Victims of hazing in the Russian army (13 photos). Where did hazing come from in the Soviet army?

Hazing in the USSR army flourished in the 1970s and 1980s, but its roots should be sought beyond the period of stagnation. Cases of hazing in the Armed Forces also occurred in early years Soviet power, and in Tsarist Russia.

Origins

Until the beginning of the 19th century, attempts at relations not according to regulations in the Russian army were successfully suppressed. This was connected both with the authority of the officers and with the level of discipline personnel. However, closer to the middle of the century, as society liberalizes, orders become more free among military personnel.

The scientist and traveler Pyotr Semyonov-Tyan-Shansky in his memoirs recalled his stay at the School of Guards Ensigns and Cavalry Junkers, where he entered in 1842 as a 15-year-old youth.

“The newcomers were treated in a way that degraded their dignity: under all possible pretexts, they were not only beaten mercilessly, but sometimes outright tortured, although without brutal cruelty. Only one of the pupils in our class, who was distinguished by cruelty, walked with a belt in his hands, on which he was tied big key, and even beat newcomers on the head with this key,” wrote Semyonov-Tyan-Shansky.

At the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, cases of hazing began to occur much more often. The Nikolaev Cavalry School even had its own vocabulary, reflecting hazing. The juniors were called “beasts”, the seniors were called “cornets”, and the second-year students were called “majors”.

The methods of bullying the elders over the younger ones in the school were striking in their diversity and originality and, according to contemporaries, were developed by entire generations of predecessors. For example, harsh first-class “majors” could force newcomers to “eat flies” as punishment.

The first case of hazing in the Red Army was recorded in 1919. Three old-timers of the 1st Regiment of the 30th Infantry Division beat their colleague born in 1901 to death because the young soldier refused to do their work for the old-timers. According to martial law, all three were shot. After this incident, for almost half a century there were no official reports of recorded cases of hazing in the USSR army.

Return

When in the late 1960s Soviet army cases of hazing began to be noted again, many, especially veterans of the Great Patriotic War, did not want to believe in it, calling it fiction, nonsense. For the gray-haired front-line soldiers, for whom morale, honor and mutual assistance in war were above all else, this was not easy to accept.

According to one version, hazing returned to the army after conscription service was reduced in 1967 from three years to two in the ground forces and from four to three in the navy. For some time, a situation arose that in one unit there were conscripts who were serving their third year and those who were destined to spend a year less in the army. The latter circumstance infuriated the employees of the old conscription, and they took their anger out on the new recruits.

There is another reason. The change in service life coincided with a shortage of conscripts caused by the demographic consequences of the war. The five-million-strong Soviet army was to be reduced by a third. In order to somehow compensate for demographic losses, the Politburo of the CPSU Central Committee was forced to decide to conscript men with a criminal record into the army, which had previously been completely excluded.

The functionaries explained this event as the correction of fellow citizens who had stumbled. However, in reality, former residents of prisons and zones began to introduce into military use the orders and rituals of their former places of residence.

Other observations place the blame for hazing on unit commanders who began to widely use soldier labor for personal material gain. Economic activities not provided for by the charter led to the fact that old-timers began to act as supervisors over soldiers in their first year of service.

However, sociologist Alexey Solnyshkov notes that already in 1964 a number of works appeared on the issues of hazing, which means that this problem existed earlier and has deeper roots. Moreover, some experts on hazing in the army argue that hazing has never gone away, but has always been there everywhere.

Society's disease

For many researchers, hazing in the Soviet army is a direct consequence of the changed social background in the country. Admiral and former commander of the Northern Fleet Vyacheslav Popov believes that hazing is a disease of society that was transferred to the army environment.

In the 1960s, a breakdown occurred in Soviet society, when the elite, having finally escaped from the total control of the Stalinist system, began to shake the system of subordination and subordination that had been developing for decades. Responsibility was replaced by irresponsibility, and pragmatism by voluntarism.

Scientist and publicist Sergei Kara-Murza connects hazing with the fall of the communal principle of building the Union and with the transition of the entire population to Eurocentric and individualistic lines. Kara-Murza calls this “virtually the first bell of a catastrophic destruction of public morality.”

