Putinka (russian: Путинка) is a brand of

Russia Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a List of transcontinental countries, transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia, Northern Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the ...

vodka Vodka ( pl, wódka , russian: водка , sv, vodka ) is a clear distilled alcoholic beverage. Different varieties originated in Poland, Russia, and Sweden. Vodka is composed mainly of water and ethanol but sometimes with traces of impuritie ...

made by the state-owned

Moscow Distillery Crystal Joint-Stock Company Moscow Distillery Crystal (russian: Открытое акционерное общество "Московский завод «Кристалл», lit=Okrytkoye aktsionernoye obshchestvo 'Moskovsky zavod "Kristall"), formerl ...

company. Created in 2003 by Vinexem Brand Manager Stanislav Kaufman, the brand plays upon President Vladimir Putin's name. The brand is owned by businessman Arkady Rotenberg, a close confidant of Putin, though Putin has no formal involvement in the production of Putinka. Putinka was formerly one of the most popular vodka brands in the Russian market, though the brand's popularity began to decline in 2016.

History

Vodka Putinka has received many different awards. In 2004, the advisory council of "Superbrand" chaired by

Alexander Shokhin Alexander Nikolayevich Shokhin (russian: Алекса́ндр Никола́евич Шо́хин; born December 25, 1951) is a Russian state, political and public figure and a Member of the Bureau of the Supreme Council of the party United Russia ...

awarded it the title of vodka "Superbrand of 2004". In 2011, the company behind Putinka registered a trademark for a liquor named "Commendatore Muammer" in honor of

Muammar Gaddafi Muammar Muhammad Abu Minyar al-Gaddafi, . Due to the lack of standardization of transcribing written and regionally pronounced Arabic, Gaddafi's name has been romanized in various ways. A 1986 column by ''The Straight Dope'' lists 32 spellin ...

. By 2016, the brand began losing popularity, with the market share slipping from 4th to 15th among vodka brands in the Russian market in 2016. Amid the

2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine On 24 February 2022, in a major escalation of the Russo-Ukrainian War, which began in 2014. The invasion has resulted in tens of thousands of deaths on both sides. It has caused Europe's largest refugee crisis since World War II. An ...

, the producer applied for registering the letters “ Z" and “ V”, both of which correspond to military symbols used in the war, in a request to

Rospatent The Federal Service for Intellectual Property, commonly known as Rospatent (russian: Федеральная служба по интеллектуальной собственности (Роспатент), Federalnaya sluzhba po intellektualn ...

References

Russian vodkas Russian brands {{distilled-beverage-stub