About us

In 1864, the entrepreneur A. G. Rutenberg acquired the tobacco factory of Koffsky and Kunchinsky in Riga, Russian Empire, which had existed since 1839.

Under his management, the manufactory quickly became a large industrial enterprise, one of the leading ones in the country’s tobacco industry, which is confirmed by the “Gold Medal” of the industrial exhibition in Riga in 1901.

After the death of A. G. Rutenberg in 1905, the factory was managed by his sons, Tobias, Max and Gustav, and in 1914, Tobias Rutenberg took over. At that time, the factory employed 700 workers and produced 20 million cigars, 3.5 million cigarettes, 114 million papirosy, as well as several tons of premium pipe tobacco.

Due to the outbreak of the First World War, Tobias Ruthenberg decided to move part of the production away from the front line. Part of the staff, cigar molds, drying drums, tobacco cutters, presses for aging pipe tobacco, cigarette machines - everything that was necessary for production was sent to the city of Pogar in the Starodub district of the Chernigov province - one of the largest centers of tobacco cultivation since 1718.

According to official data, in those years about 30 million kilograms of tobacco were grown in the Chernigov province of the Russian Empire, including for the Riga factory, which partially processed it and partially sent it to Europe for the traditional tobacco fair in Bremen. Thus, in 1915, the history of the Pogar Tobacco Factory began, which became part of the trading Empire of A.G. Rutenberg, producing tobacco products for Russia and exporting them to European countries.

In 1919, the enterprise was nationalized. In the first years of Soviet power, it operated unstably due to the collapse of regional tobacco growing and a shortage of raw materials. However, during the years of collectivization, the situation leveled out, and the rate of production of cigars and cigarettes began to grow.

The factory also operated during the Great Patriotic War (in particular, there is a well-known legend about the supply of cigars for Churchill during the Yalta Conference, for which a cigar roller was allegedly even specially recalled from the front).

In the 1990s, the factory was privatized and miraculously avoided bankruptcy, but was able to recover and even expand its product range (in particular, it began producing hookah tobacco).

Since 2004, the production of all manufactured products has been transferred to the factory’s facilities ООО «Смолтабак» (Смоленск), ОАО «Альвис» (Екатеринбург), ОАО «Астра» (before — «Пермская табачная фабрика», Пермь), ОАО «Канская табачная фабрика» (Канск, Красноярский край), ОАО «Челябинская табачная фабрика» (Челябинск), ООО «Бийская табачная фабрика» (Бийск, Алтайский край).