Russia will re-introduce drunk tanks — Soviet-era isolation rooms for intoxicated individuals — in eleven cities for the 2018 FIFA World Cup, chief narcologist at the Health Ministry, Yevgeny Brun told pro-Kremlin television channel RT.
Each region will be able to choose whether the sobering rooms are under the control of the Interior Ministry or local hospitals, according to Brun.
Drunk tanks, which were abundant in the Soviet Union, were liquidated by an Interior Ministry reform in 2011. Since then, there have been calls to bring them back.
In March last year, Health Minister Veronika Skortsova suggested re-introducing them. “We need sobering-up places — a special system which gives a person the opportunity to stay safe, and not freeze in the street or get into a difficult situation,” she said.
Drunk tanks still operate in Belarus, Kazakhstan, the self-proclaimed Transdnestr republic, the Czech Republic and Poland.
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