papakha winter cap

[vikingraider1]

I believe these were/are used by honor guards. The cockade is 2-piece 1964 variety, which general use, not just the air force (I have a Kirov Artillery Engineering Academy yearbook, dated 1965, and most of the officers were wearing this).

Ah yes! The honour guard cap made from the same wool as the papharka. Strictly speaking though, this cap was still an Ushanka, just made from different material.

I do not know "historically" what colonels in the USSR wore a grey topped papaka cap like the one in your photo, but for the past fifteen or twenty years I believe that only police colonels (the Militia?) wore them...

Jim

All colonels from military branches of arm were permitted to wear the grey topped papharka. Police colonels too wore grey topped papharkas.

[ibaya]

Just an aside, showing a cap made of astrakhan whose wearer need not have been a colonel or higher!

Maybe if someone could thumb through the 1988 edition of the Soviet military uniform regulations -- might that indicate a colonel's prerogative to wear a papakha?

[vikingraider1]

Just an aside, showing a cap made of astrakhan whose wearer need not have been a colonel or higher!

Maybe if someone could thumb through the 1988 edition of the Soviet military uniform regulations -- might that indicate a colonel's prerogative to wear a papakha?

I'm pretty sure its featrued in the 1974 regulations as well.