Cigar Smoking Survives and Thrives

Thursday, November 18 2010

By Justin Lifflander | The Moscow Times

Imports of handmade cigars should return to pre-crisis levels in 2012 after falling by nearly half last year, Russia's exclusive importer of Cuban cigars said Thursday.

The country imported 2.2 million handmade cigars in 2008, but supply plummeted 45 percent to 1.2 million last year, according to data from Top Cigars, the Moscow-based company owned by Cuban cigar export monopoly Habanos.

"We've maintained our regular customer base of genuine smokers," said Alexander, a salesman at the Tobacco Gallery shop on Tverskaya Ulitsa. "But the crisis definitely reduced the number of customers buying cigars as gifts. I guess they just switched back to chocolates."

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