According to the Wall St. Journal, the Russian army will issue socks to the troops for the first time. Peter the Great's army began to issue portyanki, squares of cloth, to the soldiers, who wrapped their feet in them before pulling on their boots. Portyanki remained standard Russian Army issue thru the Napoleonic wars, the Crimean War, and the World Wars.
Only now, as the number of city bred recruits, used to socks, rises and the number of country boys declines, complaints about the lack of socks has caused the army to start up a sock issue.
You gotta wonder about an outfit that only discovered socks in the 21st century.
1 comment:
The Russian approach to footwear is different from ours. They, like many Asian cultures, practice a system of "inside shoes" (Tapochki or slippers, and/or slide-on rubber shoes for outside yard work) and "street shoes". Winter-time street shoes in rural Russia and Siberia are "Valenki", and are more of a shoe-system than a single boot. The basis is a snugg felt booty, the valenok ("little felty"), which is then put into a low rubber shoe (the "kalosh") for walking out on the street. Then you can slip the kalosh off to go inside, and you don't need to do a cold foot-transfer to unheated tapochki. If you have a nice, well-fitted and broken in pair of valenki, socks aren't as important for foot-warmth as you might think.
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