When today it comes to the heavy winter battles of the Great Patriotic War, then, perhaps, everyone will imagine a Soviet soldier in a quilted wadded jacket or sweatshirt, an army hat with a badge in the form of a hammer and sickle and with a submachine gun at the ready. And if the last two things were familiar to the soldiers almost from the very beginning of the existence of the USSR, then the quilted jacket appeared in the uniform of the Red Army soldiers, already having by that time a very unusual history of its journey through the vast expanses of the Soviet Union. Here are 8 amusing facts about the Soviet wadded jacket.
People usually call quilted wadded jackets or sweatshirts with one word, which begins with "wat" and ends with "nick". Unfortunately, for political reasons, nowadays this word has a new offensive meaning, and the Google robot blocks articles with any mention of this word, regardless of the context. Therefore, we are forced to avoid the capacious and familiar name of a quilted wadded jacket from one word, using synonyms instead. Please understand this.
1. Byzantine roots
Today, not only in the post-Soviet space, but throughout the world, a wadded sweatshirt is considered an unspoken "visiting card" of the Red Army, which has already gone down in history. And therefore, for many it will come as a surprise to the fact that this piece of clothing is not originally Russian, but was invented in the early Middle Ages in Byzantium.
It was there that the first cases of wearing quilted clothes, which became the prototype of the quilted jacket, were recorded. In those distant times, it was used not only by the civilian population, but also by soldiers, moreover, as a lightweight protection, which covered from enemy blows of a small ax.
2. Made in China
But the quilted jacket came directly to Russia from … China. During the Russo-Japanese War, units based in Manchuria noticed unusual quilted clothing, which was popular among the local population. The army team decided to buy Chinese wadded sweatshirts for themselves, and they turned out to be very comfortable.
The war ended, but quilted jackets have already penetrated and entrenched in the Russian Empire. They were also worn by the army during the First World War and the Civil War. However, at that time, this clothing had not yet gained great popularity.
3. Production according to a single standard
The first popularity for a wadded jacket came already in Soviet Russia, in 1932. It was then that the country's leadership truly appreciated the versatility of quilted jackets, in which it is equally comfortable to work and just walk along the street. In the same 1932, builders began to be massively dressed in quilted jackets, in particular, the White Sea Canal. And the Soviet government decided to "fit into one pattern" the production of quilted jerseys.
The Committee for Standardization of the People's Commissariat of Light Industry of the USSR proposed the following type of quilted clothing: “Quilted jacket - single-breasted wadded jacket, straight cut, fastened up to the top with 4 buttons on the left side with four sewing loops (belt loops). The floors are straight without darts, with side patch pockets, quilted through the top, cotton wool and lining with parallel machine stitches. The distance between the stitches is 6 cm. The back is straight, one-piece or with a seam in the middle, at the waist it is pulled together with drawstrings with a metal buckle. The back stitching is the same as the hollow. The collar is upright soft, fastens with one button with a belt loop sewn to its left end. Collar height - 3 cm. Single-seam sleeves, end at the bottom with a small slot and cuffs, fastened on one button with a belt loop sewn to the end of the upper half of the cuff."
4. Clothes for the poor and prisoners
With the beginning of the mass standardized production of quilted wadded jackets, the Soviet government ordered that this garment be popularized among the population. For example, such quilted jackets are often used to dress characters from various films, such as "Chapaev". However, "advertising" in popular culture did not give the expected results.
Until the end of the 1930s, the quilted jacket was popular mostly among low-income citizens, as well as marginal elements - vagabonds and petty thieves. And with the arrival of the notorious 1937, when the number of prisoners in the camps increased many times, it was in places not so remote that quilted jackets began to be massively supplied. Quite quickly, wadded jackets became associated with criminals.
5. The cult of wadded jackets
The truly popular love of Soviet citizens for the quilted wadded jacket was given, oddly enough, by the war. After all, soldiers of all branches of the armed forces began to dress in such quilted jackets en masse. And here the Red Army men, and after them the civilian population, were able to make sure of the convenience and versatility of these clothes.
After that, the quilted jacket all over the world became a symbol of the Soviet army, and for the common population - a real salvation in the hungry and cold war years. The same trend continued in the equally difficult post-war decade. We can say that it was in a cotton padded jacket that the Soviet empire rebuilt itself anew, overcoming terrible devastation.
6. Tankmen without pockets
Despite the convenience and versatility of quilted jackets, experienced tank soldiers still preferred to "modernize" their padded quilted jackets. Moreover, such a transformation was carried out not for the sake of beauty, but solely to ensure their own safety.
The thing is that the tankers ripped off their pockets from their quilted jackets. This was done in order not to accidentally touch the details of the tank. Moreover, the absence of pockets allowed the soldiers to quickly get out of a wrecked or burning car, where, during the smoke, they could firmly cling to some protruding part and lose precious seconds for their own salvation.
7. Posthumous German trophy
War is always a harsh time, and sometimes, in order to survive, you have to make a deal with your own morality. And it happened that the latter simply did not exist, just as there was no respect for death among many soldiers of the Third Reich, who did not hesitate to undress the dead Red Army soldiers.
It turned out that the Hitlerite army was poorly prepared for the prickly Russian frosts. And in order to better keep warm, some of the Germans simply removed their quilted jackets from the dead Soviet soldiers, and they were not stopped by the direct prohibition of their commanders on such activities. Therefore, these "trophies" were worn mainly under greatcoats. And yet, some officers were aware of the complexity of the situation of their soldiers, so they pretended not to notice the violation of the order.
8. Double protection
As mentioned above, in ancient times, quilted quilted jackets were worn as a protective element. Centuries passed, and in the conditions of the bloodiest war, quilted jackets suddenly returned to this function. Moreover, this happened not somewhere, but in one of the hottest points of hostilities - in Stalingrad.
And it was like this: Soviet soldiers, in order to protect themselves, put on two wadded jackets at once and so went into battle. This tactic really helped: the double cotton layer softened the blows from pieces of breaking walls, as well as sheltered from glass fragments and ammunition. Moreover, according to Novate.ru, the protection in the form of a pair of quilted jackets could even stop a bullet if it was fired from a very long distance.
It should be said that with the beginning of the Khrushchev thaw, the popularity of wadded jackets could have come to naught, because a whole competitive environment appeared from new comfortable styles of outerwear. And yet, this did not happen: time passed, and a good old quilted jacket could be found in the closet of a simple hard worker, an intellectual professor, and even a party official who loves, for example, winter hunting. After all, a quilted jacket that went through a war with a huge country has become a kind of symbol of power and victory. Perhaps, imbued with the heroic aura of wadded jackets, Russian athletes in their stylized variations came out to the opening of the Olympic Games in Sochi.
Do you want to know about the history of another symbol of the Soviet military uniform? Then read: "Boots for the people": how tarpaulin boots appeared in the USSR