Aiguillettes?

[ibaya]

See Art's FAQ about tweaking images to fit the 50kb limit:

http://www.soviet-awards.com/forum/f...faq=a1#faq_a1c

From the photo link at Wikipedia, it appeared to be silver akselbanti. But I found other photos that show them to be gold. The collar branch insignia look to be Russian motor rifle/infantry (not the generic star-and-wreath "ground forces"), the shoulderboards are also trimmed with thin gold edging, with shiny "BC" letters (Armed Forces) and a rank chevron above -- post-Soviet transitional.

[willie777]

It is gold because guy is wearing officer cut uniform. But something still puzzles me, why is a pic of a russian soldier there? Russia did not occupy east berlin, soviet union did. Even if it shows a hammer and sickle on the cocarde, the is still a russian flag sleeve patch. Couldnt they have just gotten some 100% soviet uniforms from the warehouses to dress the guy?

[order of glory]

Originally Posted by willie777

I only know of wearing by honor guards and dembel. Why are some silver and some gold?

I have seached every photo in every book I have to find some aiguillettes. The guards at the tomb of Lenin wore gold in this 1987 foto in "A Day in the Life of the Soviet Union" published by Collins, foto by Larry C. Price.

[January]

I have that book, too--it's a great one. I picked it up for US$5 at a bookstore clearance sale back when the Soviet Union existed.

Amusingly enough, I had actually thought about scanning that same picture myself, but realised that about five minutes of Googling brings up loads of photos, and I figured that KGB honour guards wearing aiguillettes were well-known anyway.

Here are a few good ones (middle photo also shows how to wear a parade belt with the winter overcoat):

[ibaya]

Originally Posted by willie777

It is gold because guy is wearing officer cut uniform. But something still puzzles me, why is a pic of a russian soldier there? Russia did not occupy east berlin, soviet union did. Even if it shows a hammer and sickle on the cocarde, the is still a russian flag sleeve patch. Couldnt they have just gotten some 100% soviet uniforms from the warehouses to dress the guy?

From the lack of chest pockets, I surmise that the uniform is Soviet pattern. As such, the collar style indicates that it is not an officer's (non-general) cut uniform -- officer lapels have a "notch" cut, and the collar patches would be oriented differently.

I would guess that they simply took photos of actual, representative soldiers from both American and Russian armies at some point after reunification, and that was the how the uniforms looked at the time.

Here are some pictures of akselbanti from my own collection. They came already attached to the uniforms.

The silver one was on a musician praporschik's parade coat, officer's cut (no silver stars on the woven shoulderboards to indicate specific rank).

The gold one was attached to a state security conscript private's parade coat, which is officer's cut. The "medals" were a mishmash of suspensions with typical znatchki devices, so those were probably thrown on to jazz up the sale.

Judging from all the examples we've seen, the uniform cut and adornments were often chosen to fit the occassion per the commander's instructions. The only things that couldn't be messed with were personal awards and ranks ... you don't put an officer's shoulderboard's on a conscript, etc.

Originally Posted by willie777

In the US, some people wear them on both shoulders. If an infantryman is also an aide to a general, hw wears an infantry blue shoulder cord over his right shoulder and a gold aiguillette over his left. Also, at my local JROTC (Junior Reserve Officer Training Corps), some cadets wear one cord over each shoulder.

In the US Army, there are shouldercords, aiguillettes, and fourragères. The first indicates branch -- only the infantry uses it as part of the normal uniform, other branches have used them for honor guards, but their wear is no longer authorized. The second indicate function -- as you mentioned, aides-de-camp wear gold aiguillettes, but stop wearing them once they leave that billet. The third are decorations bestowed by foreign governments (French Fourragere; Belgian Fourragere; Netherlands Orange Lanyard) on the organization as a whole (regiment, brigade, army, etc) -- once someone leaves the unit, its wear is no longer authorized.

The 3rd Infantry ("Old Guard") in Washington, DC wear wear a black-and-tan "buff strap" on their left shoulder, which is a replica of the knapsack strap used back in the 1800's. When on ceremonial duty they all wear the blue infantry cord and disks as well, regardless of MOS, for uniformity.

In the case of ROTC, both junior and senior, the cords and aiguillettes indicate membership in such things as color guards, honor societies and associations. Since they are supervised and administered by active duty and retired military personnel, the wear closely follows authorized military practices, but since they are meaningless beyond the ROTC, there is sometimes leeway given by Cadet Command.

What bearing this has on Soviet wear of akselbanti? None. But they seem to be constructed to be worn from the right shoulder only. So it is highly unlikely a Soviet soldier or officer ever wore cords from the left or both shoulders.

[willie777]

Thank you for the info. I fully understand the concept of aiguillettes now.

[January]

I found some pictures of enlisted men wearing silver aiguillettes, which I've attached for anyone interested. Sorry, I don't have a scanner, but can do scans next week sometime if someone is really interested. These are from the book Военная одежда Вооруженных сил СССР и России 1917-1990 and variously give dates of 1970-1972. Only the first image shows honour guard uniforms; the next three are parade uniforms for the motorised rifles, Air Force, and Navy, respectively.

[willie777]

Jan, all uniforms are enlisted cut honor guard uniforms, except in the second pic. However, I am very interested in seeing more naval honor guard uniforms. I have never seen naval honor guard uniforms before.

[January]

Hmm, the captions only described them as parade uniforms. Makes sense, though. I just assumed that the others weren't because of the absense of honour guard cap devices. But it never occurred to me that the Air Force and Navy probably didn't used such--not much room left on the cap for that sort of insignia. I don't know a lot about honour guard uniforms!

[ibaya]

Originally Posted by January

Hmm, the captions only described them as parade uniforms. Makes sense, though. I just assumed that the others weren't because of the absense of honour guard cap devices. But it never occurred to me that the Air Force and Navy probably didn't used such--not much room left on the cap for that sort of insignia. I don't know a lot about honour guard uniforms!

Could you give us the complete captions?

The 1988 uniform manual has specific winter in- and out-of-formation officer parade uniforms in Moscow, Leningrad, republic capitals and hero-cities -- grey winter greatcoat worn with white gloves and gold rank shoulderboards). The normal uniform was brown gloves and matching grey shoulderboards.

Since the illustrations show gold edging on conscript shoulderboards, these might be similar, too.