The nation’s leading cigarette brands in the second quarter of 2000 were Prima,
<BR>Pyotr I and Yava Zolotaya. All three Russian-sounding brands are owned by Western tobacco companies. Thirty-year-old Prima is produced at the Liggett-Ducat cigarette factory, which British company Gallaher Group PLC purchased last August. U.S. tobacco giant RJ Reynolds produces Pyotr I. Yava Zolotaya, named after the old Soviet brand Yava, has been produced by British-American Tobacco since 1997.
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<BR>Robert Weissman 
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