Yes, Marlboros in Russia cost a buck a pack. The tobacco is grown here and production is domestic. They are what I used to smoke before I switched to R-1 Minima ultralights in an effort to minimize damage to my health.
The low-end Soviet cigs Doug's talking about were probably papyrosy -- unfiltered, incredibly harsh cigarettes which some people seem capable of tolerating for reasons I cannot fathom. They are ultra cheap. And ultra disgusting. They are mostly smoked by old guys who somehow made it to an advanced age while still smoking them.
Soyuz-Apollon is in production and very popular. I like 'em, actually.
Chris Doss The Russia Journal
--------------- Michael Pollak wrote:
>
>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.
I had some low-end Soviet cigs in college - no filter, just recessed tip. Awful stuff. But during the perestroika days I met a few shock-therapy type economists who were passing through NYC (who seemed, by the way, quite convinced that a few years of their magic would turn Russia into a prosperous Third World country; they were completely uninterested in the story of mass poverty in NYC). One had some snazzily packaged Georgian cigs that were some of the finest I'd ever smoked. They probably weren't for the masses, though.
They still make the Soyuz-Apollo brand? I remember having some of those at the time. More memorable for the event than their quality.
Doug