GOOD LORD: At Least 48 Dead in Russia After Drinking Scented Bath Lotion.

At least 48 people died in the Siberian city of Irkutsk after consuming hawthorn-scented bath lotion containing methanol as a cheap substitute for the ethanol in standard alcoholic beverages, the Russian authorities said on Monday.

As the death toll climbed throughout the day, a local prosecutor, Stanislav Zubovsky, told the Interfax news agency that a total of 57 people were known to have consumed the deadly liquid over the weekend.

Consumption of surrogate alcohol is widespread in Russia, particularly in the struggling districts outside the more prosperous cities of Moscow and St. Petersburg. The sheer number of victims in Irkutsk evoked memories of the years of lawlessness, poverty and social depression that followed the collapse of the Soviet Union.

Leave it to The New York Times to portray Russian life as rosier under Soviet rule.