Kirz boots are one of the symbols of the past. Not only the appearance of a soldier shod in "kirzachi" with a roll over his shoulder and a three-line, but also of hard workers, trampling the lands intended for development with a tarpaulin boot, have formed a stable image. The image of the Winner and Creator.
Moreover, there was a feeling as if tarpaulin boots had always existed, long before the appearance of the three-line, virgin lands and "all-Union" construction projects. Nevertheless, the industrial production of "kirzach" began just over seventy years ago.
Everything speaks in favor of the fact that the boots "came" from the East: the Turkic nomads were wearing them, as in the most comfortable shoes for riding. From the nomads, boots spread throughout the territories of modern Russia, to the Middle East, and then to Europe. Their distribution was not peaceful, but the shoes of the conquerors soon, when the conquerors themselves and the spirit were cold, became so familiar that they were perceived as originally their own. First of all, as military shoes.
For the first time, military shoes, tailored and sewn to certain standards, appeared during the time of the Roman Empire. It resembled Greek sandals, only with a thick sole, it was lined with nails, lacing with wide straps went to the very top of the shin, leather inserts protected the leg. There is a tradition to call legionnaires' sandals "Kaligami".
In fact, the kaligi resembled low boots made of soft leather, in which a few cavalrymen from the equestrian class were shod in comparison with foot legionnaires.
Caliga completely covered the toes, had a reinforced heel, which was important for cavalrymen, and dense pads protected the inner part of the ankle joint - at that time the Romans did not have spurs yet, and what is called "give the leg" in the language of cavalrymen was conjugated for a rider with the possibility of injury.
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Here it is appropriate to recall the nickname of Gaius Caesar Caligula - Gaius Caesar "Boot": it was the caligou - a small boot that was sewn for the future emperor, when he was taken by Father Germanicus on campaigns against the rebellious Germanic tribes.
The nomads also brought stirrups to Europe. The domino effect that occurred after the defeat of the Huns from the Chinese, the movement of this warlike tribe to the West, which pushed other tribes from their homes, led to the fact that the West was not only "whipped" by the scourge of God - Attila.
Shod in boots, a barbarian warrior, at the expense of stirrups, capable of throwing a reins, shoot a bow or fight with a sword, while hiding behind a shield, determined military equipment for many centuries.
The boots of the nomads were mainly made of goat skins, dyed with sumach juice - a plant currently used as a seasoning for meat. So they acquired a "rich" red color and in Russia were called morocco. Soft, with graceful folds, such boots became the shoes of the nobility.
Morocco of the lower grades, also suitable for the manufacture of boots, was obtained from sheep and calf skins, and it was tanned with willow or oak bark, and the boots turned out to be black.
The main feature of morocco boots, in addition to softness and strength, was the absence of a heel. This could lead to the rider's leg getting stuck in the stirrup. When falling from a horse, a leg stuck in the stirrup almost always meant death, especially on the battlefield.
Infantrymen of the Slavic army were shod either in bast shoes, or in pistons, ancient leather shoes of the Slavs. Researchers derive the word "pistons" from the Old Russian "flutter", that is, loose or soft. The pistons were “slippers” cut out of a piece of horse or pork skin. They were not sewn, but sewn right along the leg, after fitting, and were attached to the leg with long straps.
Shoes of Vikings or Varangians, about the same time as the steppe nomads who began to move to Russian lands, only from the West, were called "Yorkwick". Jorviks were sewn from two pieces of leather, a sole and an upper part, had a heel and a sharp toe, and a different shape depending on the purpose.
Jorviks with a short top, similar to modern sneakers with a heel, wore shoes while sailing on drakkars. With a high upper part, which was sometimes reinforced with additional leather or metal badges, they were shod at landing and before a military skirmish.
The luxury of morocco boots seduced the first Varangian princes. It is quite possible that Rurik himself quickly took off his Yorkies and put on his morocco boots. In any case, in Russian chronicles, starting from the 10th century, boots are steadily opposed to all other types of footwear (especially bast shoes) as a sign of belonging to the aristocracy.
Boots in Russia have become traditional footwear for many reasons. The bast shoes remained the shoes of the "vile" class, all other classes, including those far from the aristocracy, put on boots whenever possible. Practical, safe, plus plenty of skin.
