Nasvay is a traditional smokeless tobacco product widely used across Central Asia, particularly in Kyrgyzstan. Often produced on a small or household scale, it sits in a complex space between tradition, affordability, tobacco use and harm reduction.
This presentation explores nasvay through the experience of Renat, a producer from Kyrgyzstan who demonstrates how the product is made and explains its place in everyday life. The discussion looks at why people turn to nasvay when cigarettes become too expensive, how its use varies across different parts of Kyrgyzstan, and why it remains largely unregulated.
This video was produced by Knowledge-Action-Change within a grant from the Global Action to End Smoking, Inc. (“Global Action”), a US nonprofit 501(c)(3) private foundation. Global Action had no role in the planning, production or execution of this video.
Transcription:
GFN Science Lab 2 — nasvay
2026-06-04 · 14:00-15:30 (Europe/Warsaw) · Global Forum on Nicotine 2026
Carrie Wade 0:00:11
Well, thank you so much. And we are going to turn to what is nasvay and how is it made? I think it's super interesting. I first heard about nasvay about two months ago. And I now know what it is and how it's made. And I think it's fascinating. And it really is a very grassroots level way to use tobacco and perhaps even apply tobacco harm reduction.
Video 0:00:41
nasvay is a traditional smokeless tobacco product widely used in Kyrgyzstan and across Central Asia. It is typically made in small-scale or home-based settings from tobacco mixed with other substances such as ash or lime. Among people who use drugs in Kyrgyzstan, nicotine use is almost universal.
Cigarette smoking is most common, but Nazve is often used as a cheaper and more accessible alternative. Today we meet with Renat, who has been producing homemade Nazve for 10 years and will help us understand the Nazve as a local phenomenon.
Renat 0:01:19
My name is Renat, I am 35 years old. I was born in the city of Osh, in Kyrgyzstan. I lived there until I was 15-16 years old. Then I moved to Bishkek. My grandfather and then my uncle worked on the plow. From uncle I began to do the same. I will show you the process of making our own plow.
Sergei Bessonov 0:01:48
In addition to the use of a plow, What other ingredients will we use for making a jar? Can you tell? Yes, I can show you.
Renat 0:01:59
Here you see. Tobacco. It is already chopped. At the moment I do not have the opportunity to take tobacco leaves. I have a friend whom I ask and he sends me here already chopped tobacco leaves. Here you can see it. And I grind them into such a fine consistency. Here, pay attention. These leaves from Abakar grow only in Batken. And that's how I'm harvesting now.
Will water also be used? Yes, water and ash will be used. And at some points, I have a friend, they ask me to add a few stars in order to with a star, there is a quick absorption into the slab of tobacco. I see a meat grinder, how does it participate in the process? It participates, yes, it participates. I don't get a leaf of tobacco, but already chopped leaves of tobacco.
And here I grind them here, on this meat grinder, into smaller ones. On the slab, it implies the smallest logs, and they can just scratch, break your mucous membrane when you scratch it.
Sergei Bessonov 0:03:19
Rinat, tell me, please, where did you learn to do it on your own?
Renat 0:03:25
My grandfather did it on his own, I learned it from him. My grandfather did it, then my uncle, and I did it with my uncle. My grandfather did it for about He made 15 of them for sure. Then we started doing it with my uncle.
Sergei Bessonov 0:03:41
It's also about 10 years. Do you use it only for cigarettes? Or do you also use cigarettes in your consumption?
Renat 0:03:53
I check for cigarettes and smoke too. There were moments in my life when I didn't have the opportunity to buy cigarettes. I just checked for cigarettes. Cigarettes were very expensive in our country. And because they were expensive, I had a friend who told me that there were non-licensed cigarettes that were twice as cheap. So I took them and smoked them.
And when I didn't have money, I used my own money. Here I have two kilograms of tobacco. Here I have 200 grams of barley and water.
