The chronicle of Eger Tobacco Factory

The cigarette factory

material began by hand, and cigarettes were produced for the Soviet troops bearing the name “Vpirjod” (Forward!). There were about 100 workers involved in the production, and their daily wage was a kilo of bread. Small wonder that those privileged few proudly wore their armbands in the streets, on which was written, in cyrillic script, “Robotnyik Tabachnoy Fabriki” (tobacco factory worker). In the absence of electricity the tobacco was cut by hand, just as it had been fifty years ago - until one day the handyman János Gyimesi spotted two steam-powered road rollers lying idle in the street. These were dragged into the factory and put to use to drive the cutting machines. In the summer of 1945 a new Hungarian brand of cigarette entered production: “Peace” cigarettes, and almost as if echoing their response to this name, the Soviets gave the factory over to civil production on June 27th. The Central Excise Office entrusted the leadership of the factory to Dr. Zoltán Syposs, with effect from August 10th. Géza Vendrei became the deputy director. The countertrade arrangement with the Soviet troops continued, as is shown by an entry in Syposs’ notebook to the effect that: “In 1945 the Hungarian tobacco factory in Eger received 2,300.5 kilos of unprocessed tobacco from Captain Gorbunov, of which raw material 973.5 kilos were provided by 2nd Lieutenant Pishlovsky and 1,332 kilos by Gorbunov. From this amount, after processing by the tobacco factory, the 20th Russian artillery battalion received 300,000 single cigarettes and 300 kilos of tobacco, and the C.O.s received 595,000 cigarettes and 525 kilos of tobacco.”