Foreign mass media often pays much attention to the goods made in Russia. In this article we'll review the french attitude to the Russian cognac production.

According to the french site "Sud oueste", russians believe they drink cognac, but actually it's an unrecognized alcohol mixture, called "kanyak". That spoils the reputation of the region Cognac.

"Russians are too severe to drink mineral water or soft drink. But why? To keep warm? To forget about the era of communism? An article, published in France Press Agency, reminds us that the alcoholic problem still remains the main problem of this country.

It was reported that every year almost half a million people in Russia die because of the countefeit or substandard ingredients in the alcohol production. Also the alcohol addiction affected the life expectancy of Russian men, at this moment this point is lower than Bangladesh or Honduras statistics. These facts speak for themselves."

The France Press Agency quotes Vladislav Spirin, the head of state policy in the regulation of alcohol market. Spirin says a half of wine and 70% of cognac in Russia are counterfeit. "As for cognac, at its best russians drink coloured vodka, at the worst it's a mixture of ethyl, ethyl alcohol and chemical stuff of unknown origin", — says Spirin.

"Sud Oeste" offers to make a summary: russians drink vodka and poison themselves. But there is no surprise. Actually cognac manufacturers have another opinon. The information about 70% of counterfeit cognac shocked France and confused the National bureau of cognac (BNIC). This drink is not cognac, but it's "kanyak". How could it be?

"The point is that the real cognac can be produced only in Cognac and only in its specified region", — explains Jerome Durand, director of marketing and public relations of BNIC.

"The main problem is that the right to name a brand is not respected in Russia, as well as it happens in China", — says the lawyer Lionel Lalague. In the Russian law you will never find a concept of "cognac", this word is a name for a various distillate products. In other words, millions of liters of brandy and awfull slop are named as the most popular French drink cognac, which will never damage anyone's health if sensibly used.

The all-known fact is: the Russian market is too complicated. The numver of illegal or countergeit goods exceeds all reasonable limits. Partly this is a legacy of the former Soviet Union, where nobody cared about somebody's intellectual property rights and it's protection. At this moment the National bureau of cognac is negotiating with the authorities on this issue. BNIC wants to believe that their efforts will bring good results one day. And who knows, maybe this will happen when Russia joins the World Trade Organization.

Talking about the alcohol problems in Russia, we should mention, that all the possible measures are applied to fight this scourge. It was already offered to reduce the amount of consumer pachaging drinks to 330 ml, and to increase the size of the warning notice about the alcohol dangers on the label. It is already prohibited to sale alcohol at night and the amount of commercial tents selling alcohol drinks reduces day by day.

www.inosmi.ru
www.sudouest.fr
www.lefigaro.fr