It must be brought to such a mass so that it does not crumble, so that it is crumbled, because I will continue to get grains from it. It should stand a little, stand back. You know, it's like dough, something like that. And now it will stand for about 20-30 minutes, and I will start the process of making it.
Sergei Bessonov 0:05:10
Tell me, please, have you seen, have you participated in the fact that I see now in such quantities that are sold in stores, at the bazaar, bottles?
Renat 0:05:24
Yes, Sergey, I participated in such large-scale processes. We mixed it somewhere at home in the south. Well, a hundred kilograms. We needed a lot of space for this. We didn't have such a good homemade meat grinder that makes grains, but we had such a big machine. And due to the fact that now I don't have the opportunity to make such power, I have enough for 2-3 kilograms.
In principle, this is enough for me to produce about 2-3 kilograms of good meat. That's how I'll tell you.
Sergei Bessonov 0:06:00
Have you checked the quality? Tell me, please, how do you rate it?
Renat 0:06:10
My weld is excellent, its quality is very good.
Sergei Bessonov 0:06:15
It is required. Then the final question, Rinat. Tell me, please, in your opinion, how will the trend with the use of welds in our country continue?
Renat 0:06:29
Well, yes, as I noticed, Sergey, cigarettes are getting more expensive now, very fast, and you can't run away from these prices. I think, and my opinion is that there will really be more demand on Swag. People will probably switch to it, replace it with cigarettes. Thank you.
Carrie Wade 0:06:58
I have about a billion questions, but does anybody want to start?
Norbert Schmidt 0:07:14
Hello, Norbert Schmidt, consumer. I wonder that lime with tobacco that sounds a bit like the good car from India, is the Nassau equally dangerous or...
Tatsiana Pikirenia 0:07:37
Well, that's a million-dollar question for now for Central Asia. And to answer that, I feel that I need to give you a little bit of a context, because whenever you go to investigate people, you need to get the context. Otherwise, it makes no sense, really. Well, Central Asia is five countries, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan.
It is a completely different region from even Southern Asia. It is different from Europe, of course, and it is in itself a separate unit for research that should be done there. And the interesting fact about Central Asia that in all the five countries, the population has been constantly growing for the past 30 years.
And it has grown from 54 million people to 82 million people now. And it means it is important because it means that whatever decisions are taken in public health, they will influence the growing number of people. And Naswei for Central Asia is a very traditional product, something like snus in Sweden.
So it is deeply grounded in culture, in history, and it is produced really in this way, just the scale differs. And the leaves, there was a map shown, and Batken, the region of Batken was mentioned. It is where tobacco grows.
And from our investigation of this process in Kyrgyzstan, we have learned that It seems like all the tobacco, all nasvay is being produced from the tobacco that grows in Batkan, because for some reason it is considered by the consumers or the producers, I don't know, that exactly that sort of tobacco is the best for nasvay.
Basically, this investigation, this research that we at KAC have done together with our partner organisation, NGO Attica, Kyrgyzstan-based, is one of the very first attempts to investigate NASVAI and the reasons people use it and how much they use this product.
We, NGO Attica, works with people who use trucks, so this is a very, very vulnerable population with multiple health and social problems, and they, in addition, use NASVAI. So, unfortunately, the answer to your question is, we don't know. And I think, from my experience, the best interventions begin with right questions, and this question is exactly of that kind.
whether it is how it affects the health of people. It has not been investigated. We only know recently this spring a research was published from Uzbekistan, the neighboring country. And thank you for Marina. I think that was you who forwarded to us the link to the toxicology research of Naswai from Uzbekistan.
They investigated 25 samples from six regions in Uzbekistan and found a lot of pollutants, organic pollutants, including DDT and similar to that one that are prohibited worldwide. But strictly speaking, we can only take it as a fact that there may be some pollutants and some toxic things in the product, but we do not know how this work actually inside the human's body.
So the further research would be needed to investigate how many people use that kind of nasvay and what is their health in, I don't know, in 10, 20 whatever years. So we don't know and I would be cautious here because as you have seen it is produced from Tobacco, which is grown perhaps with the use of organic pollutants. And ash is added. We don't know the contents of the ash.
