Tag Archives: tatar boots

Dec 14 2025

Inaugurating Turkic Languages Day!

The day of December 15th has recently been proclaimed by UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization) as a World Turkic Language Family Day. In 2025, we are celebrating it for the first time!

On this day in 1893 a linguist and turkologist Vilhelm Thomsen (1842-1927) made a very anticipated announcement that the text of the Orkhon Inscriptions (discovered in 1889 during the expedition of Nikolai Yadrintsev (1842-1894)) was deciphered (translation here). The 1300 years old inscriptions, also referred as Kul Tigin (684-731)  steles and Bilge Qaghan (683-734) inscriptions, found in Orkhon valley of modern Mongolia, are the oldest known written records of the Turkic language.

Out of ~8 billion people worldwide, roughly 200 million are speaking Turkic languages, ~7 millions of whom are the Tatar language speakers/ carriers, active and passive. Although the usage of the Tatar language is diminishing due to the prevalence of various lingua franca in the areas of modern habitats, there is a great interest in learning and preserving the Tatar language these days, simply because it connects to the roots (incredibly rich oral, written, material heritage) and to the other Turkic people.

Turkic languages are characterized by the vowel harmony and agglutinative nature of grammatical relations between the words. According to the lexicostatistical matrix of Turkic languages and the article in Journal of Language Evolution, the Tatar language exhibits more than 50% of basic lexical similarities with most of the Turkic languages including Azerbaijani, Bashkir, Gagauz, Kazakh, Karakalpaq, Karachi, Khakas, KirimTatar, Turkish, Turkmen, Tuvan, Uyghur, Uzbek. To have an idea how closely they sound, just give a listen to Bulat Shaymi’s short song where he sings in 12 Turkic languages!

For several millennia, in the vast territories of central EuroAsia, impressive networks have been connecting, non-stop, the flow of goods, skills, thoughts through the well-established trading routes (Volga Route powered by the Volga Bulgars, ancestors of the modern Tatars, and Silk Road) that had been managed by various influential forces, including nomadic Saka/ Scythian Empire, Turkic Kaganates, Mongol Empire evolved into several Turkicized khanates later become referred as Turkistan (Turan by Persian sources, Transoxania, Central Asia by western sources) -the ethnonym represents a conglomerate of many Turkic-speaking states/“-stan”s-, Rossiyan Empire through 1917. 

Although Tatarstan is not a part of Turkestan geographically, the linguistic, customary and historic baseline of the Tatars (originally, Volga Bulgars) of the Volga-Ural area of modern Rossiyan Federation is linked to all Turkic people. The intelligible wide-spread Turkic languages have eased up the channels to carry on business, policies, thoughts, innovations, and the Tatars were instrumental in promoting successful collaborations and opportunities for the Turkic languages-speaking world and its neighbours creating so-called Tatar Empire, a term coined by Danielle Ross in her book.

Material cultures of the Turkic people have many common features that speak to the unified sources of inspirations and beliefs (a subject for a separate post), the distribution of which showcases the collaborative nature of the networks. The simple fact that shchiteqler – boots uniquely decorated with Kaiyly Kün technology mastered by the Volga Tatars – exhibited in collections of many museums worldwide and labeled as originated from various Turkic-speaking places (such as Asia, China, Crimea, East & West Turkestan, Europe, Georgia, Indonesia, Hungary, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Mongolia, Tajikistan, Tatarstan, Russia, Ukraine, Uzbekistan) speaks volumes.

The above Images of shchiteqler are courtesy of online collections (linked further) of PennMuseum of University of Pennsylvania, USA, Museum of Ethnography of Hungary, Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, USA, Metropolitan Museum of Art, USA, Ethnography Museum of Sweden, British Museum of Great Britain.

