Smoking

[Harvey]

What you have to remember is that people started very early in those days. I know Richard Burton was already addicted by the time he was eight.

[Lalee]

Ferah,
I think Dr. Botkin said same thing to Emperor. But who knows?

Yes, I can't recall things very well, but I think a doctor said something along those lines to Nicholas. Perhaps if Aleksei did suffer from another terrible attack, then it could be fatal. But I never actually believed he would die at a specific age.

[Holly]

There was a relative who lived with haemophilia till the age of 50. They couldn't know when exactly he would've died. It was just a matter of chance basically. There was a chance he could, and a chance he couldn't.

On another note, does anyone know what type/brand of cigarettes they smoked?

[NAOTMAA Fan]

"Job" cigarettes were widely popular in that time period, they had all kinds of art nouveau inspired media art. Might of been a more high end brand too, though this is just a guesstimation.

[Michael HR]

There would be mention in the Palace archives I suppose or the list found at Yekaterinburg of the items recovered as there must have been either some left over or packaging?

[tom_romanov]

my great grandad ( who was born 5 years before olga) smoked from his early teenage years and he lived to be 89, so i think that the cigarettes they smoked probably would have been roll-up's which are genrally better for you health (i think?!) because they contain less tar e.t.c.

[amartin71718]

I think cigarettes back then made of pure tobacco, not with all the harmful chemicals found in them today. I may be wrong.

[Russka Princess]

well at first i thought Maria would never smoke, cause she is such angel and would never do that. But i dont know if she has smoke really or has just take it seldom.

mabe she was so clever and has took never a cigarrets with her.^^ and mabe she was together with his father he has give it.

[Michael HR]

"Roll Ups" are much better. When I lived in Holland I often smoked them. No chemicals to mess your system up as modern smokes do today.

When I was small I remember my Grand Mother wold very occasionally have a Russian cigarette but she always said that a lady should never smoke in public. Perhaps that it why we do not see photos of the IF smoking in public as it was deemed common or un ladylike?

[NAOTMAA Fan]

Well it was widely deemed unacceptable up until the end of the Victorian Era for a woman to be seen smoking anywhere. When Victoria's playboy son Edward became king everything changed, and it became a more common idea for women to smoke in even the best salons. In my honest opinion, the whole cigarettes and cancer link was unheard of at the time, the same with the 50's claim that smoking made you cool. In the early 1900's smoking was more of a status symbol for men, adopted by women. In OTMAA's case, I  doubt they would even have realized this in regards to their near complete isolation from society. Their father did it and I'm sure they thought it was a simple and safe pastime activity, purely done for the fun of it. We know at least OTMA smoked, there are pictures to prove it. In regards to Alexandra, she was probably so stooped up on her prim Victorian morals that the thought of whipping out a cigarette in public was appalling. I mean, she even covered her toilet with a lace trimmed cover when it wasn't being used.

[tom_romanov]

i read in Elizabeth longfords book on the house of windsor that Queen Alexandra (nickys aunt) and Queen Mary (George v wife) smoked in private towards the end of the 19th century

[NAOTMAA Fan]

Well to be quite honest, that's because they did. Photographs of Mary and even depictions of Alexandra in Stephen Poliakoff's The Lost Prince portray it. As Prunella Scales says "...after a quiet family supper, George liked to read the newspapers or do his stamp collection. Mary liked to have a cigarette and do her knitting...". What I referred to before was the atmosphere and general feeling of women smoking at that time. As you even mentioned, Alexandra and Mary smoked in private during the Victorian period, not in public where they could be seen. In regards to the following Edwardian Era, La Belle Epoque, or whatever you wish to claim it as, Alexandra actually smoked more and more amongst courtiers. That fact was one of the reasons the image of women smoking boosted to the point where more and more women, at least in Britain at the time, began smoking.

[Sarushka]

Nicholas favored Benson & Hedges brand cigarettes. He was also fond of Turkish cigarettes, but I don't know what brand.

[Multiverse]

As others here have said, back then they didn't know the dangers of smoking and tobacco use. Beyond that, smoking back then was actually less dangerous than it is now because of all the chemical additives.

My own feeling is that light to very moderate use of pure natural tobacco with no chemical additives is probably reasonably safe. Before World War 2 cigarettes were just pure natural tobacco rolled up a tube of paper called rice paper. Chemical preservatives began to be added in World War 2 to keep cigarettes fresh to send to the troops at war. After World War 2 and especially in the last 30 years, the chemical additives have just increased exponentially. I have read that cigarettes today are a lot worse than they were even 10 years ago.

Not sure if this is true or not, but I have also read that nicotine by itself isn't addictive enough to keep people smoking the way cigarette companies want them to, so today's cigarettes have other addictive chemicals added to them. That's why quitting is much harder today, smokers aren't addicted to the nicotine, but to these other chemicals. Smokers who try a chemical free cigarette say it's not the same that there is something missing they don't get the same feeling from it.

By the way, yes there are cigarettes available that have absolutely no chemical additives in them at all and the cigarette companies that make them take pride in and advertise the fact that their cigarettes have no chemical additives.

[tom_romanov]

wow thanks for filling us in, I never knew that and it is interesting to know about e.g. they added chemicals because of the troops overseas.
thank-you