MOSCOW – Smoking in public has long been a part of Russia’s everyday life, something non-smokers hate but have to deal with, like cold winters, bad roads and Moscow traffic jams.
That fact of Russian life is about to change – a law coming into force Saturday will ban smoking on public transport, at airports and in railway stations. Russians will also be barred from puffing awayin schools and university campuses, hospitals and a number of other social institutions. Cigarette ads will disappear from Russian streets.
Instead of protesting the move, many Russians say they are happy the government is forcing smokers’ hands.
“I cannot wait for smoking to be prohibited everywhere. Every time I get in a taxi the first thing I ask the driver is to put down his cigarette,” said Yekaterina Temriazeva, who is pregnant. “Some cafes and restaurants can be simply intolerably full of smoke.”
Temriazeva said she was happy to learn that smoking would also be prohibited at all children’s playgrounds. Teenagers smoking behind a school, or even on the school’s front steps, has long been an ordinary scene throughout Russia.
“Children begin to smoke very early in our country, sometimes as early as age 10,” Russia’s Health Minister Veronika Skvortsova said at a press conference on Monday. “That concerns not just boys, but girls too – they do not stop when they get pregnant later. And as a consequence, we have orphanages with deeply sick and retarded children.”
The ban intends to save 200,000 lives a year, she added.
Indeed, Skvortsova and the government are up against a deeply addicted country. A whopping 55 percent of men and 16 percent of women smoke daily in Russia, according to the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development. In the United States, for example, only 17 percent and 13 percent do.
And at between $1.50 and $2.50 a pack, smoking is cheap. The choice to smoke does not depend on education or social status – smoking men and women can be seen in every bar and on every restaurant veranda in Moscow. Smokers gather outside theaters, and on the stairs of apartment and office buildings.
The ban on smoking advertisements and marketing – also a part of the government’s campaign – lit up the Russian Internet.
Cigarettes and smokers will disappear from all Russian-made movies and even cartoons, including classics with pipe-smoking characters. Many wondered what will happen to Gena, a pipe-smoking animated crocodile who is beloved by millions of Russians.
“But what about Stalin and Sherlock-Homes?” a user on a Gazeta.ru forum asked.
While many welcomed the new rules meant to inspire the nation to live healthy and longer lives, others grumbled about the announcement.
Two men discussed the ban on the train from Nizhny Novgorod to Moscow, puffing away in the hallway of a train car, which will be off-limits to them by the weekend.
“They banned smoking outside metro stations – what a doomed country,” said one, who gave his name only as Nikolai.
It was unclear to the two friends how police would catch violators.
“They don’t have enough cops,” the one suggested.
Russia is not known for its shortage of police.
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