The due credit and appreciation are not always given to the skilful developers of the unique art in those museum collections: Successful Tatar leather artisans and entrepreneurs had not only manufactured uniquely decorated footwear in its “birthplace” Kazan-Arshcha area of Tatarstan to sell globally, but also had travelled far to trade and open workshops in Central Asia/Turkestan, Caucasus, Eastern Europe, cities of Rossiyan Empire. They shared their exceptionally-processed leather technology inherited from the Volga Bulgars (referred as bulgari/ safiyan/ sahtiyan/ yuft’) and unique decorated footwear making skills, they trained apprentices throughout European and Asian continent for centuries up until early 20ies century.

Let’s celebrate, promote and practice the

Arts of Native “Skilled Tongues” and “Skilled Hands” everyday! 

Nov 10 2025

Treasuring shchiteqler

A pair of intricately and skilfully decorated shchiteqler is good enough to feel and look exceptional! But when researching about uniquely decorated Tatar boots, the more the happier! 2025 has been a year of experiencing a great variety of shchiteqler: ~215 years old… ~3 months young…

Ledermuseum in Offenbach, Germany, owns allegedly the oldest pair in their archives; History and Ethnography Museum in Arsk, Tatarstan, Rossiyan Federation has the largest number of shchiteqler on display. These museums, that are located in two small European towns thousand miles away from each other, possess the treasure that unites them: tangible evidence of impressive leather craftsmanship of the Tatars. Both small towns of Arsk and Offenbach also share “gone” big fame of an epicenter of exceptional leather manufacturing: in late 18th-early 20th centuries both places were bustling with production and trade of quality processed skins and leather goods.

Deutsches Ledermuseum has an impressive collection of ~30 thousand leather artifacts, 12 of which are crafted with Kaiyly Kün. This “extremely distinctive” technology identified as “Ledermosaik” in 1967 museum’s catalogue, as “Saffianleder mit Mosaiken, Mosaikarbeit” in 1980 catalogue, and“Lederinlegearbeit (leather inlay)” on the tags that are placed by actual items. On a windy fall day, a museum curator Leonie Wiegand revealed 7 pairs of tall boots, 1 pair of short boots, 2 pairs of boot shafts, 1 pair of shoes and 1 pouch that were acquired in 1939 from a collector Slg.Schmid of Vienna and have been preserved in excellent condition in the museum archives. One pair of the boot shafts are dated 1812 and noted as to be brought from Rossiyan Empire. Those are the oldest known (with exact date) shchiteqler but they look like have just been crafted! Each item in Deutsches Ledermusuem collection is an excellent representation of versatile assortment of products crafted with kaiyly kun technology in late 18-early 20th centuries. The design in each item does not repeat and speaks to incredible creativity of the Tatar individual and collective leather craftsmanship.

Out of 12 items, the only image that is permissible to be presented is the boot on the left that was photographed for the Deutsches Ledermuseum’s catalogue #6 published in 1980. (The copyright is: © Deutsches Ledermuseum, C. Perl-Appl. The caption reads: Boot, Kazan, Tatarstan, early 19th century). Crafted with Kaiyly Kün technology items are in the Deutsches Ledermusuem’s archives: They are neither displayed on the museum floors nor on the website. Hopefully one day, shchiteqler will be showcased digitally and/or physically for visitors to appreciate the craftsmanship of the Tatars.

A collection of Arsk Historical and Ethnographic Museum brings unique Tatar leather craftsmanship to the perspectives that allow assessment of the Art of Kaiyly Kün through the centuries and into the current times. A large number (over 100 by a shy estimate) of Kaiyly Kün items are exhibited throughout two museum floors and are harmoniously weaved in permanent collection displaying rich history and ethnography of the town. The museum curators Gelyusya Khazieva, Alsu Murtazina, Irina Sinichkina, Regina Akhmatgalimova and others have put a lot of efforts in displaying leather items with distinctive Tatar decorations throughout the museum, allowing the visitors to engage and learn. The museum boasts of massive Kaiyly Kün collection because the Town of Arsk (Arshcha in Tatar language, ~30 miles north-east of Kazan) has been a cradle of Kaiyly Kün, the manual technology that has no analogy and has been mastered in this area for centuries. Arsk has been a backbone of Muslim thought and leather craftsmanship: Promotion of Islamic education and laborious manual artistry have been two prominent features of the Volga Bulgars-turned (Volga/ Idel-Ural)-Tatars for millennia. 

