Sergei talks about how Kalmyks chewed tobacco in the past:In Siberia when you walked early in the morning you would see yellow spit on both sides of the road. The Russians used to say: ‘The Kalmyks must have passed here before, spitting to the right and the left’. Garya Tserenovich Mandzhiev, Honoured Artist of Russia, also worked with us. He also chewed tobacco. He chewed it in Moscow when he was studying. What can you do? It is a habit. The majority of old women chewed tobacco. I saw it in Siberia when I was a child. People did not have tobacco pouches, and they kept their tobacco in their pockets. When my daughter was born, old women came to visit us. Back then people kept sugar blocks in their pockets to treat children. So, everything would get mixed up in their pockets. An old woman took a piece of sugar from her pocket and gave it to my daughter, saying ‘Take it’. My daughter would take the sugar (mixed with tobacco) and eat it with pleasure.