And lime is added. We don't know where they take it from. And from the practical point of view, I can't see the situation, this is my opinion, but I can't see the situation where I would explicitly recommend anyone using Nazvay, though it is... It is not combustible. Yes, it lacks all the chemicals from combustion, but it is a totally unregulated product.
It is produced only in the courtyards. It is not regulated. It is a shadow product. but it is widely sold at the bazaars in all of the countries. And if you visit any of the Central Asian countries, I would recommend you to do so. They are very interesting.
But you will most probably take a taxi, and you will see that a taxi driver would speed something, would open a door on a crossroads and would speed something, and that would be NASVAI. This is NASVAI. So it is tremendously accessible. It is tremendously cheap. A portion of NASVAI for a day, approximately for a day, costs not more than $50 cents.
So it is the cheapest nicotine product you can find, basically. So that's for the context, and I'm happy to have more questions. And we have our partner here, Atika, a manager. You can ask him questions, too, about people.
Attendee 0:15:07
Just a quick comment, because I did visit Kazakhstan a couple of years ago. And one of the things that really caught my attention is that the tobacco used is the nicotina rustica. So the variety is the rustica. It's not the nicotina tobacco that we use in traditional cigarettes.
And for those ones who are not familiar with the chemical profile of this, the nicotin level can reach around 20% in nicotina rustica rather than in nicotina tobacco. This is something that is not common said.
Carrie Wade 0:15:37
That was two of my questions answered. Thank you.
Attendee 0:15:41
I have a quick comment. First of all, thank you so much. The video was really interesting. And as a qualitative researcher, I really value storytelling and capturing these stories. So I just have a quick insight to add. So in India, we have a product called Naswar. So instead of the Y in the end, we have an R. And it's the exact same product as nasabay.
The only addition is that they add sesame oil, or sometimes they'll add menthol oil to that. I wish my colleague, Dr. Sudh Bhatwardhan, he's done extensive research on tobacco products in India. And so I'm happy to connect you with him if you want to. There's tons of research done on nasabay in India.
So I'm guessing there could be some insights that you could draw from there as well.
Tatsiana Pikirenia 0:16:30
Thanks. Thanks.
Gerry Stimson 0:16:35
Thanks, and thanks very much to Sergei Bessonov. You saw him in the film, and he's sitting there next to Tatyana. It's great that there's sort of more fieldwork stuff coming out, because we often talk about products and we don't know much about where they come from and how they're made and so on.
So it's a question for Sergei if he could explain, was it difficult to do this filming? Was it difficult to find people who would explain to him in Kyrgyzstan, how this product is produced. I have another question afterwards as well. I may.
Sergei Bessonov 0:17:13
It's a good question. In fact, when we started this work, I didn't think it would be difficult, because Kyrgyzstan is big, and it's mainly used in the south of the country.
Tatsiana Pikirenia 0:17:28
It's a good question. I did not expect myself that it would cause any problems. Kyrgyzstan is a country somehow culturally a little bit divided, regionally divided. So, and that's why it's mainly used in the south of the country near, but can where tobacco grows.
Sergei Bessonov 0:17:48
I have colleagues, I asked them about this opportunity so that I could take an interview, shoot a video and show it. I was told that they agreed with the manufacturer that I can buy tickets and come.
Tatsiana Pikirenia 0:18:04
I have colleagues who work on the South with people who use drugs, too. And I asked them for help. And there was an agreement that we would come and that we would be connected to the large producers of Nasfi on the South.
Sergei Bessonov 0:18:25
That's what I basically did, but we probably confirmed our m eeting several times. I flew to Osh, in the morning we got in the car and came to the person who was supposed to show. It was a big, huge house, a mansion. At the entrance, he had a store where he sold himself. We started talking to him, and it was my surprise. A woman came out, as it turned out, a wife.