Leather processing and production of shchiteqler became profitable business in 19th-early 20th centuries because of increasing demand among European, American and internal aristocracy of intricate manually crafted work- the elaborately decorated handiwork practiced over millennia by people of various ethnic backgrounds of Eastern Europe, Western, Central Asia (referred as Tartars, Tatars, Muslims, Noghays, Turks, people of Turkistan, Asians, etc.). Up until late 1920ies, large quantities of traditional and customized shchiteqler had been manufactured by individuals and private enterprises in Arshcha (Arsk) and Kazan as well as workshopped far outside of these areas. After ~40 years of hiatus, production of shchiteqler (with simplified designs) continued in less quantities by Soviet state-owned Arsk Footwear factory from 1964 to 2006, the operation of which slowly dwindled in early 2000 due to inability survive novice market economy.

As of now, only a very small number of individual artisans continue producing shchiteqler and building on the legacy of ceased-to-exist Arsk factory. Company “Сахтиян / Sahtiyan” (from Persian ساختيا derived from ساخته “saht” meaning “fit/processed/made), is the only leather goods enterprise that carries reasonable inventory (in their one small shop in Kazan) of elaborately and uniquely designed shchiteqler but with the hides sourced from outside of Arshcha-Kazan. There is one functioning factory that processes leather these days in Kazan-Arshcha area: only cowhides and on a small scale. It is branded as “Сафьян (Safyan/ Saffianleder)”, another way of spelling of sahtiyan: this term carries the legacy of high quality soft colored fragrant leather (originally referred as Bulgari, later as Cordovan, Morocco, Russia) processed with exceptional original technology mastered by the Volga Bulgars, the ancestors of modern Tatars.

Although manually-crafted-with-Kaiyly-Kün shchiteqler are slowly re-gaining popularity, the amount of produced Tatar boots is not even 1% of allegedly estimated annual production of 3 million pairs during primetime. Our dream is that shchiteqler are back on the world stage, in demand so greatly that their supply exceeds the 19th century levels, and that young people are eager to learn, master and benefit from impressive and unique leather craftsmanship of the Tatars. 

Curious abut other leather art explorations and connections? Checkout our other postings/ publishings here or just keep scrolling down this page.

Dec 25 2024

Compare the Boots!

Comparing yourself with others is, generally, considered non-productive since each person is different, exceptional in their own way. But if urge to compare is stronger than ever, change the subject: compare the boots (they wouldn’t mind…). The boots that are beautifully decorated and carry the wisdom and warmth of generations through ethnic designs and intensive crafting! The boots that excite with all the attention to the owner, when worn! Look at the boots created with several leather crafting technologies and, definitely, with the purpose to impress (and keep an evil eye away).

These boots are crafted with three technologies of applying the leather ornaments: inlay, overlay and mosaic. Inlay and overlay attach colorful leather elements using the machine. Leather mosaic attaches the simplistic decorative cutout pieces from the inside of the boot by hand-stitching. The Tatar leather mosaic is the most complex, intricate and manual labour-intesive. The boots created with the Tatar leather mosaic technology is called shchiteq (shchiteqler for plural) in the Tatar language, the language of the Tatar people, the people who have been mastering the Art of Tatar Leather Mosaic for centuries.

If you want to learn the art of Tatar Leather Mosaic, there are several online resources:

 QulEse and Bulgari offer master classes in Kazan, Tatarstan, Russian Federation.

If you are interested in custom-made shchiteqler, email to uniqueleathermosaic at gmail.com.

Oct 9 2024

Praise the Hands!

Dr. Ramilya Saubanova’s exceptional handwork

The magic of hands’ movements producing the music that melts the hearts and fills the souls with warmth is undeniable when Ramilya Saubanova performs the Tatar composer Rustem Yakhin’s Prelude. Ramilya’s skilled hands create a cloud of emotions, connections and memories that captures the listener to the core. The sounds of Ramilya’s interpretation of Tatar classics are simultaneously resilient and vulnerable thanks to the pianist’s deep understanding of Tatar rich heritage. Ramilya Saubanova’s introduction of Tatar composers to the American audience is of exceptional value: It delivers unique and vibrant compositions to the world stage to be appreciated. 

