I'd taken this to be a pretty widespread phenomenon, as I've experienced is countless times both in Russia and here in Chicago, among Russians, Ukrainians, Georgians, Moldovans... You mean this completely mad tradition doesn't extend to Hungary? I'm surprised. They say it's a result of Communism, where people holed up in their small communal apt kitchens to let loose, discuss life, etc. But there are similar scenes in 19th Cent. literature, so I don't know what is the origin of this type of soiree. Endless toasts, fire-code violations, and something almost but not exactly like a hostage situation (getting up and leaving in the middle of it is simply unheard of!) seem to be the defining characteristics of these events. "Pretending that you already know the answer when you don't is not actually very helpful." ~Migeru.
What comes closest to it starts with "...but don't leave before you tried our homebrewn pálinka...", where you have to know that home-made pálinka is said to be about the fastest way to ruin by alcoholism (worse than vodka). Toasts are involved, but may not be necessary. But this tradition survives most strongly not in Hungary but among the Szeklers (a subgroup of ethnic Hungarians in Transsylvania). Being an abstainer myself, on the rare occasions I meet upon the tradition, I do manage to escape these downward spirals, though :-) *Lunatic*, n. One whose delusions are out of fashion.
It ended very late in a tiny office inside the beautiful Nizhny Novgorod's Kremlin after many more toasts with a group of totally drunk collaborators of Serguei Kirienko (Putin's representative in the Volga Federal District)...
That's my only experience of Russia so far, and it's a very surrealistic and good memory... "Dieu se rit des hommes qui se plaignent des conséquences alors qu'ils en chérissent les causes" Jacques-Bénigne Bossuet
