Bulgartabak - how much has merged in this sound for the Soviet heart! How much resonated with him! An entire era is imprinted in the memory with the fragrant aroma of Bulgarian cigarettes. Rodopi, Opal, Inter, Stewardess, Tu134, BT, Vega, Phoenix, Shipka - these names caress the ear of an experienced smoker and evoke nostalgia memories and, sometimes, even phantom sensations.
Indeed, these were good cigarettes made from cut tobacco leaves, each brand had its own variety, aroma and taste... After the rupture of trade relations and the fall of the Union, all these beloved, familiar brands disappeared from domestic shelves. And, naturally, when visiting the country of origin for the first time, the smoker, yearning for his favorite cigarettes, rushes to look for them on sale. But where is it going? All of them have sunk into oblivion... The new brands of cigarettes offered by Bulgartabak, bought for testing, are sent to the trash bin after the first puffs.
The former glory of Bulgarian tobacco turned out to be irretrievable
money down the drain
If in the former Soviet republics there is an abundance of world-famous brands (albeit counterfeit ones), then in Bulgaria the choice is small. If you want to smoke, there’s no escape; you can smoke any rubbish that’s offered. It turned out that oriental and other varieties of tobacco are still grown in the country on an industrial scale, but almost everything is exported. How, at one time, most of the assets of the now former giant Bulgartabac were transferred into the possession of foreign companies.
To be fair, we cannot fail to note the technological changes in the global tobacco industry that have occurred over the past decades. Producing cigarettes with tobacco is expensive, unprofitable, and troublesome. Cellulose is pressed into a kind of paper or cardboard, impregnated with petroleum products, flavors, fragrances, dried, cut and filled with this kind of tobacco into cigarettes.
There has been no tobacco in mass-produced cigarettes for a long time now.
Or (for more expensive brands of cigarettes) the remaining parts and stems after cutting the fleshy part of the leaf (used for the production of premium products) are exploded under high pressure. The result is a bundle of fibers. Again - impregnations, fragrances, flavorings... all this cannot be called tobacco. Accordingly: other resins; different smoldering temperature; a different degree of toxicity of the combustion product (smoke) and other consequences for the body.
Today, natural tobacco can only be found in expensive premium products: cigarillos, cigars, roll-up cigarettes and pipes. Therefore, we can safely say: not only in Bulgaria, but everywhere today, smokers are offered exclusively stinking cheap poison instead of fragrant tobacco. A little more expensive is not better, just a little more fragrance. Let's return to smoking Bulgaria.
Smoky service
To say that Bulgarians smoke is an understatement! They'll make fun of you! Today it is the most smoking nation in Europe. Cigarettes cost on average 5-6 leva. Even those who always complain about poverty and lack of money enthusiastically smoke a couple of packs a day.
They smoke a lot, often, everywhere. Despite the fact that the law prohibits smoking in public places, they spit on the law, just as they spit on the health and rights of non-smokers. They make fun on the beach, throwing or pushing cigarette butts into the sand. They laugh while driving, throwing cigarette butts and empty packs out of the window.
They smoke mercilessly in restaurants and cafes. Smoking in public catering establishments is strictly prohibited and heavy fines are imposed. But even here, enterprising Bulgarian restaurateurs, in order not to lose the smoking majority, resort to tricks and circumvent the law: every morning on the current date, an agreement is concluded with a certain private person for the full rent of the establishment. And, in the event of complaints, they are all forwarded to a certain Petko Petkov, whom you look for.
At the same time, there are double standards - waiters may insistently demand that you put out your pipe or cigar: you see, other visitors may not like their smell (in fact, most of them are smokers of regular cigarettes). Some establishments have a non-smoking area and a smoking area, but here is an anecdote - to get into the clean air zone, you need to break through the clouds of smoke from the smoking area. To get out, go back. You can, of course, hold your breath, but clothes and hair, in any case, stink of smoke for a long time.
Often, there is a stench even in some shops. And after all, they seem to be interested in sales, but they lose non-smoking customers, who are carried out like a bullet from a smoky, unventilated room (another feature of the Bulgarian mentality - let me I will lose profit, but I will not lift the soft spot from my chair and will not take two steps to smoke on the street).
Smoke break of a lifetime
The saddest thing is that Bulgarian women smoke more than Bulgarian men. (Read about the gender characteristics of Bulgarian society in one of the following articles). Smoking affects the female body more than the male body. This is striking when you see many Bulgarian women with a grayish-sallow complexion and articulation skewed to one side (a consequence of the habit of moving their lips to the side, towards the cigarette). Their voices are smoky and siphony. Smoldering cigarette butts are replaced one after another between the fingers. And the mixture of perfume and ashtray aromas...
You can often watch how dad and mom, sitting in the front seats of a car, smoke with the windows closed, and through the rear windows you can see small children sitting in the smoke. You want to open the doors and pull the kids out this horror.
The dental technician puts his hands into the patient’s mouth, smelling like an ashtray and is sincerely offended in response to a completely fair remark, with all his appearance depicting indignation, offended virtue and a lost desire to work. It can be useless to ask Bulgarian women sitting next to you on a bench in the park not to smoke on the child. In response: “Look for another bench, the park is big!”
There have been cases when smoking taxi drivers, in response to a request not to smoke, dropped off “insolent” passengers. For most Bulgarians, smoking is a completely natural process that brings pleasure. And for the most part, they don’t bother to think about non-smokers.
No, of course, there are non-smokers among the locals, or well-mannered and tactful smokers; in no case can one generalize! But the abundance of uncultured smokers and women smokers is depressing, because this should not be the case at all!
Alas, Bulgaria is drowning in cigarette smoke. But I would like to believe that Bulgarian society, following others, will gradually come to realize the pricelessness of health and the environment, public smoking will no longer be considered fashionable and cool, it will recognized as bad manners and a sign of trouble...