Dimitri Smirnovs Third Time Estonian CSWC Champion

The first Cigar Smoking World Championship qualifier of the season and the penultimate turned out to be the biggest events of the season, in terms of numbers. In March a total of 60 participants showed up at the House of the Serapion Order in Copenhagen to fight for the title of Danish slow smoking champion. The other week 47 people came to the restaurant Scheeli in Estonia’s capital Tallinn with the intention to be crowned Estonian champion.

The event was held during the 12th Tallinn Cigar Weekend. It was attended by many passionate cigars lovers from Estonia, Finland, Sweden, Denmark, Switzerland, Italy, Latvia and Lithuania, and just like the last two years, the winner was Dimitri Smirnovs from Latvia. A third straight victory now puts him up with the likes of Drew Emch in the US, Germany’s Hauke Walter and Felix Matei in Romania, who’ve all won their respective national championship at least three times in a row. By improving his time from the last two years with about seven and ten minutes Smirnovs also passed the two-hour mark in a national final for the first time, coming in at 2 hours 2 minutes and 13 seconds. Still, this wasn’t even close to his performance in the 2022 grand finale, when he finished third behind Borys Szkodzik from Poland, with the impressive time of 2 hours 52 minutes and 52 seconds. A performance which makes him a contender for this year’s title.

As the qualifier in Finland was canceled this year, due to it being practically impossible to enjoy a cigar in that country, the Finnish qualifier was integrated into the Estonian one. Winner of that one was the overall runner-up, Harri Kalliokoski. In 2022 he finished third at the Finnish qualification round, and this year he improved his time with almost 22 minutes, coming in at 1 hour 29 minutes and 18 seconds.

Third place went to the best native of the night, Kaido Randalu, at 1 hour 18 minutes and 33 seconds.

1. Dimitri Smirnovs (Latvia) 2.02.13
2. Harri Kalliokoski (Finland) 1.29.18
3. Kaido Randalu (Estonia) 1.18.33