Soviet navy shoes, with leather soles, surplus

Sometimes you encounter stuff that's so horribly wonderful you just can't help yourself but buy it all. Such articles are these Soviet/Russian navy service shoes. The Veshmeshok of the footwear world - rugged, rough, and look very much like something out of the early industrial era. Used by Russian sailors not-that-long-ago, but these examples are unworn.

Like a regular men's shoe, but from the Soviet Union. Meant for military use, so the materials are tough (thick leather mostly), the details of the workmanship sloppy, and the whole thing is modeled probably after some 19th-century clog. These will probably break you in overtime. The soles are NAILED on, no cheap glue trickery here. Comes with either a leather insole, cardboard/leather insole, or no insole at all, we can't really say which is the worst.

A slick salesman could say you can really see the healthy signs of handcrafting in these, and he wouldn't be actually wrong either. To us these paint vivid images of early industrial era cobblestone streets, lice, and bad work conditions in unheated factories. You really don't get stuff like this from regular clothing stores! In all honesty, these do have way more character than the Chinese injection molded polyurethane floppies filling the shelves these days, and definitely do not meet any CE standards.

This classic leather-soled boot is "cool in summer" and extremely slippery in winter. A cobbler could probably nail or glue on rubber half soles on these if required. Or you could do like in the old days - apply tar on the soles. However these come with a solid rubber heel piece, which is pretty much indestructible, so at least you have that.

Being a very old-fashioned-looking piece of footwear, these would fit all kinds of historical re-enactment quite well. Moreover, the basic durability is better than on most reproduction boots and we probably don't have to say anything about the price. Also, no hobnails, so these can be used indoors too...

We would recommend getting a new pair of laces to go with these (80-100 cm). The originals might be horrible or too short or something.

Size info

Sizes in standard EU/French size, in the brackets the recommended foot length. These are meant to be worn with thick socks or footwraps. You could also cheat a bit and add two insoles on top of each other.

Condition

These are unissued and unworn but don't expect perfection, these are pretty damn crude. Possibly a one-off lot.