This spring, legislators are once again taking to battling windmills - standing up for some half of the nation's windpipes - as they tackle the nation's problem with a set of new laws aimed at curbing smoke in public places. Who said it was a problem? We did. The non-smokers at this paper. Two reporters embarked on a mission that turned out to be nearly impossible.
Separately, on a series of Friday evenings, they looked for a seat in a non-smoking section. The problem wasn't so much that non-smoking sections were full. Usually there wasn't a non-smoking section at all.
Indeed, some of Moscow's poshest venues weren't too accommodating. Vanil, on Ostozhenka Street, just overlooking Christ the Savior Cathedral, doesn't cater to non-smokers. "Most of our clients smoke," the manager said with a smile. "We can't just give them up." Apparently the smoking clientele was so valuable that introducing a non-smoking section wasn't even worthwhile, according to the manager, who went on to say that non-smokers can just squeeze into the corners where there's less smoke.
Likewise with the classy, new cafe Aist on the corner of Malaya Bronnaya and Bolshaya Bronnaya. Sure, their no-non-smoking policy may be unfair for non-smokers, but according to the manager, "we've got a balance." See, people who have dinner upstairs "are more serious, and don't smoke as much" as the people downstairs. The restaurant Fish, on Bolshoi Palashevsky, had the following excuse for not providing a non-smoking section: "We have great ventilation, and after all, it's not that smoky inside." Fair enough - enjoying an excellent meal at the place during lunch hour, when there were hardly any people, let alone smokers, at adjoining tables, is one thing. But what about the more crowded dinner hours? Just kindly ask your neighbors to refrain from smoking? Or have the waiters keep moving you around until your demanding, non-smoking needs were met?

Surprisingly, a few chains do stick to a semblance of providing non-smoking areas for these quirky customers. Shokoladnitsa, Coffee House, and Coffee Mania technically have a section where patrons are not allowed to smoke. But when you're wedged into an island of second-hand smoke, you might as well not bother the wait for a table. Your best bet is a place that offers separate rooms for non-smokers, where you actually have a chance of spending a meal-time uninterrupted by whiffs of tobacco.

Yolki-Palki on Neglinnaya Street is one such place, so is the sushi restaurant Tanuki. The downside is that these rooms are basements, so non-smokers often have to choose between window-gazing and enjoying a smoke-free meal.

The good news (or bad - depending on what side of the second-hand smoke curtain you're on) is that all this may change. While
laws banning smoking in public places are not new (although lawmakers complain that they don't work too well), a group of deputies from the State Duma have introduced a set of amendments to Russia's smoking regulations that will force restaurants and airline salons to start showing some respect for their potential non-smoking clients.

"The ban on smoking in restaurants, movie theaters, cafes has never existed before," said Nikolai Gerasimenko, a Duma deputy from the majority United Russia party, who is behind the new initiative. "The new law says that [restaurants] have to introduce two separate rooms for smokers and non-smokers," he said in an interview. "If space does not permit it, then small restaurants have to ban smoking altogether."

While dining facilities are just one of the targets, the set of amendments proposes tough new penalties for violators - a whopping fine of 100,000 rubles (about $3,800). But Gerasimenko, a legislator who has been fighting for non-smokers rights for several years, is only at the beginning of a long road. The set of amendments has yet to pass a first vote, set for later
this spring. And even if passed, there's always the problem of enforcing existing laws.

"The main thing is that existing laws are being violated," he lamented. "There's a law forbidding the sale of tobacco to minors under 18 years of age, but there isn't any actual control over the sale of cigarettes. This is a [failure] of the executive branch of power."

Gerasimenko identified a wider problem regarding attitudes towards smoking in a country where cardiovascular disease is a top killer. Even so, numbers show startling and contradictory trends. According to a study by the ROMIR polling center in February, some 54 percent of males smoke - with the most avid smokers younger than 44 or older than 60. The number of women
smokers is on the rise too, at 14 percent. "Our biggest problem is with our smoking journalists," says Gerasimenko. "They think that a law that protects the right of a person to fresh air is directed against smokers, as though smokers are being discriminated against. It's a big problem in terms of mentality, since there's no major program teaching the population about the hazards of second-hand smoke. It's the non-smokers that are being discriminated against."

Paradoxically, however, the same ROMIR study pointed out that every second Russian would actually support a ban on smoking in
public places. An opinion poll by the Ekho Moskvy radio found that some 82 percent of its listeners want it. And, while the battle against second-hand smoke is indeed a fledgling one, there are organizations in Russia working to help people quit smoking. One is the Interregional Association of the Movement Against Smoking. Olga Speranskaya, an expert at the association
who is also the head of an addiction department that Serbsky Medical Center, said that while the association focuses on helping individual smokers overcome their habit, "we support this legislation. It's about time that Russia took measures which more developed counties are taking. After all, health problems of city dwellers aren't linked to ecology alone. They have a lot to do with tobacco smoke on the streets."
So while an awareness that smoking is bad certainly exists, something more deeply engrained seems to be working against it.
Take, for instance, the ubiquitous smoking break. As an employee at a company - or as a soldier in Russia's armed forces (where males still have to serve a mandatory year) - smoking gives you a great excuse to take a breather from work. But not so, if you're a non-smoker.

"As a restaurant manager, I think that forbidding smoking in restaurants would be a very bad thing," said Albert Danilian, the manager at Vanil restaurant. "We would lose clients. We are in Russia, where almost everybody smokes. It's in the traditions of the country. If other places existed where people could smoke, they'll all go there." Indeed, when one takes into account how difficult it is to get anti-smoking laws to work, Danilian may have a point. "In my opinion, if the government wants to get people to stop smoking, they should increase the price of cigarettes, make them cost $10 a pack, then people will stop buying them, but have you seen the price of cigarettes now? What else do you expect?"Whether the new amendments proposed by Gerasimenko and other deputies ever make it into law, a few places in Moscow are starting to introduce non-smoking policies out of principle. One is the Montana coffee house chain, whose owner, a Russian-born American named Alexander Malchik, has a penchant for focusing on coffee rather than cigarettes.

"Some people come in and ask us how we can serve coffee and not allow smoking," said Yelena Butenko, the Montana manager at Sokolniki. "But we serve elite coffee. Cigarette smoke interferes with the flavor." Besides, despite a few complaints, the coffee chain - which also has a shop near Park Kultury Station - has attracted a loyal following of non-smokers. "It's a matter of principle. It's become policy. I don't smoke, so why should I have to tolerate second-hand smoke? Personally, I support these new laws."