Boot knife, Knife in boot. Shoe knife: history, description, features of wearing Cossack boot knife

Before the 1917 revolution (more precisely, until the 1920s, when the Soviet authorities banned it), every Russian man carried at least one knife with him (I'm talking about the vast majority of peasant Russia). This was field (working) belt knife. It was distinguished by a wide and rather thick single-edged wedge-section blade (a triangle with a narrow base - the thickness of the blade across). The field belt knife played the role of a household tool: they cut branches, butchered food, “roofed” (crushed) sugar with the handle, and performed many other works. The blunt butt was convenient for helping with the second hand (maintaining). Among the Slavs, such a tool, most likely, was called a “cutter”, it became a “knife” by analogy and external similarity with a weapon (combat knife). In defense, a working knife became a weapon. The knife was just another finger on the hand, only stronger. They played with "knife", with this "knife" they danced at the holidays. Needless to say, in this formulation of the question, the dexterity in the actions of the knife was stunning.

A complete “knife set” of a Russian man consisted of three knives: a belt (it was also called a combat) knife, instead of a belt working knife, people of the noble class wore it, a boot knife and a sabot knife (sagadachny) knife.

Belt (combat) knife It was a narrow double-edged dagger (“dagger” is a non-Russian word, most likely the knife among the Slavs already assumed a double-edged or at least one-and-a-half sharpening) with a narrow but convenient guard for stabbing and no less convenient handle, ending with a sharp (usually) pommel (for traumatic hand blows). The guard was obligatory - it protected the fingers from being cut when slipping onto the blade during a stabbing blow. The shape of the knife (straight) corresponded to the main purpose of the weapon - to quickly kill the enemy (who doesn’t know: a stabbing blow is much more dangerous and leads to death faster than a chopping one, with such dimensions and weight of the weapon and the presence of warm thick clothes in our latitudes for most of the year) . Allowed one and a half sharpening. Double-edged (one-and-a-half sharpening) made it possible to ideally enter the target and deliver chopping-cutting blows during misses and returns-undercuts, which cannot be done with a single-sharpened field cutter without additional actions (additional turns and turns of the blade). The combat knife was a smaller copy of the sword.
The combat belt knife had a leather (or wooden, leather-covered or not) sheath with a loop for attaching to the belt.

boot knife was narrow, flat, curved, had a sheath made of thin leather. The whole design of this knife was ideal for a stabbing blow from below into the soft hypochondrium on the left side of the enemy, and the upwardly curved blade reached the heart protected from all sides by the chest. The shape of the blade repeated the shape of the tusk (tusk) of a wild boar, which also hits it from the bottom up and lifts the enemy. They wore it in the right boot on the outside (for right-handers). In general, the word “knife” itself, according to the most common version among the Slavs in ancient times, meant “leg sword”, which was shorter than the main one and was located in the boot, on the leg. The knife was fastened in several ways: someone sewed the scabbard to the inside of the boot, someone fastened the scabbard with bindings to the leg, someone arranged a narrow pocket for the scabbard on the top of the trousers. The handle was hidden behind the top of the boot, only part of the lanyard (if there was one) or a small part of the pommel could stick out. The “bootmaker” became curved over time (the main blow, due to its placement, is from the bottom up) and became very similar to a small saber.

I would like to say a few words about the boot, as about Russian national shoes. Firstly, even in World War II, Russians hid knives behind the top of their boots, and for many Russian soldiers this technique saved their lives. Secondly, anyone who has ever tried to run through the night forest at least once in his life will never exchange his boots for any other footwear (boots with footcloths protect the leg very well from hitting the shin on the lying branches). Thirdly, on alarm, the boot is put on much faster than any other shoe. Fourthly, it does not have constantly tearing laces, and fifthly, it is better to move around in boots (than in any other shoes) on the road.

Underside (sagadashny) knife the shape is similar to the boot, only shorter and wider (it did not need to be hidden in the boot, but under the sagadak - that is, on the back of the belt - more spacious). The name comes from "saadak" ("sagadak") - equipment for bow and arrows, which included a case for a bow ("bow case", "bow case") and a case for arrows ("quiver", "tul"). In a narrow sense, saadaq (sagadak) is a quiver for arrows. There, the underside (sagadach) knife was placed (either in a sheath fixed in the lower part of the quiver with the handle to the body, or under the sideboard on the belt). Those. this is a knife that was carried in a bag (knapsack, “sidora”) or on the back of the belt and was a knife “just in case”.

In Russia, there were entire schools of possession of edged weapons, including a knife (knife - in recent years 70-80). Ryazan, Suzdal, Smolensk, Tverichi, Novgorod - all had their own "knife grips". References to the culture of owning cold weapons have been preserved even in the names of cities, rivers, villages and villages. For example, the city of Ryazan in modern pronunciation will be Rezan (from the word “cut”), just like “Ryazan girls” (as they still say there, especially in the region) - Rezan girls. I also heard somewhere that the popular dance “Ryazanochka” was not a female dance, as it is now (the last 70-80 years), but a male dance, and they danced it with a knife, and not with a handkerchief ...

