On Wed, 8 May 2002, ChrisD(RJ) wrote:
> They cost three (3!) rubles a pack, or about 10 cents, as opposed to 10
> rubles for Soyuz-Apollon or Russkii Stil or 30 rubles for Marlboros.
Wow. You can buy Marlboros in Russia for $1? They're over five bucks a pack in New York City. (Soon to go up to almost $7.) I feel like eternal verities have been reversed.
> By the way, I have heard from the horse's mouth that the USSR had great
> cigarettes -- they would get the tobacco directly from Cuba and then mix
> it with Moldovan and Ukrainian tobacco.
I would beware horse's mouths. In my experience, there is no local cigarette so vile that there isn't some patriotic oldster willing to swear they are (or were) the best on earth. And certainly word out on the street 20 years ago was the Soviet cigarettes were the pits.
But who knows, maybe it was true.
Michael