Moldovan hookah industry – a look from the inside.

And we continue to immerse ourselves in the global hookah culture, because it’s interesting how things are in our neighbors. Today we talked to Octavian, an entrepreneur who is developing our industry in Moldova.  – First, let’s get to know the reader. Tell us about yourself – where are you from, what do you do now?

– Hello, my name is Octavian Furtuna and I am from the city of Glodeni in northern Moldova. I am an entrepreneur, working in the choreki segment. I opened my own establishment in my hometown 7 years ago. For 2 years now I have been a distributor of Element tobacco in Moldova. We also import hookahs and different accessories from Russia.

– And a little history – how and when did you get into the hookah industry?

– Hookahs came into my life about 12 years ago. It was a copy of Halil Mamun. I started with 3 Chinese hookahs in the institution, and now after 7 years have grown to 27 machines, different top Russian brands.

– What is the situation with hookahs in Moldova itself? Are they as widespread as in Russia or is the picture different?

– In Moldova, hookahs are loved and smoked. In the last 5 years hookah culture has been actively developing. Hookahs are in great demand in establishments. There are hookah shops in big cities, but most are outsourced to horeca. There are retail stores only in the big cities of the country. The picture is different from Russia, of course, but we have someone to look up to and aspire to.

– What is the situation with tobacco regulation in general? Are many global tobacco brands officially represented?

– There used to be a lot of smuggling from Russia, but with the start of the pandemic and the closure of the borders, there was very little smuggling. Most establishments switched to excise tobacco. There used to be only one large company on the market that imported excise tobacco, but in recent years other distributors have appeared. We already have a lot of excise tobacco (Element, Serbetli, Al Fakher, Adalya, Darkside, Daily Hookah, Burn, Musthave, Tangiers, Zomo, Chabacco, Daim, Spectrum, and some little-known Turkish tobacco).

 – Which of these would you place in the top 3 in terms of sales?

– The top 3 in customer preference include Darkside, Musthave, and Burn. But we persist in accustoming customers to the Element 🙂

– What kind of difficulties did you encounter when importing tobacco?

– It all started with red tape with documents and a long certification process. The laws of the countries are different, and the process of approving the package design took a long time. Plus, the pandemic hit, the state institutions were not working in normal mode, in general it was not easy. The next difficult stage began when we entered the market with the tobacco, the customer was not familiar with the element in general, hookah addicts reacted conservatively and didn’t want to try the new product, the monopoly played its role.

– Do you import any other brands besides Element?

– So far we are developing only Element, but we won’t stop there 🙂

 – What about local production? Are there tobacco manufacturers in Moldova? Are they widespread?

– There is a tobacco manufacturer in Moldavia that recently released Umbra hookah tobacco as well. The tobacco is of cheap segment, better in quality than Adalia. So far, they are just starting to conquer the Moldovan hookah market.

– And a few words about plans for the future) What ideas are you going to implement in 2022?

– To work further on brand development, to hold some more interesting tastings, to strengthen the retail, to expand our range of tobaccos, hookahs and accessories. And of course we hope for the end of the pandemic, for the work of the horeki without restrictions, which will help us to win the hearts of even more lovers of good hookah. There are a lot of plans and I am sure that we will work well to implement them!

– Great, and we can only wish you success in this endeavor!