“Death cigarettes?»You must be joking!

Ann Fesyura meets Sergey Andryunin; a dedicated smoker who loyally puffs his own cigarettes called “Death”.

OK. So here are the facts. There’s Russian called Sergey Andryunin who was been smoking since he was eleven. He’s a chain smoker who’s in love with smoking. He smokes nearly two or three packets a day, and already, at the age of thirty, has a weak chest. He was in hospital for six days when his lungs collapsed. “It was at that point that I did actually give up cigarettes for six month.” But he returned to his love. He wears black leather clothes and has boldness for classic Harley-Davidson motorbikes, which he has been riding for the past fifteen years. “I’ve had about ten of them”, he says coolly.

So far, not a very remarkable life. But then one night in a nightclub,
Sergey Andryunin had an idea. “Let’s market a cigarette called “Death””, he said to a business partner.

“It’s obvious ”, he explains to me. “When you take a packet of cigarettes out of your top pocket and put it on the bar in from of you, you’re making a statement about yourself, exactly as you do with the clothes you wear, the music you like, and the newspaper you read. You’re saying, “These cigarettes are a part of me”.”

“So, if you take out a pocket of Benson and Hedges ” you say, “I’m classy -gold packet -part of high society.” If you take out a packet of
Marlboro, you say, “I’m an outdoor type, I like wearing a cowboy hat and riding horses…”

“Now, if you produce a packet of “death” cigarettes”, he continues, producing a packet of “Death ” cigarettes to illustrate his point, “what you want to say about yourself of you smoke “Death ” cigarettes ” are about. Sergey Andryunin has been telling us about them since he started his
Enlightened Tobacco Company (ETC).

We’ve heard about the coffin- chapped machines in pubs and clubs.
However, for anyone who has managed to avoid Sergei’s publicity/ here goes.
“Death cigarettes are for the smoker who wants to say”, “Yes, I’m killings myself, but at least I know, and I smoke a brand which doesn’t try to hide the fact”. “Death” cigarettes say, “Don’t you dare tell me to stop!””

Sergey, now on his ninth cigarette of the interview, says he wants to expose the hypocrisy behind the tobacco industry. Governments can’t afford to ban smoking because they receive huge amounts of money in tax. Tobacco companies try to improve their image by sponsoring sports events such as motor rallying, rugby, football and tennis, at waste “What everybody wants to forget is that smoking kills. That’s why I’m here, to remind people that smoking and death are linked”.

Cigarettes in Russia are a 12 000 000 $ industry in which four companies control 95% of the market.

Personally? I have a very different opinion as to why so few people choose to smoke a brand of cigarette called “death”. Sergei Andryunin has misunderstood human, psychology. Of course smokers know that their habit is probably going to kill them, but they prefer not to fink about it. The only people who are going to smoke his cigarettes are people like himself.

I finally started to warm to this character Sergei Andryunin. It was the end of the interview, and the number of bag ends in the ashtray had increased to fifteen.

Perhaps he had something important to say after all. Not just, “Hey, everybody! Look at me! I’m weird and I killing myself!”

Quotations about smoking

> “Out of a thousand smokers of 20 cigarettes a day, one will be murdered, six will be killed on the roads, and about 130 will die prematurely because of their smoking.”

> “I have every sympathy with the man who was so horrified by what he had read about the effects of smoking that he gave up reading.”

> “If you decide to give up smoking and drinking, you don’t actually live longer; it just seems longer.”

> “Teenagers begin to smoke because they think it’s cool and because they think they look grown-up. The cigarette is a symbol of defiance and an attack an authority.”

Interview

Ann Fesyura

Ann, you are one of the A-student of our group, and so I’d like to ask you some questions.

OK

Do you think that is difficult to study at our university, do we have complicated program?

No. I don’t think our program is too difficult. You study hard every day you will manage with everything.

What is the hardest subject for you?