This was a time when ships and planes were cut for scrap, and large reductions took place in the officer corps. Generals who tried to counter what they saw as a destructive process were immediately removed. In their place came a new, “parquet” generation of military leaders, who were no longer concerned with increasing combat readiness, but with personal well-being.

At the turn of the 1960s and 70s, few people believed in an external threat, and this greatly dampened the Armed Forces. However, an army cannot exist without hierarchy and order. All this has been preserved, but according to new trends it has been transformed into non-statutory methods of maintaining discipline. As Kara-Murza notes, the emasculation of Stalinism from the army led to the fact that an obvious and harsh form of suppression of the individual was replaced by a softer and hidden one.

The ideology of hazing is well illustrated by the words of one of the warrant officers: “Hazing is beneficial to me. What is most important to me? So that there is order and everything is done clearly and on time. I’ll ask the grandfathers, and let them demand it from the young people.”

The language of hazing

Hazing in the army is a long-established principle of everyday life and a way of communication between soldiers. Naturally, hazing also requires specific vocabulary, which emphasizes hierarchy among conscripts. Vocabulary varies according to the types of Armed Forces, the characteristics of the unit and the location of the military unit. However, any language of hazing is understandable to everyone. Here is the most commonly used dictionary:

A soldier who has not yet taken the oath and lives in a separate barracks: “salabon”, “mammoth”, “smell”, “quarantine”;

Serviceman of the first half of the year of service: “spirit”, “goldfinch”, “siskin”, “goose”;

Serviceman of the second half of the year of service: “elephant”, “walrus”, “senior goose”;

A soldier who has served more than a year: “cauldron”, “scoop”, “brush”, “pheasant”;

A soldier who has served from one and a half to two years: “grandfather” or “old man”;

A serviceman who is in a unit after the order to transfer to the reserve is issued: “demobilization” or “quarantine.”

Some terms require decoding. “You are not even “perfume” yet, you are “smells,” - this is what the “grandfathers” told the recruits who had just arrived at the unit. Why "smells"? Because the conscripts still smelled of their grandmother’s pies, which they were fed with before service.

The next level of the recruit is “spirit” (also “salabon” or “stomach”). He is a nobody in the army. He has no rights. Nobody owes him, but he owes everything.

“Elephants” were called conscripts who had already become involved in everyday life in the army: they were not yet accustomed to fighting and were ready to withstand any load.

When a soldier entered a critical period of service, he was considered a “scoop.” To gain the status of being “initiated” into the “scoops,” he had to withstand twelve blows on the buttocks with a ladle. The task of the “scoop” is to ensure that the “spirits” and “elephants” do not interfere with each other. He doesn't seriously strain himself, but still doesn't have many rights.

Rituals

The transition of military personnel to the next hierarchical level was accompanied by a special ritual - transfer. Its forms were different, but the essence was the same. For example, a soldier was beaten with a belt as many times as he had months left to serve, and he had to endure all this in silence. However, when moving to the “grandfather” category, the blows were inflicted with a thread, and the soldier had to scream at the top of his voice, as if suffering from severe pain.

The navy had its own rituals. So, when transferring from the category of “crucian carp” to “one and a half”, the ritual of “washing off the scales” took place. Depending on the weather conditions and the location of the action, the “crucian carp” was thrown overboard, dipped into an ice hole, or doused with a fire hose, trying to carry out the transfer ceremony unexpectedly for the “initiate.”

The Soviet army also practiced more severe rituals, such as “punching the elk.” The old-time soldier forced the new conscription soldier to cross his arms at some distance from his forehead, after which he struck him in the crosshairs of his hands. The force of the blow depended on the mood of the “grandfather” or the guilt of the recruit.

Often the ritual side of hazing faded into the background, and the old-timers began to openly mock the newcomers. Sometimes it ended in tragedy. Not only for “spirits”. During the period of perestroika, the “case of Sakalauskas”, a young soldier from Lithuania who shot a guard of seven senior colleagues at the entrance to Leningrad in February 1987, became widely known.

