Last couple of times around in Russia, I’ve made an effort to collect cigarette packs. As an ephemera lover, I notice the old brands are disappearing fast. Though you’ll often see old versions still fading in the kiosk windows.

It’s a bit of luck I photographed these CCCP Ovals, because my sister came in to tidy up one day and threw them all out. Some people have no feeling for the graphic arts.

The old packs featured the typical Soviet iconography of course, and there was a good range of cosmonaut smokes. Traditional emblems like the Russian eagle feature strongly too.

Cigarette packs are often quite good examples of graphic design - very strong colours and typography and as few design elements as possible. As St Exupery used to say of design, ‘Perfection is achieved when nothing else can be taken away’.

It made me think of my favourite Formula One cars, in the days when tobacco sponsorship was still OK. Then they were known as the ‘fag packet cars’. It’s generally agreed that the most beautiful F1 livery, in black and gold, adorned the John Player Special Lotus, as driven by Ayrton Senna.

It’s a shame we never got to see the Russians in F1 at that time, since we could have had a beautiful red and gold CCCP car. Not Ferrari red, but close. A blue and yellow Piotr or Kosmos car would have been perfect for the traditionally blue Williams team. And of course, the drivers could have been kitted out with Gagarin-style helmets.

Definitely a lost opportunity.