The reason Schiller could recognize the wineglass was not just the pattern Constantine had drawn, but the shape of the glass itself—and the height Constantine had just indicated with his hand.
Under normal circumstances, even a short-stemmed goblet would be at least about as tall as an adult's hand. It was only that the stem on the lower half was shorter; the bowl on the upper half remained the same length, and it could still hold just as much liquor.
But the Soviet Union had a very special kind of goblet. According to rumor, it had been invented by Stalin and was called the "Civilized Cup," specially designed to control alcohol intake. This type of glass cut the height of the goblet's bowl by about half, making the upper half look more like a bowl. Even when filled to the brim, it could only hold less than two hundred milliliters of liquor.
Two hundred milliliters already sounded like a lot, but one had to understand that when Slavs drank, they drank vodka straight from the bottle. And obviously, one could not expect them to be like the English gentlemen in Buckingham Palace, gathering in the tea room during afternoon tea to drink a proper cup of Darjeeling. The tea rooms in the Kremlin would more aptly be called liquor rooms. "I'm going to the restroom" sometimes actually meant "I need to sneak off for a drink."
Clearly, the leaders of the Politburo also understood that blocking was worse than guiding. If they were not allowed to drink, they would simply hide vodka in their briefcases and drink to their hearts' content in their own offices. It was better to make a batch of special cups: one cup at a time, just enough to avoid getting drunk, and to prevent drinking