Among the dead were Sakalauskas’ offenders: cook Gataullin, who regularly added half a glass of salt or sand to the “spirit” portion, depriving him of breakfast or lunch; senior sergeant Semyonov, who more than once dunked a private’s face into the toilet, putting him on duty for 10 hours. After the incident, Sakalauskas was diagnosed with chronic mental illness with a continuously progressive course” was sent for compulsory treatment.

And there were many such tragic consequences of hazing. How did the military leadership react to this? Back in the summer of 1982, secret order No. 0100 was issued to combat hazing. However, by this time hazing had become so widespread that it was almost impossible to fight it.

Moreover, senior party and military officials were in no particular hurry to eradicate hazing. Firstly, their children were protected from this scourge by right of birth, and secondly, in order to declare war on hazing, it was necessary to publicly acknowledge its existence. Well, how could there be hazing in a country of developed socialism?..

Hazing’s not dead: Demobilization stories from hell

Eyewitness accounts of violence, extortion and suicide in today's army

The spring conscription into the army is in full swing - summonses are flying through mailboxes in the manner of magical letters from Hogwarts, future defenders of the Motherland are dying in lines for a medical examination, and the most caring parents are figuring out who needs to pay to save their child. Surprisingly, among hundreds of thousands of frightened young men there are volunteers who themselves are eager to spend their “youth in boots.” This desire is due not only to the desire to fill the existential void with something, but also to confidence in one’s own safety. “Hazing is in the past, no pissing, a fighter” - this can be heard quite often these days, but should we trust it? We interviewed guys who returned to civilian life quite recently.

Pavel, 20 years old

Service life: 2014–2015

I served in Kamenka near St. Petersburg. This part regularly became the subject of articles and generally has a bad reputation. This is officially one of the craziest regions for services and a record holder for the number of regular corpses, escapes and criminal cases.

We were gathered for training in Arkhangelsk for two weeks - there were tanks, helicopters, planes and a lot of other things. After the exercise, unexploded ordnance remains at the training ground. First, the sappers went through, then the leadership decided to send in soldiers in a second wave. About 150 people stood in a line and walked across the field - through the bushes, through the mud, along the ground. If you find a shell, then stick a stick with a red tip next to it and move on (personally, I found a couple of RPG shells and some other crap). Before that, they lined us up and forced us to sign the safety instructions, but they didn’t let us read them. We were immediately told that it was better for us not to die there - no one would look into it and spoil the already bad reputation of the unit. The sergeant major with a calm face told us that the number of dead must exceed 3% of the total number of soldiers for the investigation to begin. If, for example, out of a hundred soldiers only two or three die at the training ground, then the bodies will be buried in the forest, and the parents will be told that the guys escaped. Deserters, disgraceful cowards, that's all. We were shocked by such frank instructions. Most of us were lucky - we weren’t blown up by grenades or caught by a bullet. But one dude fell victim to careless handling of the machine gun. A letter was sent to the family, saying that your son ran away into the forests and went missing.

In principle, most of the soldiers were happy with everything. I served with repulsed fighters who were absolutely inadequate. Rednecks, gopotas - I don’t know how to characterize this group of people. They constantly beat us and demanded money all the time. In the first month we needed 30 flashlights. I was told that I had to buy them - otherwise my arms would be broken. I called acquaintances and friends, looking for money.

In my call there was a guy named Vanka, who quickly acquired the nickname Vanka Packet. The reason is extremely simple - the whole part fucked him in the mouth through plastic bag(including some officers). The guy was quiet with a very gentle character, who was unlucky to end up in such a unit full of scum. As a result, he disappeared somewhere without a trace - there were rumors that he had hanged himself. This did not come as a surprise to anyone - in the unit someone was constantly hanging himself, this was not an event.

The non-profit charitable foundation "Mother's Right" helps families whose sons died in the army due to hazing or appalling living conditions. The fund receives from 3,000 to 7,000 requests per year.

Maxim, 21 years old

Service life: 2013–2014

Medicine was hell. While I was serving, several people died of pneumonia because no one cared about them. Everyone whose temperature was less than 38.5 worked equally with the rest. There were five people with a temperature of 37, but they didn’t give a damn, so they were kept in the barracks for five days, but they weren’t allowed to lie down, only sit and read the regulations (in the army you can only lie down at the end of the day, i.e. . at night). It turned out that all these boys had pneumonia. They found out only a few days later, when they finally decided to send them to the medical unit.

