© Bruno Jobst

Name: Mladen R.
Mother tongue: Croatian
Occupation: Curator
My object: cigarette case
My story about it:

My granddaddy, Vladimir, was a passionate smoker and coffee drinker. He died in 1968 from lung cancer. I loved him and remembered his stories well. He had a wooden cigarette case which he gave to me when I was a boy, after I pestered him for a while about it. Since he fought for Austro-Hungary on the front towards Italy (Soča), he said that he had won this cigarette case in a card game. I believed that it was manufactured by a soldier until I received an old catalogue on the history of smoking published by the tobacco company Dunhill (English), in which I found my cigarette case described, with pictures. Next to the price, it is written that it was made of Russian maple tree.