RESUMEN
The paper presents the results of a sociological survey of 1093 Moscow 6th-11th form schoolchildren. Their awareness and real behavior are analyzed in the context of smoking and health. The adolescents have been found to have superficial knowledge of the negative effect of smoking on health. Among the schoolchildren, the prevalence of varying intensity smoking is 45.6%. Susceptibility to smoking increases by 3 and 5 times in the middle and senior classes, respectively. The number of smoking adolescents peaks (41.1%) in the 10th-11th classes. This group of adolescents shows no gender differences: the smoking boys and girls are 42.1 and 40.0%, respectively. Despite the fact that the adolescents have a firm grasp of health protection, the reality shows a substantial difference between the acceptable values and real behavior.