There was another guy - the doctors treated him for the flu, and one day he fell into a coma. He died the next day. If I'm not mistaken, they diagnosed inflammation of the soft tissues of the heart. Six months after my demobilization, one guy broke down and shot himself on guard. In the army, however, there is a lot of time for thinking - catching depression is a hell of a thing.

Once I slept three hours in five days, and as a result I fell asleep right in the ranks on the move. But my health is normal, so I stayed OK. But there was a guy with us - in the first days of the army he felt so bad for some reason, he even peed himself. He couldn't work, couldn't do anything - they bullied him even more and sent him to do dirty work, clean toilets and so on. He constantly asked to go to the hospital, but such people are not respected in the army and therefore they mocked him even more - not only employees, but also officers. As a result, he was released to the hospital - it turned out that he had kidney failure and a double kidney. And this is a 100% rejection from the army, he immediately went home. His failure is that he did not come to the military registration and enlistment office and was not examined - he was immediately taken from his home, but he could have been killed. I was also taken from home; I had never been to a military registration and enlistment office in my life. They took me straight to the medical examination, where I said that I had a seizure disorder as a child. They told me that this is a normal topic. Recently, however, I found out that this was also a 100% slope. Get yourself hurt, man.

There were guys who couldn’t stand it and tried to get away with a white ticket - well, they were kind of crazy. They, too, naturally, were bullied even more, but it was actually hard for them. One of these constantly complained that his stomach hurt, but, of course, he was not sent for treatment. His mother brought him some medicine, it gave him gas, and he was beaten even more for this. I always cried, I wanted to go home - after a few months of this hell I managed to go crazy.

Hazing was a disgusting phenomenon in the Soviet army. Let us immediately make a reservation that “hazing” is inherent not only in the Soviet army, but also in other armies, however, often service in other armies is often not forced, but is concluded on the basis of a contract. Not only were they actually forced into the army in the Soviet Union, without the right to alternative service, but sometimes they turned soldiers into free slaves, rented out to build dachas or do other work. It is not known how this raised the spirit of the defenders of the Motherland or contributed to the growth of defense capacity, but such cases became almost the norm in the last decade of the existence of the Soviet Union. However, to a greater or lesser extent, hazing is characteristic of all groups of soldiers, including cases in elite troops.

I witnessed the teeth of a guy from my conscription being knocked out; he was 28 years old and had a family of two children. They were drafted until the age of 18 to 30, if I’m not mistaken, but since he was married and had small children, he was given deferments, and a couple of years were not enough until he was not of conscription age. A good-natured guy, in the very first week he lost his two front teeth; his “grandfathers” knocked them out, or rather they were dentures, which he inserted just before the army. Then I saw him beaten, and then he disappeared somewhere, I wasn’t particularly interested. I happened to serve at a time when the Soviet Union began to fall into a fever and goods began to disappear in stores. In the “royal troops” - the construction battalion, where I ended up after the first year of the institute on vision, food was a semi-mythical concept. Burnt porridge and barley drink, over which fights sometimes broke out, was the warrior’s daily diet. They drank this “coffee” from the same unwashed plates after porridge. There were spoons, but no glasses or forks. The delicacies included black bread and sugar, which they managed to steal along the way from the sergeant’s mess, for which “spirits” were sent from time to time. A piece of sugar and water seemed incredibly tasty. Most likely, the officers stole the food, since there was no funding at all. And for two weeks, while renovations were being done in the canteen, we were taken to the city canteen and fed quite well. On holidays, I remember, they gave me canned food once and butter. How did we survive? Since we worked for brick factory, well, yes, this is such service to the homeland, making bricks, there was a civilian canteen at the factory. The civilian foreman gave everyone coupons, and there was a full lunch, a cutlet and even half a glass of sour cream. You could buy food in a cafe outside the unit, but that was if you managed to hide the money. The plant worked around the clock, three shifts of construction battalion, one civilian. It was nice to get to work the second shift with civilians; they could give you real tea and sometimes cookies. Another part worked at a neighboring plant, along with them worked “chemists” who were not convicted of serious charges. The situation of the soldiers was not much better than those of the “chemists”. Fights were something common; there were cases when old-timers fought with officers. I wanted to eat constantly, but the constant lack of sleep brought me to the state of an animal - they would have given me a machine gun and told me to shoot, they would have shot without understanding who or why. But there were no machine guns. The oath was taken in Lenin's room in slippers, without machine guns. Some Uzbeks could not read the oath... and that’s okay. From the harmless entertainment of the sergeants, roll call.
- Petrov.
- I.