Morocco boots continued to be the footwear of the highest aristocracy, but even the princes, before getting into the saddle, preferred to change into cowhide boots, more durable and much cheaper. Such boots were sewn from the skin of heifers, rarely - one-year-old bulls, and the skin of younger or older animals was not suitable - it was either not strong enough or too rough.
If the cowhide leather was processed especially carefully, with seal tallow or blubber and birch tar, then leather was obtained. Yuft became one of the main export goods not only of Ancient Rus, but also of Medieval Rus.
The very word "yuft", according to historians, came into the Old Russian language from the Bulgars - the inhabitants of the eastern bank of the Volga, penetrated into European languages, although usually Europeans spoke simply - "Russian skin". Most likely, jackboots were also made of "Russian leather" - boots with wide sockets, both soft, for the French musketeers, and hard, but narrow, for the English cavalry.
The supply of leather goods to Europe remained a profitable business until the beginning of the twentieth century. According to statistics, the annual calf production in Russia amounted to more than 9 million heads, which made it possible to fully meet the needs for leather suitable for the shoe industry and also fully provide the soldiers and officers of the 1.5 million Russian Imperial Army with barn or yuft boots.
Nevertheless, the search for imitation leather, from which it would be possible to sew military shoes, went on for centuries. One of the reasons why they became especially intense at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries was the forecast of the size of armies in wartime, as well as the forecast of the need for boots.
Despite the low cost of one pair of soldier's boots, an army that moved mainly on foot, required millions and millions of boots.
In 1914 prices, soldier's boots cost 1 ruble 15 kopecks (another 10 kopecks for the first grease with shoe polish), officers' boots were ten times more expensive. The cost of shoe polish in peacetime exceeded half a million rubles, and the total cost of the tsarist treasury for soldiers' boots before the First World War exceeded three million. Shoes, ammunition and small arms were the most expendable materials; statisticians and economists preferred not to even remember about human lives.
For the first time, the Russian army encountered a "shortage of boots" during the Russo-Japanese War. The forecasts were disappointing - it was believed that in the future the army would need more than 10 million boots, but even with a huge number of cattle in Russia, there was nowhere to get so much leather.
In addition, although the army contracts were taken by large industrialists, they were distributed among small producers. Large-scale shoe production, united by a single order, standards and technology, did not exist.
A significant role in the emergence of the "boot crisis" was also played by the fact that after the outbreak of the First World War, many soldiers sold a second pair of boots while moving to the front, which is why, according to General Brusilov, by 1917 the soldiers' boots “… not the entire population of Russia”. Punishments for such misconduct, even flogging, had no effect.
Buying soldiers' shoes from the Allies proved to be heavy on the budget. In addition to economic ones, there were contraindications for her and, so to speak, of a cultural nature: the allies could only supply boots, shoes that were unusual for many. And the supply of army boots did not cover the needs of the army. To change the shoes of soldiers in bast shoes meant to undermine prestige.
It was necessary to find a substitute for cowhide leather, as well as organize a large shoe production, completely subordinate to the needs of the army. In other words, it was necessary to find a fabric that, having impregnated with a certain composition, could be used for sewing boots.
The task was simplified by the fact that only boot tops were supposed to be sewn from this, not yet existing fabric, the boot itself was supposed to remain barnyard: preliminary experiments showed that the shoes, entirely sewn from a substitute, were uncomfortable, rubbed the leg, which reduced the combat effectiveness of the troops …
Impregnated materials have been used since ancient times. The Vikings used the method of oiling the fabric to make the sails water-repellent. Even in pre-Columbian times, the Aztecs impregnated raincoats and shoes with a solution of latex.
In 1763, Nathan Smith patented the technology for the production of oiled linen for the first time, describing it as follows: "… on the fabric is a mass covering it from a mixture of resin (resin of coniferous trees), dye, beeswax and linseed oil, which is applied hot."
In Russia, 140 years after Smith, Mikhail Pomortsev began experiments with fabrics. Born in 1851, Mikhail Mikhailovich Pomortsev became the one to whom we owe the appearance of the "tarpaulin". However, this officer, a graduate of the Petersburg Artillery School, a scientist who graduated from the geodetic department of the General Staff Academy, an employee of the Pulkovo observatory and a teacher at the Engineering Academy, was not a combat officer at all.
