Robert Amsterdam points to an article in Kommersant which reports that Russia is now the #1 smoking nation on the planet. Way to go, Russia! Another category (like fraud, violence, pollution) where you lead the world! There's no stopping Russia under KGB rule! What wise folks those Russians are!

Russia is the country, where the habit of smoking is most popular. Some 65 percent of men and 30 percent of women smoke here. Of them, 80 percent and 50 percent respectively started smoking before getting 18 years old, signaled statistics of Rospotrebnadzor timed to the World No Tobacco Day.

Over 3 million teens, 2.5 million boys and 0.5 million girls, smoke in Russia. The trend is that smoking is becoming more popular with youth, and regular smokers are younger now. In the age group of 20 years old to 29 years old, the share of smoking women is 10 fold above the share registered for the women older than 60 years.

According to Rospotrebnadzor, exactly tobacco is the cause of mortality from lung cancer (90 percent of all cases), bronchitis and emphysema (75 percent), heart disease (25 percent). Some 25 percent of regular smokers die prematurely.

In the world, around 5 million annually die from smoking tobacco.

At the same time, the prices for tobacco are the lowest in Russia today. “The wide price range and reduction in cigarette price vs. other consumer goods ensure economic accessibility of cigarettes for all groups of the population,” representatives of Rospotrebnadzor said.