Head from *** - long cackle.

Stealing from each other, boots had to be placed under the legs of the bed because they were stealing. I myself have one boot size 43, the second one was size 44. And some went out to the divorce in 20 degree frost in slippers. The heating in the barracks was weak. We slept in clothes with pea coats on top of the blanket. This caused some people to have blouses in the seams of their clothes. Underwear was not changed, washed and washed after the shift. Washing does not mean that you had a bar of soap, sometimes you just get wet under water, there were no towels, you dried yourself with underwear. Because of the cold and wet underwear, some people developed boils and the common “Siberian rosette”. An ulcer that did not heal, but slowly rotted, constantly growing. There were no showers in the barracks. For some reason the push was closed in the barracks. The toilet was in the yard; in winter, icebergs of yellow urine froze there. From the positive side, the construction battalion paid money, usually it was sent to the parents’ book, otherwise it would have ended up with the “grandfathers”. For a box of vodka, however, you could buy yourself a privileged position. Rent an apartment in the city, don’t live in the barracks, but only go to work at the factory.
I had to do a little work; in the city military prosecutor's office, they remembered the case of beating a soldier, breaking off his scrotum and broken ribs, at that time this was not even very surprising. Now I’m asking myself what kind of animals served in the Soviet army that could beat up their comrade for fun. They beat me based on my nationality and just like that. Everyone was drafted into the unit, including those on probation. If there were few Muscovites in the company, the “chocks” pressed them. If it’s the other way around, then they wet the “chock”. Fellowship was widespread.
In the army I learned what true “brotherhood of peoples” is. Who knows what kind of school of life this is. Quite, I admit that in other military units it was different.

It is worth recalling that in the Russian imperial army

During the reign of Peter I, Catherine II, Paul I and during the time of Alexander I, hazing, including disagreements on religious grounds, was suppressed in every possible way. Grandfather soldiers, who survived 25 years of continuous wars, taught recruits to survive, seeing this as the main educational function of the army. A soldier who went through the Suvorov military school could not raise his hand against a soldier like himself, only because of his inexperience, since he understood that in battle next to a colleague he had humiliated, he might not feel the reliable shoulder of a comrade who would cover him in attack. “Die yourself, but save your comrade!” - became a conscious choice of the Suvorov soldier.

The first case related to hazing in the Red Army was recorded in 1919. Three old-time soldiers of the 1st Regiment of the 30th Infantry Division beat to death their colleague, Red Army soldier Yu. I. Kupriyanov, a native of the Balakovo district of the Samara province, born in 1901, due to the fact that the young soldier refused to do their work for the old-timers. According to the laws of war, those responsible for the death of a soldier were shot. After this official reports about recorded cases of hazing in the army Soviet Russia and the USSR did not exist for almost half a century.

According to one version, “hazing” was indeed not characteristic of the Soviet Army before the introduction of a reduction in conscription service in 1967 with three years to two in the ground forces and from four to three in the navy. The reduction also coincided with a period of shortage of conscripts caused by the demographic consequences of the Great Patriotic War. Patriotic War, because of which the five-million-strong Soviet army had to decrease in number by a full third. By decision of the Politburo of the CPSU Central Committee, people with a criminal record began to be drafted into the army, which had previously been completely excluded. Ideologically, this was taught to society as the correction of fellow citizens who had stumbled, but in reality it led to the fact that former inhabitants of prisons and zones began to introduce ritual humiliation and bullying into army life. That is, criminal rules were introduced into the army, and thieves' jargon penetrated into the army language. The reduction in service life affected only newly drafted people; those who had already served served out their full term. For a certain period of time, in the same military unit there were at the same time those who served for the third year, and new recruits who were supposed to serve one year less. The latter circumstance angered those who had already served for two years, and they often took out their anger on the new recruits.

