“Smoking had come to be an important punctuation mark...

...in the long sentence of a day on the road.”
- F. Scott Fitzgerald

If anything were to make me smoke, it'd be either a) this cool quote or b) living in Ukraine.

But a) no and b) close, but no cigar (haha).

Smoking is so present in everyday life here that it's impossible to miss. Office workers take smoke breaks, smokers light up in the "smoking section" of coffee shops (conveniently located right next to the non-smoking area, ahem, Coffee Life!), cigarettes are sold everywhere- kiosks, grocery stores, by shady men in trench coats on the street corner. If you go shopping at the central market you'll walk by these men- "cigarettes!" they whisper to you, "from Russia! from Poland!"
Yesterday I was waiting at the crosswalk when an ambulance slowly drove past, preparing to make a turn. Inside were two medics, one at the wheel, the other smoking a cigarette with the window rolled up.

Cigarettes for women, by the way, is a glamourous business. Women buy brands with sexy names in ultra slim packs. The cigarettes themselves are long and incredibly thin, extremely feminine.

Women's cig compared to a regular cig (in ashtray)

Here's something a (female) friend showed me the other day-

Kiss superslims energy- can you see how this appeals to women?

There are restrictions against underage smoking. In Yevpatoria we were browsing in a small grocery store this spring. A young boy (about 10?) came in the store and acted extremely nervous. He was so nervous that it was cute! :p He tried to buy some cigarettes. The salesclerk firmly said no. She explained to him that it was against the law and she could get a big fine for doing it. He replied that he was trying to buy them for his father and left. Surprisingly, his father actually came in (he'd been waiting outside in the car) and bought them himself. Despite this incident, it's still common to see teens smoking in packs.

Side of a cigarette kiosk- "light up with BIC!"

Earlier this year there was a great row about Ukraine going in the smoke-free (or at least, reduced) direction. Check out this Reuters article from May- Ukraine tightens anti-smoking law before Euro 2012. What do you make of this sentence? "It significantly widened previous 2010 legislation, which prohibits smoking in lifts, hospitals, schools and street underpasses, to include restaurants and cafes." Does that mean that before 2010 you could smoke in a hospital? Anyways,  I haven't noticed any changes and What's On Kiev appears to back me up (Smoking Ban Turns to Ashes).

During our short class break, my students tend to do one of three things: talk on their cell phones, drink tea, or step out for a cigarette. The number of smokers isn't as high as I'd first assumed it was, though. Some of the students don't even smoke- they just go outside to hang around the American teachers who smoke. There's just a couple who can be counted on to come back smelling like nicotine. When I first moved to Ukraine I polled my classes on this topic, asking what they thought about cigarettes. They claimed that it wasn't their generation (early 20s) who smoked, that it was a holdover from the old days and the newer generations don't see it as cool. I don't know about that... there are still an awful lot of young smokers. Even in the park it's not rare to see a smoking parent pushing a baby stroller or sometimes even holding a baby in one hand, cigarette in the other.

What do you think? Is smoking prevalent in Ukraine? Does the current anti-smoking legislation actually have any affect on reality? What will happen in the future?

UPDATE: Now that I've started thinking about smoking, it seems like it's everywhere. On the way to Spanish class today I noticed an empty pack of cigarettes tossed on the sidewalk. It caught my eye because the warning label was in English! It said smokers die younger. Cigarettes always have a warning label but it's usually in Ukrainian, I've never seen an English label before (the rest of box appeared to be in Ukrainian or Russian).

Also, in class we ended up getting into a debate over whether people smoke in the elevators in their apartment buildings. The teacher was sure that no one would do such a thing, but three women had either seen it happen or were convinced of it. One woman told a story about getting into an elevator in her building with her 8 year old daughter. A man was already in there, smoking. Her daughter was struggling to breathe so she asked him to stop smoking and he was all "Let her get used to it" and continued puffing away. The other students in class were shocked, so I'm guessing such drastic confrontations are a rarity. However, in our old apartment we would frequently see cigarette butts on the elevator floor...

UPDATE 2: Wow! A couple days after I wrote this post, what should turn up in the Kyiv Post but More People Quit Smoking as Tougher Measures Adopted! Take that, Coffee Life smokers :p As of Dec 16th, game over.

UPDATE 3: Kyiv hotel room, July 2014.