For Pomortsev, boots were not the meaning and essence of life, as for the famous cavalry lieutenant, Chichikov's hotel neighbor in the city of N. Pomortsev was distinguished by his breadth of scientific interests and during his long life he was able to manifest himself in various fields.
His designs of military rangefinders and aeronautical instruments, research in the field of glider aerodynamics, rocketry, attempts to build an aircraft with variable wing geometry, a parachute of an original design - everything he did and proposed carried an element of innovation.
In the course of, unfortunately, unsuccessful attempts to obtain synthetic rubber in 1904, Pomortsev received a waterproof tarpaulin, and soon, using an emulsion from a mixture of egg yolk, rosin and paraffin, he received a material impermeable to water, but permeable to air - a combination of properties characteristic of natural skin and determining its hygienic qualities. Pomortsev called this material "kirza".
The widespread version says that this is an acronym for the words "Kirovskie Zavody", allegedly during the Great Patriotic War, it was there, in Kirov, former Vyatka, that mass production of both the kersey and tarpaulin boots was organized.
This version is incorrect, as is the one according to which the name of the fabric comes from the surname of the British Prime Minister, Lord Curzon. Pomortsev experimented with the English multilayer “kersey” fabric, named after a small town in Suffolk.
He replaced one letter in the word, obviously based on a word from Olonets dialects given in Dahl's dictionary. Kirza in the lands adjacent to Lake Onega was called the upper, dense layer of earth, through which, due to mosses and organic remains, water could hardly seep.
Kirza Pomortseva was presented at international exhibitions, awarded with prizes and medals. For the development of methods for obtaining imitation leather substitutes, Pomortsev was awarded a Small Silver Medal at the All-Russian Hygienic Exhibition in St. Petersburg in 1913.
After the outbreak of the First World War, Pomortsev offered free of charge a tarpaulin for the manufacture of tops of soldiers' boots, but the contractors supplying boots to the army saw in it a serious threat to their profits, in every possible way prevented the formation of an order for a tarpaulin, and after the death of Mikhail Mikhailovich in 1916, his brainchild was practically forgotten.
Kirza, which we know now, is not at all the one that was received by the outstanding Russian scientist Mikhail Pomortsev. Kirza experienced a rebirth, and this happened thanks to Boris Byzov and Sergei Lebedev. These outstanding Russian scientists have worked together on the problem of obtaining synthetic rubber since 1913.
Having achieved outstanding results, both of them, by a strange coincidence, died a month and a half apart, shortly after the first Soviet artificial rubber plants were put into operation in 1934.
The production of the Soviet tarpaulin was headed by Ivan Vasilievich Plotnikov, a chemist and inventor, a peasant son, who was at one time persecuted as a descendant of kulaks. Plotnikov began to supply his tarpaulin during the Soviet-Finnish war, but it burst in the cold. According to the recollections of Plotnikov's daughter, they were going to accuse him of sabotage.
The chairman of the government commission asked about the reasons why his tarpaulin "does not breathe", and Plotnikov replied: "The bull and the cow have not yet shared their secrets with us." Against expectations, Plotnikov was allowed to continue working, and in 1942 he received the Stalin Prize for a high-quality tarpaulin.
True, by this time the problem with shoes for the army was so serious that army boots began to be received under Lend-Lease. In total, 15.5 million pairs of army boots were supplied to the USSR, but the soldiers tried to get boots at the first opportunity, since in the conditions of off-road and trench life, only they provided at least minimal comfort.
In addition, one must take into account the fact that boots required socks, and boots - footcloths, an ideal "underwear" for this type of footwear. Therefore, despite the fact that the boots played a significant role in the Victory, “ours” were still tarpaulin boots. So much so that the front-line photographers had a clear instruction - when photographing soldiers, to avoid getting into the frame with their boots on.
"Kirzachi" of Victory has become the hallmark of the Soviet Army. They were durable, comfortable, kept warm well, did not let moisture through. In total, almost 150 million pairs of tarpaulin boots were produced in the USSR and later in the Russian Federation.
Millions of boots are still stored in warehouses, although Russian servicemen have long since been changed into so-called ankle boots. However, some types of army boots are still made using tarpaulin. Apparently, we can't get away from her. So many things are connected both with the tarpaulin itself and with the “tarpaulin”. In Russia it is more than fabric, and "kirzachi" is more than shoes.
Viktor Mishetsky, newspaper "Top secret", No. 1