The trained hands of an artist are precious: capable of creating a masterpiece that touches a soul, evokes emotions, excites senses, empowers actions. Ramilya Saubanova’s capturing performances are lined up to indulge the senses in unforgettable ornamentation of Tatar music and mesmerizing handwork.

Ramilya’s talented work, for us, is like a pair of shchiteq – uniquely and intricately designed boot – crafted with patient and skilled hands that keep the centuries-long tradition of Tatar Leather Mosaic alive. 

Skilled and patient hands produce the shchiteqler – a Tatar unique heritage

It is crucially important for humanity to keep and appreciate intangible and material heritage of all people, because the culture of every ethnicity, even as small as the Tatars, contributes to vibrancy, diversity and well-being of a global society. 

Jul 23 2024

Symbolic Power of Footwear

When your dream comes true and you, finally, can “touch” (…well…stay in front of ) the 2300 years old organic exhibit – the leather boots of a noble Altai woman -, a sensible connection with the past starts pulsating through your veins. You can actually feel the rhythms and visualise the reality of those times through the impressively intricate and symbolic decorative handwork captured on the boots. They have been waiting for so many years to be appreciated, interpreted.

The worldview of early EurAsian steppe nomadic people of Turkic background (ancestors of Bulgar-Tatars) dwelled on a strong belief  in procreation and progression of life as well as promotion of marriage and healthy offsprings. This core belief was protected by Tengri and Umai – the spiritual deities of well-being, wellness, family unit and woman health.

In artistic interpretation, the Bulgars-Tatars have been illustrating the code of wellbeing in the form of a stylised progression from the ground towards the sky. The creative way of showcasing this code was mastered in shchiteqler – a unique artistic form of Tatar people. A traditionally decorated shchiteq composition has four parts that corresponds to stages of human life: birth, growth, blossom, and afterlife. Each part is depicted through specific stylised symbolic elements that tell a story of the boot’s creator or owner. 

Jul 27 2023

Memory, Spirit and Legacy

Tатарчаны монда укый аласыз / Tatar version here

The memorial plaque dedicated to “Serp i Molot” plant and its legendary contributors was placed these days on the last remaining wall of the once-powerful plant. Located in historic Bishbalta (Tatarstan) for over 150 years (1851-2015), the plant supplied heavy machinery, conveyor belts and various tools to support livelihood of Russian Empire, of the USSR, Tatarstan, Russian Federation. 

Putting the plaque up is an idea of Garafutdin Minegaziz uly Khisamutdinov, a labor veteran who dedicated over 20 years of his career to the plant. Starting as a locksmith at the age of 17, Garafutdin contributed his skills, excelled, and moved up the ladder to make the plant a success. The collapse of the Soviet Union turned the progressive industrial complex as well as the whole livelihood setup of the USSR upside down.

Many state ventures could not survive the turmoil and, thus, seized to exist.  “Serp i Molot” plant’s fate was not an exception. Although the change opened new opportunities for Garafutdin, his heart has been aching for such a powerful establishment with long history to come to an end on his watch. The plaque commemorates the plant’s existence and its contribution to the history of the city. It also pays a tribute to Garafutdin’s youth that was dedicated to “Serp i Molot” full-heartedly! 

Garafutdin’s partner and supporter of over 50 years, a mathematician by training and a teacher by trade, Zaituna Gafi kyzy Khisamutdinova took the pressure of caring for the household and three children while Garafutdin served in the leadership positions in the plant and the local district government.

Nowadays, the smile and the spirit, the most persistent attributes of Garafutdin and Zaituna, keep them energized to share and preserve the Tatar heritage and the history of Bishbalta.

