Fish fur

Ushanka soldier of the Soviet army

Nanai men's fish skin costume

Fish fur is an ironic expression used to describe low-quality winter clothing , which has a weak ability to retain heat. The term, apparently, is a reference to the Russian proverb : The poor man has a fur coat with fish fur . This means that fish , unlike mammals, does not have fur in principle. And in the case of making clothes from the skin of fish, it can not protect from the cold. Currently, it is also used as a euphemism for describing synthetic fur and other materials, especially of poor quality, not intended for the manufacture of clothing, but used in conditions of cold weather.

Perhaps the saying has retained the idea of ​​the oldest traditions of the riverine peoples making waterproof clothes made from the skin of large fish . The technology was noted in the Volga Bulgaria , this technology has been preserved among the Nanais , the indigenous inhabitants of the lower Amur .

The expression is sometimes used to describe some elements of uniforms issued to personnel in the armed forces and other services. In the Soviet and Russian army, among the privates and sergeants, these things were made of synthetic fur substitute, which became widespread in the 1960s as part of the program for providing Soviet citizens with consumer goods. This material was significantly inferior in thermal properties to the previously used natural fur, which is why it received this ironic name. Also, a reference to a non-existent “fish fur” can be considered as an analogy with a non-existent animal, from which artificial fur was obtained.

N. S. Khrushchev himself personally liked to wear fur hat with fur substitutes , arguing that they were of good enough quality, even for the General Secretary of the Central Committee of the CPSU .

Alexander Solzhenitsyn in his " The GULAG Archipelago " describes the expression " Stalin's fur" ^[1] as a reference to the clothes of prisoners of the GULAG .