According to other observations, since the late 1960s, some unit commanders began to widely use soldier labor for personal material gain. Economic activities in military units not provided for by the regulations led to the emergence of a system of non-statutory relationships in which old-timers would play the role of “overseers” over working soldiers in their first year of service. Such relationships required the unquestioning submission of young soldiers to any instructions of the older soldiers. In order to break them and turn them into obedient “slaves,” conscripts were subjected to moral and physical pressure and were subjected to violence. Thus, according to this version, hazing arose as a way of managing hazing economic activity military units. Over time, in a number of units, officers began to use “hazing” as a method of control, since they themselves shirked training young soldiers and educational work.

By the end of the 1960s in Armed Forces The USSR no longer had the same number of front-line commanders who were the majority in the army and navy after the end of the Great Patriotic War and who, from their own personal experience knew that a healthy moral environment in the unit entrusted to them is often the key to preserving their own lives.

However, there are some reasons to doubt all of the above versions. According to the research of candidate of sociological sciences A.Yu. Solnyshkov, already in 1964 the first and most productive works of Soviet representatives of psychological science who dealt with the issues of “hazing” appeared, which in itself shows that the phenomenon existed until the mid-1960s, and the roots it's much deeper. In addition, according to him, over forty years of research into the hazing phenomenon, domestic scientists have not been able to make significant progress compared to the productive work of A.D. Glotochkin and his students, carried out in the early 1960s.
In the summer of 1982 in Soviet troops secret order No. 0100 was received to combat hazing.
During Perestroika, the “case of Sakalauskas,” a young soldier from Lithuania who shot a guard of 7 old-timers at the entrance to Leningrad in February 1987, became widely known.

Wikipedia.

As you can see, these photographs are from a later period, the uniform is not the same, although the belts are still from Soviet stocks, time has passed, and ugly hazing remains in the post-Soviet army.

The photo above may have been staged. Well, firstly, these were cadets, there was more discipline there. This is how future officers of the Soviet Army fooled around.

Photographer in

1. Military personnel who do not take care of personal hygiene and do not shave on time have their faces rubbed as punishment. waffle towel, thereby “shave” the person

2. A person is suspended between the headboards of the bed in a spacer - with his hands he holds on to one headboard, with his feet on the other, it’s called “drying a crocodile” I’ve never seen it, I’ve only heard rumors that for the sharpness of sensations a bayonet and a knife were placed down

3. The wires of the machine’s dynamo are tied to the toes (ears, hands) and spin at different frequencies, it’s called a “death machine” I’ve only heard of such topics

4. “Punch the moose” Hands are placed in a cross on the forehead so as not to leave bruises on the head, the blow is applied with the hand (foot, boot, stool)

5. “Elephant” They put a gas mask on a soldier, block the air supply, then suddenly open the air supply, give him a breath of air, and hit him in the chest with a hand or foot.

10. The “bicycle” of the soldier lies on his back, matches are inserted into his toes and set on fire, from the fire the soldier begins to twist his legs, similar to pedaling.

In the Soviet Union, and in a broader sense in Russia, there has always been a significant hierarchical structuring of society according to a wide variety of criteria. But the most interesting thing is that great value attached to external attributes of status. For example, once upon a time, boyars wore kaftans of a certain cut, and it was very clearly indicated who was supposed to use what fur, what decorations, and sleeve length. Based on these signs, one could quite easily determine the social level of this boyar. Very great importance was also given to hats...
Interestingly, echoes of this have reached us, and in the recent Soviet past, a fur hat could with a fair degree of probability determine the status of a citizen. Rabbit hats were worn by insignificant people, as they would say today - losers. Nutria could be worn by both well-earning proletarians and the lower stratum of “free” people. Next came hats made of muskrat and fawn. These are already respectable people, often party workers or trade workers...

