balchug and its immediate surroundings are not the birthplace of Russian vodka, then where do the names of the streets “Naleika” and “Nalivka” come from, the authors ask.

Why is the temple next to the Baltschug hotel called George in Endova, if the endova is Russian tableware?
Why was one of the most terrible punitive organs of the late Middle Ages, the Tavern Guard, where there was a prison and where they brutally dealt with the tavern owners who produced “left” vodka at a loss to the royal treasury, located on the All Saints Bridge (now in its place the Big Stone Bridge)?
If Balchug is not the birthplace of vodka, then why was the Kamennomostsky state drinking warehouse located here, from which monopoly vodka was sold in the taverns of the capital and suburbs in the 18th century. In 1863, when the lease was canceled, the Wine and Salt Yard was transferred to private hands for storage facilities, and then the Russian vodka specialist Ivan Alekseevich Smirnov settled here, the uncle of the legendary “King of Russian vodka” Pyotr Arsenyevich Smirnov, opened his own factory. And across the Moscow River in the former possessions of the Prince-Papa of the Most Joking and All-Drunken Madness Cathedral Nikita Zotov, the teacher of Peter the Great, in Swan Lane, there was a vodka distillery of the future supplier of the Court of His Imperial Majesty M.A. Popov – “on the Kremlin embankment”. After his death, Popova’s widow continued to produce vodka, and the people called this product “widow’s tear.”

If Balchug is not the birthplace of vodka, then why exactly on the island, on its Sofiyskaya embankment and in Lavrushinsky Lane, the richest vodka merchants of their time settled – the farmers Kokorev and Gusyatnikovs; The Gusyatnikov family has been trading since the time of Peter the Great, and at their suggestion, Moscow was surrounded by an Earthen Wall with outposts so that competitive vodka would not come to the city.
It was on Balchug – first at the Cast Iron Bridge near the Vodootvodny Canal, and then on Sadovnicheskaya Street – that Pyotr Arsenyevich Smirnov, the most famous Russian industrialist of the late 19th century, opened his factories. At Balchug, he produced his famous “table wine” – a strong alcoholic drink made from rectified alcohol, the prototype of modern vodka. In 1900, at the World Exhibition in Paris, the “table wine” of the state wine monopoly caused a sensation – Europe, entering the era of the industrial revolution, was looking for new, cleaner, better drinks and vodka was to the taste of the whole world.
Why such a concentration of vodka-themed on a tiny island opposite the Kremlin?
At the end of the 16th century, taverns opened everywhere in Rus’. In Veliky Novgorod, Volkhov, Perm, Uglich, Volodymyr. The primary sources report the opening of a tavern in Vesyegonsk in 1563, “… they set up shops, kept taverns and repaired auctions.” It is reported about the first taverns in Belozersk, Olonets, Kazan, Astrakhan … But for some reason they remember the first tavern in Rus’, Ivan the Terrible. And it was opened precisely on Balchug after the capture of Kazan! The king liked the idea …
Author of the book Alexander Nikishin, writer, historian, creator of the National Museum of Russian Vodka, author of the books “Illustrated History of Russian Vodka” in two volumes, the books “Capital History”, “Vodka and Stalin”, “Vodka and Gorbachev”, “Vodka and Napoleon” , “Vodka and Chekhov”, “Animals under the fly”, “Smirnov and Smirnoff”, “Smirnov. Russian Character” (both co-authored with Kira Smirnova), “Vodka and the Army”, “Vodka and Religion”, “Russian Restaurant”, “Soviet Restaurant”, “Folklore Under the Degree”, “Vodka and Prohibition”, “Journey to the country of Black Balsam”, “History of Cognac of France”, “Moet Chandon and all-all-all”.