[1][2] Vasily Iohanidi [ru], a process engineer, developed the tobacco blend, and Andrey Tarakanov drew the pack design.
[3] Belomorkanal cigarettes are still produced in various post-Soviet republics, most notably in Russia, in Kamianets-Podilskyi (Ukraine), and in Hrodna (Belarus).
Belomorkanal is also used by cannabis users, wherein "emptied cigarettes are then filled with a mixture of tobacco and marijuana for smoking",[4][5] with the cardboard tube serving as a built-in roach.
They are still sold in some post-Soviet states, including Russia, Belarus and Ukraine.
[6][7][8] In a 1985 song by Jan Krzysztof Kelus, the name of the cigarettes is compared to Auschwitz Filters due to the fact that many thousands of Gulag prisoners had died during the construction of the canal.