A Breath of Fresh Air

When I first came to Estonia, I was partially surprised by the number of smokers in such a small and beautiful country. Having to spend most of my time outside holding my breath was a feat deserving of a medal, I used to think.
It is nothing compared to the ammount of smoking that takes place in the army. Every building has a smoking area not further than 10 m from the main door and the smoking areas are large enough to comfortably seat 20 and that still leaves plenty of standing room.
During our basic training, smokers were given "smoking time" after every meal and they could buy more smoking times for an obscene number of push-ups. During the first part of our officer training, this was foregone in favour of just going for a smoke whenever you have a free moment. And now, during our specialist training (more on what it entails in another post) we have 10 smoking time practically every half hour, as it seems our instructors just can't do without a puff of filtered fresh air twice an hour.