Tekel brand as used currently in Trabzon
Tekel is a Turkish brand of cigarettes, currently distributed and manufactured in the Second Empire of Trabzon. It is popular throughout the Turkish-speaking nations of the post-Doomsday era.
Overview[]
Prior to the events of Doomsday, the government of Turkey held a monopoly on the domestic taxation, sale, and distribution of all tobacco and alcohol products through a state-owned enterprise, Tekel. Tekel was unique in that it functioned both as a regulatory agency as well as a manufacturer and distributer of tobacco and alcohol. It ceased to exist when its administrative structure and headquarters were destroyed during Soviet nuclear strikes on Istanbul and Ankara. With the Turkish government's effective collapse during Doomsday, nearly all of Tekel's surviving factories ceased functioning, and the agency became defunct.
The Tekel factory in Trabzon, 1997.
One of the few Tekel factories to survive Doomsday with its operations more or less uninterrupted was located in the coastal city of Trabzon. This factory was built by the Turkish government in 1951 and drastically expanded in 1965. As a result of the nuclear catastrophe, the factory lost the oversight of Tekel officials and access to its distribution network, but enterprising Trabzon residents were quick to profit, buying up the cigarettes and reselling them on the black market. The southern Black Sea coast was spared much of the immediate repercussions of Doomsday, and the demand for tobacco products remained higher than ever as store shelves went bare. Organized crime quickly emerged as a major force in Trabzon, and rival rackets, some set up by former local government officials, competed for control of the city's commodities, including cigarette distribution. Gangs would negotiate a monopoly on the distribution of the factory's products, only to be eliminated by their rivals. In the meantime, workers continued to sell cigarettes to individual entrepreneurs.
This state of affairs ended when tanks began rolling into Trabzon in November 1983, accompanied by soldiers with orders to impose martial law. Contrary to popular belief at the time, these army units were not dispatched by the Turkish government but rather the remnants of the Turkish Third Army's 11th Corps, which had mutinied during a short-lived but vicious conflict with Soviet military forces along Turkey's far eastern border. The troops were led by Brigadier General Altan Sahin, who began a crackdown on crime as part of his campaign to restore order in the city and seize control of the military facilities there. Cliques of soldiers quickly replaced the gangs as the primary monopoly holders on the Tekel factory's product. By mid-1984, the process had become much more standardized when Sahin took a personal interest in the factory and imposed a military monopoly on distribution. The factory workers, who had not been paid their salaries in months and benefited from barter and competitive cigarette sales, initially refused to accept this state of affairs. However, Sahin was able to negotiate military protection for the factory, and offered to keep the workers and their families fed with provisions from the military stores. At the end of the year the factory was under complete military supervision and the illegal trade in cigarettes in the city curtailed. In 1987, this Tekel facility - and its sister factory in nearby Akçaabat, also reopened under military supervision - was named the only legal manufacturer and distributor of matches and cigarettes in Sahin's newly established "Empire of Trabzon".
From 1983 to 1990, the cigarettes were not packaged or branded, merely distributed in bulk in plain paper boxes and often sold individually due to shortages. In 1990, some of the old Tekel packaging material in stock was brought out of storage and cigarettes began to be marketed with this material. A large number were smuggled through official and unofficial channels into neighboring states such as New Erzurum and Greater Patnos, and as far south as Elazig, where they proved popular due to the familiarity of the old pre-Doomsday brand. Thereafter, the military regime ordered that the Trabzon and Akçaabat factories' cigarettes be distributed solely under the Tekel brand. As these factories were the only ones still distributing anything under the Tekel brand ten years after Doomsday, the regime awarded itself an exclusive monopoly on its use.
Tekel outlet in 2023.
Worker shortages during the late 1990s forced the military to turn to alternative sources of labor to maintain the factories' operations, namely unemployed urban youth. Families in Trabzon complained that youths under military age were frequently being conscripted off the street and taken to various former state-owned enterprises for labor, including the Tekel factory. In the early to mid 2000s, faced with the overcrowding of prisons and detention facilities, the military turned to the conscription of political dissidents and low-risk prisoners to staff the factories' workforce.
In 2020, it emerged that the Tekel factories were counterfeiting foreign cigarette brands for export purposes, complete with packaging modeled closely after those of the targeted brands. These were usually smuggled into foreign countries, sometimes with counterfeit tax stamps, to avoid paying import duties. Cigarettes made cheaply from low grade Trabzonian tobacco produced and packaged in cartons designed to mimic well-known foreign brands are an especially lucrative product in countries where tobacco products are taxed heavily.
Distribution centers and outlets[]
Prior to Doomsday, Tekel shops and distribution outlets selling alcohol and tobacco products were a common fixture in every Turkish city. In Trabzon, these shops acquire cigarettes directly from the factories, and are technically owned by the armed forces as part of the same state enterprise, although managed by licensed franchisees. Tekel shops owned by individuals continue to operate in New Erzurum, Greater Patnos, and the Sultanate of Turkey; while some do stock products produced by the current Trabzonian brand, others are unaffiliated.
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