Russia leads cigarette rankings

Russia loses a lot of rankings – for transparency, quality of life, even good weather. But today it is a winner! According to Russian health officials, Russians are the heaviest smokers in the world.

“Russia holds first place in the world for tobacco use,” a spokesman for Rospotrebnadzor, the federal agency for health and consumer rights, told Interfax. The spokesman said Russia counted 43.9 million smokers, 60 percent of whom were men and 21 percent of whom were women (the other 19 percent were presumably animals?).

Russians do like to smoke, and to smoke a lot. But there’s been an interesting shift in Moscow lately. A bunch of no-smoking cafes and restaurants have opened (and, to the chagrin of your smoking correspondent, they tend to be some of the best in town). There’s no law calling for it, places are just doing it. Just like that.

The biggest problem here isn’t even the fact that you can smoke pretty much anywhere. It’s that cigarettes are so damn cheap. The Camel Lights I favor cost 44 rubles ($1.57) a pack (the price has only recently gone up – by 3 rubles ($.10) a pack), versus $10.50 a pack in New York.

(PS Today is World No Tobacco Day)