(Source: https://mtdata.ru/u13/photo8283/20874799630-0/original.jpeg)

The first smoking rooms have been opened at the Sheremetyevo Airport, as the General Director of the airport Mikhail Vasilenko told to reporters. “Yes, some of these rooms are located in business lounges”, Vasilenko said, answering the question about resumed operation of smoking rooms.

He added that by the summer of 2020, it was planned to restore smoking rooms at all airport terminals.

On December 12, 2019, the State Duma adopted a law allowing to equip special opaque smoking rooms in the transit zones of airports in the final third reading. The bill was introduced to the State Duma in November 2017; it was adopted in the first reading in July 2019, in the second reading it was adopted on December 10. The author of the legislative initiative (N 315272-7) is the deputy of the “United Russia” political party Sergei Boyarsky.

The author of the amendment proposed to change the law on protecting the health of citizens from exposure to tobacco smoke, adding a clause stating that tobacco smoking is allowed in “specially allocated isolated rooms equipped with ventilation systems and organized at airports in the areas designed to accommodate registered passengers, the staff of the airport and airline companies”. Boyarsky said that the legislative initiative prepared by him “is aimed at returning clean air to public spaces, since impromptu smoking rooms now exist in sanitary rooms”.

Currently, smoking is prohibited on the territory and in the premises of airports. However, according to the poll by the All-Russian Public Opinion Research Centre as of 2016, 33% of Russians do not comply with the prohibition on smoking in public places.

Smoking rooms at theairports will be equipped with good ventilation and located in areas where registered visitors can stay, so the smoking process will not be not visible from other rooms. It is assumed that smoking rooms will be equipped with special ventilation systems that will protect non-smokers from the smoke. 

Passengers will be able to visit the smoking rooms after passing through an inspection before flight, as well as in areas intended for transittravelers. At the same time, smoking rooms should be installed so that “the possibility of observing smokers from other premises is excluded”, according to the text of the bill.