A bitter story of “Serp i Molot” plant is not the only one. In one of the used-to-be-industrial-heavy districts of Kazan, Kirovskiy, from mid- 19th to late 20th century, there were many large manufacturing and industrial plants supplying various goods to the vast country. Most of them ended their operations in early 21st century including the ones that were dedicated to leather production using tanning and dressing technologies developed in Volga Bulgaria (predecessor of Kazan Khanate and Tatarstan). At the verge of 19th and 20th centuries, the leather manufacturing was the second (after fabric weaving) high-volume-high-profit business in Kazan (“Tatar Industrialist”, S. Belov, 2017, p.5-6). By mid-20th century, only two leather processing and leather goods manufacturing plants operated in Kirovskiy district of Kazan city. Nowadays, the one that produces leather goods ranks 165th out of ~400 in Russian Federation, the leather-processing plant is mostly out of business. 

The legacy of famous high quality soft aromatic leather mastered in Volga Bulgaria that once were pride and fame of the Volga Bulgars (now referred as (Volga) Tatars) has been slowly vanishing in history. The leather tanned using the exceptional technology developed by the Volga Bulgars had been referred as bulgari in Middle Ages in Asia, Europe and America (“The Patterned Leather of Kazan”, L. Sattarova, 2004, p. 7-23). The word “bulgari” had been utilized as an umbrella term for the two types of leather: 1) “juft/yut” (either from Persian جفت meaning “pair” or from Bulgarian «ӳт» meaning “leather”), and 2) “safyan/ sahtiyan” (from Persian ساختيا derived from ساخته “saht” meaning “fit/processed/made). Those terms, originally and primarily, had been referred to goat (safyan) and sheep (yut) hides tanned with sumac and willow bark, colored by plants-derived dyes and oiled by birch tar. In 18th – early 20th centuries, soft leather with distinctive aroma (acquired during the tanning and oiling with birch tar) that was manufactured using the technologies of the Volga Bulgars got referred as “Russia” leather in American and Western literature (“The Manufacture of Leather”, C.Davis, 1885, p.65-68).  

Leather processing is not a profitable business in Kazan anymore. The last leather manufacturing plant in Kirovsky district of Kazan (the successor of various pre-Soviet era profitable leather-tanning establishments of Azmetyev, Yunusovs, Apanayevs, etc.) has been operating on the smallest percentage of its capacity since the collapse of the Soviet Union. It was in-and-out-of-business for the last decade. The hope is on for the famous-aromatic-soft leather bulgari and the exceptionally-decorated-leather-sock-boots shchitekler to gain their momentum again, to be the staple of local economy, and to be a  celebration of (Volga Bulgar) Tatar legacy and handiwork.

Jul 20 2023

Discovering Tatar Boots in Bukhara

Bukhara (pronounced “Bohoro” by locals who speak Tajik, Uzbek and Russian) once was a powerful city-state on the Silk Road. These days,

Bukhara is Uzbekistan’s charming gem with impressive heritage. It excites with plentiful of:

– Islamic historic buildings dating back to 12th century with the original and restored elaborate vegetative and geometric decorations; – medrasas that educated many academicians in Middle Ages; – wooden doors with intricate carvings; – hand-span silk and cotton fabrics with unique designs called abr (from Pesian ابر “cloud“) or  ikat (from Malay mengikat “to tie”) ; – impressively detailed hand-woven silk carpets; – hand embroidered suzani (from Farsi سوزن “suzan” meaning “needle”) that became a synonym of Uzbek artistry.  

What is hard to find in Bukhara are ethnic shoes.There is barely any visibility of traditional footwear of ethnic people populating modern Uzbekistan (the land of indigenous people -Uzbeks, Uyghurs, Tajiks, Turkmen, Kazakhs, Kyrgyz) on the streets, in the museums, in the stores. Locals, these days, give preference to mass produced rubber shoes. In bazars, a small number of vendors sell masi/maxsi (from Arabic  مَسْ “masH” meaning “to wipe”), sometimes called shchiteq (from Tatar “чителгән итек“). Those are soft leather socks (made of halal sheep skin; in Arabic countries, those are called “khuff or kuffain”) that are worn with outer shoes. They are indented to be kept on when entering the mosque for prayer: during ablution it is considered sufficient to wipe those over. Antique shops and ethnographic museums showcase a tiny number of traditional footwear: embroidered fabric boots, full length black leather masi/ shchiteq, hard leather bashmak.