And more about Ryazans. In the rest of Russia, they are still called "skew-bellied". Do you know why? They carried an ax behind their belt on the right side with the blade forward, the handle along the right leg. In group hand-to-hand combat, the left hand held a shield, the right hand worked with a sword (spear, whip, another ax, knife, etc.), and the ax covered the right hypochondrium from an imperceptible, from under the arm, blow to the liver. The constant carrying of an ax on the right became a habit - the Ryazan lands were the southern border of the Moscow Principality and, with a sudden and quick attack at close range, the Ryazan quickly pressed left hand to the chest, covering the left side of the body, the heart and neck (i.e., the carotid artery on the left with fingers) and wielded a knife in the right, and the hatchet covered the stomach on the right ... That's why the stomach grew “obliquely”, more to the left. By the way, an echo of this grip was used in the hand-to-hand fights of the Great Patriotic War: the soldiers stuck sapper shovels in their belts, covering their stomachs from splinters. The shaft in the center did not interfere with walking and running, and in hand-to-hand combat the spatula was used like an ax (sword).

The school of combat of the “Ryazan Cossacks” left us reminders of itself not only with the story of Ipatiy Kolovrat, the defender of Ryazan (by the way, many “experts” national history they correct me: “not Ipaty, they say, but Evpaty, you need to read books, darkness!”; to which I answer them with this fact: in Rus' they never heard such a name - Evpaty, and they called children according to the calendar - there are no “Evpatievs” there - but Ipatiev - at least scoop with a spoon, at least rake in a scoop), but also in coats of arms of their cities: I don’t remember, it seems that the coat of arms of Ryazan (or Skopin) depicts a smiling peasant with a raised naked sword. If you take a closer look, similar things can be seen all over Russia.

After the revolution of 1917 and civil war in rural Russia there was a collapse of the male community (party) in the village. The male community in the Russian village was both the protection of this village, and the breadwinner, and educator. The storage and transmission of traditions have noticeably weakened and have been preserved only along family lines, including the methods of fighting with cold weapons (in particular, with a knife). Gradually, fisticuffs were banned, the carrying of edged weapons, weapons in general (so that they would not resist the authorities), they began to introduce “physical education and sports” into the village life. Away from sin, this knowledge and skills were “forgotten”. They flourished only among criminals and the "counter-revolutionary element", who, to put it mildly, Soviet power did not recognize. In this environment, where the norm of behavior is secrecy, where the very system of relationships rests on the superiority of one over the other, the training of the most effective methods battle - what if someone gets an advantage and crushes himself? They learned from the fact that someone cut someone, and someone saw and remembered. Then I worked and tried. It turned out - it was fixed, it didn’t work out - he left for the next world. With the passage of time and the departure of the skilled contingent, the combat technique was depleted, the meaning of a good melee weapon disappeared.

Today, melee weapons are needed to set the right reflexes for a hand-to-hand fighter. Properly centered edged weapons give specific skills, shorten the learning process hand-to-hand combat. The ability to use edged weapons can be useful for working with improvised items in order to protect one's honor and dignity, while protecting one's loved ones. Previously, edged weapons were allowed to be carried in Peaceful time precisely to protect honor and dignity from the criminal encroachments of robbers and street punks.

A cold weapon is an object, specially designed to hit the target with the help of human muscle power. It must meet the following criteria:

1. Blade length - 10 cm or more.
2. Blade thickness - 2.5 mm or more.
3. Withstanding a bending load of 5 kg or more.
4. The presence of a guard (emphasis).

If at least one parameter does not match, this item is not a melee weapon. Any court will confirm this for you.

But. If you carry this “non-blank weapon” item in your pocket on a dark late evening through the streets, most likely, when you find it, a police squad will detain you, confiscate it and take you to the department. The knife will be sent for examination, where they will find out whether it is a melee weapon or not. A protocol will be drawn up against you and, most likely, they will let you go home. When the examination finds out that your knife is not a cold weapon, you will not have a criminal record for carrying a cold weapon. Whether or not you get your knife back depends on your willingness to participate in the lawsuit.

It turns out (according to our legislation) that you can only brandish cold steel at home (which is ideal for family knife fighting schools: I made a knife on the sly at home - and learn, “but you can’t wear it”). The process of obtaining permission to carry bladed weapons is long and thorny. That's when you prove that the knife is "a part of the costume of a Russian person" - that's when you wear it. But - you will get tired of proving (just like the fact that Russian cannons were cast first in Europe: see the Artillery Museum in St. Petersburg) until you poke your nose at a historical fact.

