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Shooting Cigarettes

Do you know what "shooting a cig" means in Russian?

In my opinion, this is one of those things that Czechs will never be able to understand and which will surprise an unprepared Czech tourist in Moscow :)

Shooting a cigarette means asking a passerby for a cigarette. And it might seem strange to you, but this is quite common.

I don't know how it is today, but before cigarettes were relatively cheap, so most Russians considered/consider this something completely normal. Yes, nobody likes it, but everyone did it at least a few times.

The term "shooting" itself is also quite interesting. It comes from thieves' argot, where it meant "to get". It has almost no relatives, but for example German has a similar "schiessen".

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