It was a treat to discover a pair of 19th century Tatar boots with ornamental patterns of various colors including vibrant pink (that is super rare) in Akbar House private collection! An antiques collector Akbar Aka mentioned that the boots are one-of-a-kind, not for sale, and that the “appliquéd” leather technique were developed by Volga Bulgars back in middles ages and that the boots like that are not being produced anymore.

We excited Akbar Aka with the fact that the craft is very well alive, that the boots, like his, are referred as Tatar or Kazan boots (shchitekler in Tatar, ichigi in Russian) and have been continuously crafted (although in much smaller quantities and with modernised looks) in Kazan, Tatarstan (the indigenous land of the Volga Bulgars). The ornamental technique of Tatar boots are often mistaken with a well-recognized techniques of appliqué (application of one piece/pattern on top of another) or embroidery. The unique Tatar boot technology (the ones that Akbar Aka owns, or the ones that are housed in Samarkand National Museum, or the ones that are mis-labeled/mis-identified in world museums, auction sites, mass online publications, etc.) aligns the colored leather patterns with twisted silk threads in intricate play of ornamental cutouts (like jigsaw puzzles). It is referred as Tatar Leather Mosaic or “Kayuly Kün”. 

Akbar House Collection features this ethnic outfit on its website. It is a masterful compilation of items, details, patterns, materials, attributes that many Turkic and Iranic people consider their own. The featured soft leather boots with elaborate ornamental patterns tell the story of ancient nomads of Eurasian steppes&mountains and of then-Volga-Bulgars-now-Volga-Tatars who embraced a leather medium to showcase exceptional craftiness, mastery, creativity and spirituality.

Jan 23 2022

Dirt or Snow, Tatar Boots Are to Glow!

As it turns out snow is the best canvas to display the splendour of Tatar boots (shchiteqler)! But to embrace the beauty and comfortability of shchiteqler during wet or snowy weather, one would need another piece of footwear – qalushlar. Those are the rubber low overshoes that would protect gentle leather and intricate ornaments from dirt and water.

Museum of Ethnic Cultures of Minzu University houses the Tatar boots with qalushlar on – that is how schiteqler were protect at the beginning of 20th century.

At the beginning of the 21st century, Crocs are contemporary alternative to qalushlar that care for my beautiful schiteqler!

The hope is that sooner then the beginning of 22d century the overshoes become made of ecologically-friendly materials: not from synthetic rubber of traditional qalushlar and plastic of Crocs (both are derivatives of crude oil), but of natural and renewable materials like dandelion: the special one that is abundant in Eurasian steppes where decorated boots began their charm. Kudos to Continental for engineering the innovative tires from plant kok-saghyz – a modest and powerful dandelion that is native to Central Asia (Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan). It is translated from Kazakh language (and also Tatar) as “root gum” and it’s impressive qualities were discovered by USSR/Soviet scientists in 1932.

Another footwear that Tatar people would put on to protect soft Tatar boots are either bashmaqlar or shchuweqler like the ones pictured below (middle) in the sketches by Tatar prominent sculptor and painter Baqi Urmance. Those sketches (started in 1970) were meant to serve as a decorative background for the Soviet-ideolozied museum of Tatar prominent poet Gabdulla Tukay in Kazan. They ended up not being displayed in the museum but they made it on this website! Urmance’s work masterfully depicts the dynamics of Tukay’s Kiseqbash poem (written in 1908) as well as skilfully showcases the busy life and Islam-dictated fashion of Tatars of early 20th century in the Tatar biste (neighbourhoods) of Kazan.

Sketches by Baqi Urmance

If Baqi Urmace is the staple of Tatar visual arts, Gabdulla Tukay is the staple of Tatar literary arts, then not mentioning one more Tatar staple of musical art Salikh Saidashev would not be fair. Salikh Saidashev is one of the creators of Tatar music that was aligned with Soviet Union’s atheistic (absence of religion) ideology and aesthetics. Here is the glimpse of Saidashev’ & T.Gizzat’s musical “Merchant” (created in 1930ies) that vividly displays the new interpretation and stylezed reality of Tatar life – where religious Islamic practices were forced to be removed but the spirit of cheer and resilient community persist.

