Just before this BBC podcast gets underway, here's something you may not know.

My name's Linda Davies and I Commission Podcasts for BBC Sounds.

As you'd expect, at the BBC we make podcasts of the very highest quality featuring the most knowledgeable

experts and genuinely engaging voices. What you may not know is that the BBC

makes podcasts about all kinds of things like pop stars,

poltergeist, cricket, and conspiracy theories and that's just a few examples.

If you'd like to discover something a little bit unexpected, find your next podcast over at BBC Sounds.

Hello and welcome to more or less on the BBC World Service.

We are your statistical guide to the world all around us and I'm Tim Harford.

We're above national stereotypes here at more or less, but even we were aware of the reputation

of our Russian friends for drinking rather a lot.

There is a line, I mean, my own is familiar with us. Then in January the Russian Health Minister,

Roneka Skvert-Sova said that things had changed.

She announced that Russia's national consumption of alcohol had had dropped a whopping 80% in just five years. Pretty astonishing.

Well I'm joined by our vodka correspondent Beth.gar Fenton. Hello Tim I think my mother would be

very proud. I'm sure she would be and this number sounded surprising to me.

Well it also sounded surprising to our colleagues at the BBC Russian service

so they decided to do a bit more digging into the numbers.

Hello it's Georgie Nieskin, I'm a senior producer at the BBC Russian service.

And how did the announcement go down in the newsrooms of Moscow?

Nobody in our office believed it.

At first we thought that maybe there is some mistake.

...