Stalin's Pipes

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madox07

Lifer
Dec 12, 2016
1,823
1,689
I ran across this video on some facebook thread, which I considered interesting enough to share here. The video portrays Stalin while smoking his pipe(s), in various circumstances, together with parts of his collection, if we can call it that.

The op also made this comment:

"
Oooo, you All-American boys aren't going to like it, but here's some film of a famous pipe smoker - Josef Stalin. For historical interest only, no politics, and to perhaps remind us that smoking a pipe doesn't necessarily make you a more pleasant person.

Leaving aside, shall we say, some of the less salubrious aspects of Stalin's personality. Stalin was somewhat of an enthusiastic pipe smoker. He's usually seen with a Dunhill, but there are other pipes in the video. Stalin apparently never cleaned his pipes, which absolutely stank. Appalling, hardly the behaviour of a gentleman.

When he ran out of tobacco, Stalin was known to break up two cigarettes ("Herzigovina Flor" brand) and puff away on them.

The Politburo soon began to read Stalin's mood by the way he smoked his pipe. In moments of anger, smoke and flaming bits of tobacco would erupt from his Dunhill. If the pipe went out, it was usually a good sign, as he was concentrating on other things. "

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TdX73c5fOBk

Enjoy !
 

ohfatty

Lurker
Dec 1, 2019
48
55
I read somewhere, Dunhill sent him a huge pile of pipes, and when they got filthy he would simply throw them away, and fire up a new one.
 

ssjones

Moderator
Staff member
May 11, 2011
18,322
11,090
Maryland
postimg.cc
The 2nd one from the bottom looks like an Ashton stem logo, but the ring makes it appear to be a screw in stem . I've seen that logo before, but can't recall the brand. Its definitely not a high end pipe.


11652
 
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agnosticpipe

Lifer
Nov 3, 2013
3,332
3,413
In the sticks in Mississippi
The 2nd one from the bottom looks like an Ashton stem logo, but the ring makes it appear to be a screw in stem . I've seen that logo before, but can't recall the brand. Its definitely not a high end pipe.


View attachment 11652
Looks like a Yello-Bole to me. Makes no difference, I have no interest in the man or his pipes.
 

davek

Part of the Furniture Now
Mar 20, 2014
685
952
Interesting subject, simply because it is a window on the pipe smoking of the day.
The man wouldn't reflect on the piping habits or vice versa in general. He could have smoked fairy blossoms from an unobtainium pipe and still be a mass murderer.

Stalin's tomb is a commie plot.
 

mso489

Lifer
Feb 21, 2013
41,210
60,433
I won't be whining about history; however, it may be appropriate to point out that that fatalities of Joseph's governance, including direct executions and strategic famines, ran into the (probably) tens of millions. It is difficult to tell what were Nazi inflicted and who was killed by their own government, but the numbers, even calculated conservatively, were immense. The personal habits of the man are a kind of curiosity of despair. In that epoch, Dunhills were not so expensive. Even into the fifties, they were second place to Kaywoodies in the U.S., easily in reach of even a junior salaryman or wage earner. None of these $750 (today's dollars) Group 4's. It is possible the man died of old age, but such was his repute that most still think he was poisoned, one way or another.
 

snagstangl

Lifer
Jul 1, 2013
1,606
768
Iowa, United States
I like the story of Tracy Mincer make of Custombilts had one carved of Stalin and someone else playing chess. It was sent with a representative of the New York pipe club to give to Stalin. But I couldn't track down if it ever made it there. My lack of Russian kept me from getting a definite answer. There was a possibility of it being in a museum in Russia somewhere, but no pictures I could find. It would have been during the time America was allied with Russia during world war II.
 
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trubka2

Lifer
Feb 27, 2019
2,470
21,640
Here it is:

11780

It's Stalin and Roosevelt playing chess, a gift from the U.S. chess team in thanks for a trip to the USSR that Stalin gave them as a consolation prize for getting humiliated by the Soviet team. Or at least that's one Russian version. It's now in a museum exhibit of Stalin's pipes.
 

madox07

Lifer
Dec 12, 2016
1,823
1,689
I won't be whining about history; however, it may be appropriate to point out that that fatalities of Joseph's governance, including direct executions and strategic famines, ran into the (probably) tens of millions. It is difficult to tell what were Nazi inflicted and who was killed by their own government, but the numbers, even calculated conservatively, were immense. The personal habits of the man are a kind of curiosity of despair. In that epoch, Dunhills were not so expensive. Even into the fifties, they were second place to Kaywoodies in the U.S., easily in reach of even a junior salaryman or wage earner. None of these $750 (today's dollars) Group 4's. It is possible the man died of old age, but such was his repute that most still think he was poisoned, one way or another.

I think the final version on his death is severe stroke. The story goes that he was so feared that people did not dare disturb him in the morning when he did not wake up for the usual time, meanwhile the guy suffered the incident and was laying in his own urine. I am not a big fan of Joe Stalin, on the contrary ... they guy did to my country men a lot of horrible things. The original post was an oddity though .. and that Royal Yacht thing, as far as I can remember this was a rumor started by DeathMetal back in the days he was still a member of this forum.
 

mikethompson

Lifer
Jun 26, 2016
11,292
23,327
Near Toronto, Ontario, Canada
and that Royal Yacht thing, as far as I can remember this was a rumor started by DeathMetal back in the days he was still a member of this forum.

I've seen it other places and not just from him though.

I remember a long time ago, reading (don't recall where), that Stalin held a pipe like a soldier would grip a hand grenade, or a peasant a potato. He definitely did apparently consider them disposable -- yukk.

Bill, if you consider people disposable, than certainly pipes would be as well.
 
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madox07

Lifer
Dec 12, 2016
1,823
1,689
I've seen it other places and not just from him though.



Bill, if you consider people disposable, than certainly pipes would be as well.

I wouldn't be surprised if the guy treated the state treasury like it was his own bank account. So yeah ... I guess that a rough uneducated Georgian thug may be as nonchalant as to trow away a pipe whenever he pleased, as the Soviet People would pay for a new one, literally, over and over again. And whoever had the guts to call him out? Nobody, unless you wanted a one way ticket to Siberia, or a private tour of the KGB basements.
 
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logs

Lifer
Apr 28, 2019
1,873
5,069
I find Stalin immensely interesting. His pipesmoking habits are a curiosity and I like curiosities, but the history of the decline of zarist Russia and the rise of Lenin, Stalin and the Soviet Union is truly the stuff of nightmares and very real.

My thoughts exactly. Why people might consider Stalin uninteresting escapes me. He's certainly as interesting as any other leader from the period and in many ways more so because he's had such an influence on political history.
 

dcon

Lifer
Mar 16, 2019
2,636
21,489
Jacksonville, FL
The claim of Royal Yacht being Stalin’s preferred blend has been around as long as I have been (and that is a while). I personally believe that there is one of 2 probable answers to this mystery. The first is that it is true. I can believe this because the story dates back to being almost contemporaneous to his life. There is, also, the possibility that this story was proliferated to be disparaging to Stalin. Once upon a time in ‘the pipe world’ Royal Yacht was not so flatteringly referred to as “Royal Yak”. It was not a highly favored blend by connoisseurs and was believed to terribly ghost a pipe. I think the answer is one of these two.
BTW I don’t believe that anyone here is praising or idolizing Stalin. The history and proclivities of the evil merit more study than those of the “good” so, that we can perhaps identify and avoid these aberrations.
 
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