For those who want to master the science of knife fighting as a continuation of fist fighting (and you can learn to work against a knife only by learning how to work with a knife), I can give some advice.

1. Choose (make) a knife that is convenient for you:
   - the total length of the knife - the distance from the middle of the palm to the elbow (put the knife on the arm bent at a right angle, palm up);
   - center of gravity - in the guard (or on the handle immediately behind it).
2. Learn to intercept a knife from hand to hand, from a direct grip (sword, dagger, saber) to a reverse (knife) grip without moving your fingers along the handle, due to the inertia of the swing (check: interceptions in a canvas mitten), learn to do it quickly, under busting with your foot (jumping step) - “ryazanka”, “cutting”, “ryazanka”, “rubber band” (where they are called).
3. Master the fighting position with a knife (any grip):
   - left side forward (knife in right hand), the left arm bent at the elbow covers the left hypochondrium, heart, neck (carotid artery with the fingers of the open left palm) like a shield, in the right knife;
   - legs shoulder-width apart, half-bent, spring-loaded for a quick jump or rebound.
4. To master the reflex defense with slips and slips (shoulders, hips, elbows, knees) - without it, a fleeting knife fight is the right way to the grave.
5. To study the provision of first aid and self-help for bleeding.
6. Do not throw the knife (I'm talking about throwing). AT certain circles throwing a combat knife is a sign of bad taste (there is 1 exception case and 2 ways to do it, but about them later). Dropped - lost. For throwing, it is much more competent to use sharpened rectangular plates.

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Unusual national knives are typical for small peoples living in any specific natural conditions. This description fits both the traditional indigenous ulu knife made from slate and the Malay parang, ideal for cutting your way through the jungle. Our Slavic ancestors, who inhabited the middle latitudes, preferred to carry multifunctional knives of a simple design and medium size, which could be used both as a weapon and as a working tool. So, what kind of knives did our distant (and not so) ancestors have and which ones do we use now?

parensky knife

"Cherry"

scout knife

Knife "bootmaker"

underside knife

Mower

Bogorodsky knife

Samsonov's hunting knives

finca

Yakut knife

Conducted archaeological excavations and scientific work historians who study Ancient Rus', testify to wide application ancient Russians of such cold weapons as a knife. Boot - this definition was given to a small blade, which was attached to a warrior's boot and was considered a weapon of concealed carry. According to other sources, he was indispensable assistant ancient Russian riders when refueling arrows. The Russian boot knife was found in many graves, which indicates the high efficiency and popularity of this weapon.

Slavic boot knife

How to wear a blade, they came up with, taking into account the features of the traditional footwear for all Slavic peoples at that time - boots. These shoes provided the owner with comfortable and safe movement in the steppe or in the forest - they protected the legs from blows from branches or snake bites. The absence of laces was very convenient, which made it possible to quickly put on shoes. And most importantly, it was very convenient to hide a knife behind the top of the boot. Over time, it became a tradition for the Slavs to hold a knife behind the top of their boots.

What did the Russian “bootmaker” look like?

The design of edged weapons made it possible to inflict stabbing on the left side of the enemy - in the area of ​​the hypochondrium. Characteristics knife:

• Length - 25 cm.
• The curved shape of the narrow blade made it possible to reach the heart upon impact.
• The blade had a raised point.
• Sharpening - one and a half.
• Traditionally, the handle of a knife was wrapped with leather cord. It was designed to absorb sweat and blood. In combat conditions, this was necessary, as it prevented the knife from slipping in the hand.

• The presence of a lanyard - a special loop made of hemp or leather lace. The lanyard made it possible to quickly remove the weapon from behind the top of the boot, and prevented the risk of losing the knife during the battle. The boot blade in the presence of a lanyard could be used with a different grip.

In its structure, the blade resembled the tusks of a wild boar, which, when attacked, strikes from the bottom up, lifting the enemy. According to this principle of damaging action, the Russian boot knife was designed. The photo below represents the design features of traditional edged weapons.

Wearing features

One of the advantages of wearing a knife in a boot was the ability to get it in time. For this, the blade was most often located in the right shaft, and for the left-hander - in the left. The knife was attached in different ways:

• the scabbard was sewn to the wrong side of the boot;
• the sheath with the blade was tied to the leg;
• a special pocket for the scabbard was attached to the top of the trousers.

The following rules were followed:

• the handle must be hidden behind the top of the boot;
• if a lanyard was present, it could be seen;
• only a small part of the pommel could stick out of the bootleg.

Boot knife in 1917 - 1945

From the time of the revolution until the end of World War II, one of the attributes of the criminal element was a knife. The traditional boot option was now applied to the Finks, which were also convenient to hold behind the top of the boot. This arrangement freed the hands and hid edged weapons from prying eyes. The knife with this wearing option was for criminals ideal remedy protection in various hopeless situations.

