A subsequent government investigation found that the surrogate alcohol's producer sourced the methanol from an employee of a local windshield washer fluid production facility.

Russians did see an increase in average salary per capita during that period, but rising prices on a number of important items—such as food, consumer goods, and housing—meant that their paychecks covered fewer essential expenses.

[6] By 2016, the number of people living below the government-established poverty line of 10,000 rubles per month (about $170 at the time) had increased by over three percent over the previous four years.

[14] The mass methanol poisoning in Irkutsk, a city of about 600,000 people near Lake Baikal in southern Siberia,[15] was caused by an adulterated batch of alcoholic hawthorn-scented bath oil.

[1][2][18] The vending machines were particularly problematic: they were highly profitable,[8] available 24 hours a day, and often deliberately placed near impoverished areas of Russian cities to appeal to people needing a cheap alternative to legal alcohol.

[23][E] Symptoms occur as soon as a half hour after ingestion, and include nausea and vomiting (gastric distress) along with confusion and drowsiness (central nervous system depression).

[18] The methanol was acquired from an employee of a local windshield washer fluid firm, who stole and sold the substance without the knowledge of the company's head.

An Irkutsk medical investigation gives the lowest figure, as four deaths previously attributed to methanol were actually caused by drinking too much unadulterated ethanol-based bath oil.

[4] "Poisonings caused by cheap surrogate alcohol are a regular occurrence", a reporter for the Associated Press news agency wrote, "but the Irkutsk case was unprecedented in its scale.

[2] The Russian newspaper Komsomolskaya Pravda profiled a 34-year-old mother who bought the bath oil to share over a Saturday night dinner with her husband.

[28][36] On the 23rd, the state-owned TASS news agency reported that Russian police had seized over 10,000 small bath oil bottles.

[2] Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev called for a ban on non-traditional alcoholic liquids like bath oils, saying "it's an outrage, and we need to put an end to this".

[28] Chairman of the Federation Council Valentina Matviyenko publicly supported additional regulations on alcohol-containing liquids,[36] and Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Khloponin proposed accomplishing something similar by requiring pharmaceutical prescriptions.

[41] Alexei Navalny, an opposition politician, alleged that "boyaryshnik is killing more people than terrorist acts did in the whole history of Russia" each year.

[16] On 26 December 2016, Rospotrebnadzor, Russia's government agency devoted to consumer protection, banned all sales of most non-food items with more than 25 percent alcohol (with exceptions for window cleaning liquids and perfume).

[48] Nevertheless, Russian companies used the exceptions and exclusions in the measure to continue selling drinkable medicinal tinctures, antiseptics, and Eau de Cologne, even while they removed bath oils, some kinds of perfume, and other similar products.

[1] In December 2018, the government passed a new law that ended the ability of retailers to sell non-food items with an ethanol content of 28% or above at a price below that of the legal minimum for vodka and other liquors.