Such hierarchical features manifested themselves even more clearly in closed communities. In this regard, it is interesting to turn to the experience of the Soviet Army. So:

1. A soldier is only a conscript. Service life up to six months. Spirit, fighter, goose, hare, elephant, solobon, etc.
Actually, this category of servicemen is not entitled to absolutely anything. Everything is only according to the regulations. A very tight “wooden” belt, a cotton belt with a collar fastened with a hook...
Musician Valery Kipelov

Haircut only to zero, or a little more. The only possible award is the Komsomol badge “on a needle.” The parade is either new or “exchanged” on a voluntary-compulsory basis with old-timers.
When taking the oath, concessions are possible. You can sit and have a smoke.

2. A soldier who served for half a year. Also a fighter, gusila, senior hare, etc.
There are not many changes in the form of clothing, but there are some. You can unfasten the hook on the collar and loosen the belt. Apparently a graduate of the sergeant's school.

The hook is fastened, but the hat speaks eloquently that he served at least half a year or more. The higher it is and the more angular, the steeper it is. Usually, cuts were made in the cap with inside, and cardboards (covers from the charter) or pieces of plastic were inserted there. Ideally, the hat should be absolutely bucket-shaped. Judging by the cockade, Roman Abramovich served for no more than a year.

3. A soldier who has served for a year. Scoop, skull, candidate, pheasant, yearling, etc.
Radical changes are coming here. This can do almost anything. True, it should be clarified here that all relaxations are possible only after the official transfer to scoops. It's a whole ritual. Each fighter has “his own” grandfather. As a mentor in production. At night, a sacred ceremony takes place in the barracks, when the fighter is placed on stools and whipped on the ass with a belt. This is done either by “his” grandfather or by several old-timers. They whip well, with force, six blows with the plaque. At the same time, the one who is transferred to the scoops must shout “Don’t fuck!” This has great semantic meaning. From that moment on, he becomes “not **butchy.” Those. he doesn't care about any problems at all household plan. Everything falls on the shoulders of those who served less and still went through this solemn procedure. Naturally, this whole procedure is accompanied by drinking. Responsible for software support is newly transferred to new status soldier.

But let's get back to form...
Now our soldier can walk with a button undone, wear a leather belt, which “his” grandfather was obliged to pass on to him, and he can wear it very relaxed. He has the right to sew in the uniform, make recesses on cotton and paradka, has the right to smooth out the horizontal arrow on the back, called the “greyhound stripe,” can trim the boot tops by a few centimeters, or repair the accordion. Heel padding is allowed. Now you can wear a vshivnik - a non-statutory civilian sweater under forsen cotton.
The plaque on the belt should change shape and become more curled, just like the cockade. The collar can now be hemmed with a stand-up stitch.

In general, soldiers in the army are the most elegant and front-line part of the soldier community.

Naturally, these liberties are worth a lot, and the right scoop would rather sit on its lip than fasten a hook or pick up a rag, a shovel... Unless there are only grandfathers around, and there is no one to delegate the work to. However, this is also not a fact. According to the law, no one has the right to force him to work.

I remember how I got sick and ended up in the medical unit. And in the medical unit there was such an order that those recovering had to go to the storeroom with thermoses and bring food for all patients. But, this must happen - among the patients there was not a single young person... For three days no one went to the canteen to get food.

Their fighters brought portions, and this made it possible not to stretch out their legs. On the third day, a young warrior appeared with a temperature of 40... and was immediately sent to the dining room covered with sideburns.

Here's a typical scoop.

4. A soldier who served for a year and a half. Grandfather.
Everything is allowed. The belt is worn “on the balls”, the buttons can be undone, all of them can be hemmed with black thread. You absolutely cannot work. Chasing young people is also bad manners. This is what the evil scoops should be doing. All thoughts are only about demobilization, all interests are preparing a demobilization album and a demobilization uniform.

5. Dembel. The same grandfather, but after the order.
Dressed ostentatiously sloppily. The belt is wooden, which is taken from the boy in exchange for his own leather one. In this case, the plaque straightens completely. Just like the cockade. This category of soldiers considers themselves, as it were, civilians, and this is manifested, for example, in the fact that demobilization does not eat its own butter for breakfast, but gives it to the young. If we walk in a common column, the demobilizer is already at a loss, and he does this only in case of emergency. He wears whatever he can, almost like a “partisan” (a civilian called up for retraining). At the same time, in the captor hangs a brand-new demobilization uniform with braid and velvet, a demobilization diplomat, an album, etc. are ready.