Don't dip drunk in Dnipro river, Euro fans warned

Euro 2012 soccer fans are being warned not to get drunk on vodka and go for a dip in the Dnipro, Ukraine's principal river that runs through the capital, Kiev. At the same time, city authorities were considering restricting sales of alcohol stronger than beer near the capital's Olympic stadium where five matches, including the July 1 final, will be played. "We've warned all the embassies that fans must not go (river) bathing," Kiev deputy mayor Anatoly Holubchenko was quoted as saying by Interfax news agency on Thursday. "They'll drink 300 grams (a third of a litre), jump in and drown and then we'll be told our beaches aren't safe," Holubchenko said. "A drowned drunk and unsafe beaches are two different things. "It's a matter of safety, fans going drinking and bathing. We want to avoid unfortunate things happening," added Anna Parkhomenko, Holubchenko's spokeswoman. Apart from Kiev, the other Ukrainian cities staging matches in the tournament, which Poland is co-hosting, are Lviv, Kharkiv and Donetsk. Kiev residents flock in their hundreds to sandy beaches on the Dnipro in spring and summer. Every year police report dozens of drowning deaths of people who relax on the beach with a bottle of vodka and then go for a dip. Holubchenko said the city administration wanted to impose curbs on sales of strong liquor near the Olympic stadium throughout the June 8-July 1 tournament. "It's a matter of great regret that a lot of very strong alcohol is sold in our shops. What we want now is for alcohol stronger than 4-5 percent not to be sold within a 1.5 km (about one mile) radius of the stadium in the Euro 2012 period. This would effectively rule out sales near the stadium of wine and vodka, the favourite tipple in Ukraine, but would allow beer to be sold.