The Russian health ministry is to outlaw smoking in public places, starting with a ban on public transport, including airports and train stations, in time for the Sochi Winter Olympics in 2014.
Sochi Winter Olympics
It will be followed by a ban on smoking in hotels, cafés, restaurants and nightclubs in 2015.
The ban will include hookah pipes, which are often smoked in cafés.
To encourage smokers to kick the habit, the price of cigarettes will be increased under measures driven by the World Health Organisation’s Convention on Tobacco Control, which Russia ratified in 2008.
A survey last year showed 60.2pc of Russian men and 21.7pc of women smoke, more smokers per head than any other country.