Jan 3 2022

Wishes for 2022! Thanks to 2021!

Like everybody else, I have many wishes to come true in the new year! But, first, I want to recognize and thank the last year for things that came my way, particularly, this mind-blowing encounter on the internet. A hand-painted cold-cast porcelain miniature of a Tatar boot (shchiteck) designed by Raine Willlitts back in 2002 that had been patiently waiting to be found by me! What a discovery! This is a miniature replica of right boot that was worn by Caroline Ogden-Jones Peter. Caroline and her husband Armistead Peter traveled the world and claimed New York, Paris, Washington DC (Tudor place) as their homes.

Just by looking at the Caroline’s portrait that hangs in the Tudor place (painted by her husband in 1925), one can say that she was a fashionista. She, most likely, had been visiting fashionable salons and fairs around the world to keep up with the trends. Paris World Fair in 1925 (International Exhibition of Modern Decorative Arts and Industrial Arts) was, probably, the place where she spotted unique Tatar boots that were featured in the USSR’s pavilion that impressed visitors with it’s futuristic designs and elaborate presentation of folk art of many diverse ethnicities of young Union of Soviet Socialistic Republics.

This exhibition in Paris of 1925 (world fairs once used to be grandiose events to showcase the country’s capabilities and potential) was the great opportunity for the newly established USSR (1922-1991) to display its uniqueness not only from the political stand (as socialistic endeavour with equality as the highest value). It vowed the visitors with exceptional, not-seen-before-by-Westerners plentitude of versatile decorative folk arts of multiple indigenous people. It signalled that the strengths of USSR is in it’s diverse ethnic backgrounds and skilled hands that were inherited from myriads of past ruling empires including Ottoman and Russian.

“Les Bottes brodées-“itchegui” des Tartares de Kazan” (embroidered boots “ichigi’/”schiteck” made by Kazan (Volga) Tatars) were among the ones mentioned and boasted about in the official brochure. Tatar leather mosaic – the technique the “Tartares” boots were decorated in – is truly exceptional utilitarian art that captured the eyes of not only Caroline Peter but many others. Tatar boots were sought-after items that accessorised the looks of fashionistas of early 20th century.

Unfortunately, unfavourable progression in the USSR’s leadership attitudes towards ethnic minorities led to stagnation of indigenous people’s cultures, languages and folk arts including Tatar Leather Mosaic. My wish for the new year and years to come is that Tatar boots are back to production heights of the early 20th century (millions per year) and are desired by many.

Illustration of Tatar boots of 1925 Paris World Exhibition’s catalogue
Apr 1 2021

How Old Is the Oldest Leather Shoe?

The oldest (found so far) leather sandals were worn 6000 years ago! They were discovered in Cave of Warrior in Judean Desert in 1993.

The oldest all-foot covered leather soft shoe was found in the cave of Armenian Highlands in 2008.

The exceptional discovery was made by Soviet archeologists in 1947 in Pazyryk kurgans of Altai Mountains (south of modern city of Novosibirsk in Russian Federation), when the oldest ornamented leather boots were excavated from the burrows of Scythian nomadic tribes that had been waiting to be found for over 2300 years. All three recovered boots are decorated with intricate patterns and ornaments that bore sacred meaning for the owner.

The Tatar boots tradition is keeping the spirit and the leather craftsmanship of the nomadic heritage.

“Warrior Sandals”“Armenian Incognito”“Otze the Iceman”“Cave Moccasin”“Salt Man”“Siberian Beauty”“Roman Fort Lady”“Turkic Seamstress”
Isarel Antiquities Authority Article in Scientific JournalSouth Tyrol Museum of ArcheologyArticle in Science JournalZanjan Archeology Museum Hermitage Museum Saalburg MuseumNational Museum of Mongolia