She stood aside, she did not participate in the conversation. She listened to the goal of my arrival, turned around, kicked her husband on the leg and left. That's it, the interview is over.
Tatsiana Pikirenia 0:19:09
So we three times confirmed our visit and the possibility to ask our questions and take interviews and we came to the city of Osh together with my friend and we came to that person with whom we agreed previously and he lived in a large villa and he has a shop where he sells Naswei, right near his house. And he greeted us and everything was okay.
But then a woman, his wife, came out and she kicked him. And that's how it all was finished. It all was finished with this.
Sergei Bessonov 0:20:03
The person who agreed to my contact was also surprised. He started to say that this is not done, this is a ticket and that's it. But I think this is precisely because of the status. That is, Naswai is in a certain gray zone. There are no direct bans on its use and there is no approval. Everyone knows that a large number of people use it.
As a rule, the lowest classes use it, when there is no money, these are places of deprivation of freedom, these are some kind of social ones. But the South is traditionally used by consumers, and there are already quite wealthy people, they also use it.
Tatsiana Pikirenia 0:20:52
Well, I think that this is because nasvay is a grape production, and this is neither prohibited nor allowed by any legislation. It does not exist in the legislation. And in general, nasvay is, it is assumed to be a product for the lowest societal groups of people. But on the south of the country, it is just a traditional product.
It is a, there is a tradition to use nasvay and it is used by wealthy people too.
Sergei Bessonov 0:21:38
The interruption of this meeting has postponed our terms for about two weeks. This hero has experience, he knows how to prepare a jar and uses it in small sizes for sale, because his wife has a business, such a table on the street, where she sells cigarettes, chewing gum, including a jar.
Tatsiana Pikirenia 0:22:05
So it delayed a little bit our video recording, so we found Renat, who now lives in Bishkek. This video was shot in Bishkek, but Renat is from Osh originally, and he knows how to produce nasvai.
He had this experience, and he sells, he produces, as you've seen, and he sells nasvai not in great amounts, And it is possible because his wife just has a little place to sell cigarettes, chewing gum, and nasvay.
Sergei Bessonov 0:22:48
And the last point. He was very sure that it was his way of making the sourdough, it is a very safe way, because he does not use yeast. His sourdough acts 2-3 minutes later than usual, precisely because the yeast does not participate in the preparation. Only 2-3 people ask him to add it for them. His product is an environmentally friendly product, and he really believes in it.
Tatsiana Pikirenia 0:23:28
Yeah, so Renat claims his nasvay to be a top product. So he believes that his nasvay is the best. And he tries not to use lime in his nasvay. He only uses it for a couple of his friends who explicitly ask him to do so. And in nasvay, where there is no lime, you get a two or three minutes delayed effect of nicotine.
And Renard believes that nasvay is a super eco-friendly product. So he describes this as something very dear to his heart. our news, my news, very good news, something like that.
Carrie Wade 0:24:27
Well, thank you so much. Please thank him for being part of that video. I think it's so important to hear voices that we don't always hear from. Me being at BAT, them being at PMI, Hype, we have all these other big companies. We often lose sight of these... people who use it on their own and make it on their own and manufacture it on their own.
And also thank his wife for allowing the filming to continue.
Well, we're at the end of time, so if there are other questions... I'll give you one more chance.
Andrew Manson 0:25:06
More comment than question, I think. I mean, first of all, to Norbert's point, I mean, lime is calcium oxide and is much harsher, I think, than wood ash, which will be potassium carbonate, essentially. And so I think this is probably a softer product. I think, as Ana Lucia said, the tobacco is rustica.
The DDT is almost certainly from the tobacco, not from the process because of where it's grown and this sort of thing. And with some subtle modifications, I mean, this is a rustic form of snus, effectively, with the same principle. So you replace the wood ash with bicarbonate, you have a better quality tobacco, and you've got a safer product.
But I would suggest the wood ash is probably preferable to lime for sure.
Tatsiana Pikirenia 0:26:12
Then I can confirm to Renat that his recipe is really safer than it could be.