Lviv SS (Shot Survival) 

  Every evening in the suburbs of Lviv, indeed in every suburb in every city, people head out to do their food shopping. The difference here is that a small army of men head out to buy vodka, bottles and bottles of vodka. There are no limits because prices are so low, less than bottled water in some cases.

  What is it about vodka and Ukraine, or more generally, former countries of the Soviet Union? Forget about everything and everyone? Self-destruction? Self-gratification? Is it really Crime, Punishment, the Devils and the Idiot all rolled into one? (Thanks, Robin).

  There is a way to drink vodka, and for the sensible among us that means carefully, with the right food and the right juices within easy reach at a moment's notice. It doesn't matter if the vodka is honey, horseradish or hazelnut - there are rules, and Lviv SS will make sure they are followed to the letter.

  We head out and down (note: not down and out) to the basements, dens, and daytime drinking districts of Lviv to learn with locals, all of whom have had vodka in their life since the dark days of the Ukrainian SSR.

  After some suburban drinkage, it's off to the old town we go for a vodka-fuelled Galician meal, steps away from where Yaroslav Stetsko tried and failed to forge an independent Ukraine with his Nazi friends.

  Perhaps the undoubtedly copious amounts of vodka downed by Ukrainian Nationalists on that day, June 30th, 1941 (still commemorated - officially), accelerated the mass murder of Jewish civilians on the streets of Lviv hours later.

  Within weeks, both Stetsko and Stepan Bandera were deported to Berlin and locked up in Spandau. Both ended up in Sachsenhausen concentration camp. Perhaps they should have drunk Göring-Schnaps with the SS instead of vodka to impress their genocidal masters. In Lviv, vodka has history.

  Lviv SS (Shot Survival) celebrates Lviv and is led by a local hotshot. We include vodka and a Galician meal.