During the years of World War II Soviet soldiers this knife was also widely used. The boot blade has undergone some changes by this time:

• the length was 250 mm;
• butt thickness - 7 mm;
• the blade was tetrahedral, convex and double-edged.

This form allowed to inflict mortal wounds on the enemy. The blows were delivered between the ribs, hitting the enemy on the spot.

Modern "boots" are even more different from traditional models. Now such knives are classified as household. For them, one-sided sharpening and a butt thickness not exceeding 0.4 cm are provided. According to these parameters, a boot knife is not a melee weapon, the acquisition of which requires an appropriate permit. Now, if desired, everyone can purchase a “shoemaker”.

Cossack boot knife

Cossack and weapons are inseparable concepts. A knife as one of the elements of equipment is considered a constant companion of every warrior.

The differences between the Cossack model of the “bootmaker” and the traditional Russian one are in the following parameters:

• the total length of the Cossack knife is 2 cm longer and is 29 cm;
• the length of the handle of the Cossack edged weapons - 13 cm;
• blade length - 16 cm;
• the presence on the Cossack blade of the stigma of the blacksmith-manufacturer;
• the wooden handle is equipped with a braided lanyard brush;
• for the manufacture of Cossack scabbards, bull skin is used.

"Will and Faith"

One of the very spectacular samples of the Cossack "boots" is the knife "Will and Faith". This product is made from Damascus steel. It contains elements of gold and silver. The knife is characterized by highly artistic design, which indicates talent, skill, perseverance and love for the knife as a reliable assistant.

The wooden handle is made from expensive breeds. The scabbard contains a special leather lining, which provides a smooth entry of the blade and its fixation, preventing loosening. At the top of the handle there is a nut recessed inside, containing a ring to which a braided leather cord is attached. On the surface of the knife there is an image of a Russian floral ornament. Nearby, in the style of Church Slavonic letters, there is an inscription “Will and Faith”. High-quality processing of metal and wood is admirable. This boot Cossack knife can be considered an example of arts and crafts.

A boot knife made by modern professional craftsmen will be a great gift for a hunter, tourist, fisherman or collector.

The Russian boot knife is one of the most popular types of knife and just the tool that testifies to our traditions. The knife got its name from the fact that it is worn behind the top of the boot. And they came up with this in ancient times. Highly convenient way transportation when there are no pockets, bags, hands are busy. And, of course, a knife in a boot is an additional means of protection in case of a hopeless situation, for example, while hunting. These are the ideas that our ancestors passed on to us. In addition to the top, sometimes the knife was hidden in the sleeve or on the chest. But so that it is always convenient to get. Previously, warriors kept this weapon for themselves as their last hope. If we are talking about a fight, then the boot knife was always at hand and helped when all other types of weapons could no longer be used in battle. And if you leave the fighting for peaceful domestic duties, then in the forest you will feel all the advantages of the knife shape. Interesting and convenient!

From the history. Let's go back to history and remember the Russian soldiers. Characteristics of the Russian boot knife The double-edged blade of the knife reached up to 25 cm in length and up to 0.7 cm in the thickness of the butt. The blade is four-sided, slightly convex. It was these features that helped the Russian boot knife to easily and deeply enter the body of the enemy, leaving mortal wounds. Usually the blows were delivered between the ribs, because the knife could enter the stomach and kill the enemy on the spot. Now most boot knives are sold with blades sharpened only on one side, the butt thickness is not more than 4 mm, and this allows the knife to be certified as a household item and ceases to be considered a melee weapon. Therefore, everyone can now buy a boot knife.

External signs of a knife . The handle of a knife usually reaches a size of 10-13 cm under the size of a standard male palm. A knife without a guard, as it interferes with penetration into the boot. Usually the handle is made of wood. For example, birch bark is very popular as a tribute to the first Russian boot knives, the handles of modern ones are often rewound with ropes - in the old days, such a trick made the knife more convenient to use and did not allow it to slip out of hand. It is not uncommon to see pins used as decoration. In history, this method was also known, but was used much less frequently. In order to make it easier to pull the knife out of the top of the boot, a lanyard must be attached to the end of the handle. This is the name of a relatively small loop of cord (usually leather). It also helps not to drop the knife during use: put your wrist through the loop and squeeze the handle.

Both before and now Russian knives are used in almost all spheres of life and. For example, it is an essential item of daily household consumption. High-quality knives are an excellent gift, meaning your devotion and loyalty to a person. It has long been believed that to receive a knife as a gift means to receive true friend and protector in the person of the donor. Therefore, decide for yourself whether to follow your prejudices: allegedly, knives are not given. You try to choose a real high-quality knife and then you will understand how many nuances you need to know and what an important step this is, the gift immediately becomes more significant.

Check out the Boot Knife!