Smoking in Russia

Smoking in Russia includes the use of tobacco in Russia and its predecessor states, as well as tobacco farming, the tobacco and cigarette industries, impact on health, and government regulation. English merchants introduced tobacco to Russia in the 1560s.

Tsarist Russia to 1918
Tobacco played a significant role in Russian society under the tsars. English merchants introduced tobacco to Russia in the 1560s. In 1634 the patriarch of Russia condemned smoking and snuff as a mortal sin, and the Tsar criminalized its use. Offenders risked whippings and nose slitting, or even the death penalty. The ban was not well enforced; Tobacco steadily became more popular in elite circles. In the 1690s Peter the Great reversed course, allowed usage, and sold monopoly rights to an English company to import and sell Virginia tobacco. The imperial court now hailed smoking as a welcome sign of development and Westernization.

Russians smoked the papirosa, a hollow cardboard tube, extended by a thin paper tube which the user fills with tobacco. The cardboard tube acts as a holder. Tobacco consumption expanded thanks to the reforms of Tsar Alexander II in the 1860s and 1870s, especially the emancipation of the serfs and the modernization of the military. Thereby tobacco went from a minor product of occasional use to become a mainstay of Russian identity by 1914, when the average urban male smoked a pack of papirosa a day. This happened despite the hostility of the established church, which taught that smoking contradicted Russian Orthodox traditions. Peasants in the Ukraine grew tobacco on their small plots. Very harsh working conditions for the women and children who worked in the papirosa factories sparked labor unrest in 1905 and 1917.

Soviet Union 1918-1991
Although the Soviet Communist regime condemned tobacco, smoking continued to grow and spread in the country. More women took up smoking. The unique style of papirosa smoking flourished and had broad cultural, social, and gendered consequences. According to Tricia A. Starks, the Soviet Union in the 1920s launched an antismoking campaign carried out by the Communist party on a national scale. It was led by Nikolai Semashko in his role as Commissar of Public Health. The program sought with little success to reduce tobacco cultivation and production. However it did launch an intense propaganda attack against tobacco. The campaign was highly innovative in its approach to antismoking propaganda and treatment programs. These initiatives involved the mass distribution of antismoking materials such as posters, pamphlets, articles, plays, and films, alongside the implementation of special state-sponsored smoking cessation programs that claimed high success rates.

Recent history
The Communist system made sure the cigarette supply was adequate. By 1990 it verged on collapse as the economy faltered, with growing shortages of food and essentials. However it was missing cigarettes that outraged the Russians. In 1990, there was a summer-long cigarette shortage that led to public outrage and protests in major cities. In Moscow, the city council decided to ration cigarette purchases to half a pack of cigarettes per day. The shortage was caused when half the Russian cigarette factories closed for repair, and imports from Bulgaria plunged. President Gorbachev pleaded with Washington for help, and the largest American tobacco companies hurriedly made plans to ship 34 billion cigarettes to Russia, at a dollar a pack. The crisis eased and a new opportunity emerged. As Communism collapsed in Eastern Europe and the USSR, 1989-1991, Philip Morris, R.J. Reynolds and Reemtsma (the main German firm) moved in and bought out 75% of the old tobacco industry. Marlboro and the other Western brands replaced the old papirosa, with a plentiful supply and massive advertising. They were welcomed as "liberators."

Per-capita smoking rates in Russia rank among the highest globally, making it a prized market for tobacco companies facing declining growth in the heavily regulated Western world. Statistics in 2012 showed Russia had the highest rate of smoking of any major country. It was the fourth-largest consumer of cigarettes, trailing only China, the U.S., and Japan, with an annual consumption of about 400 billion cigarettes, and this number continues to rise. About 44 million Russians are smokers, or 40 percent of the population, including 60 percent of men and 22 percent of women. The rate among women in 2001 had been only 16 percent. According to Public Chamber of Russia, an oversight agency, smoking kills around 400,000 Russians each year, a number comparable to the United States which has twice the population. These smoking-related deaths cost the Russian economy about three percent of its annual GDP, amounting to $36 billion.

In 2013 the government imposed bans on smoking in public places. According to the World Health Organization, per-capita smoking in Russia fell 20% from 2000 to 2020. see Prevalence of tobacco use.