Russian uniform help please

[former user]

 
don't know about torture chambers
What I know is that many modern artists, musicians and writers found it safer to work in the west.
And I know is that though the Russian upper-class lived a "chique" western style  life, majority of workers, peasants and academics had reason to stage a serious revolution, and that this revolution was not started by Bolshewiks, but only taken advantage of by this minority fraction of the only democratic government ever to exist in the history of this country (apart from maybe some weak attempts after Gorbachev).
And also that virtually noone fighting in RCW wanted the Tsar and his government back...

but this is hardly about the uniforms, about which I think now we should have some reasonable idea by now   
btw, here are some more pictures, around 1915



And I shall be curious if in future we see some colourful uniforms on miniatures, though there aren't many that would allow for what we see above in the pictures.


btw, the Romanovs in the Westwind range are a few daughters short..
does anyone know about useful figures to complement?

[cdr]

Hello

I've put pictures on the "Imperial escort" on this link.
The first shows the platoon of mountaineers (officer in undress, officer in full dress and a horse man). The second shows the platoons of Lezguins and Muslims (full dress and undress)

If someone can upload be my guest

Carl

[Mark Plant]

What I know is that many modern artists, musicians and writers found it safer to work in the west.

Name them! Seriously. You will struggle to name artists forced to live outside Tsarist Russia. (Politicos by the dozens, artists no.) The Tsar's intolerance was pretty much limited to political/nationalist views.

And I shall be curious if in future we see some colourful uniforms on miniatures, though there aren't many that would allow for what we see above in the pictures.

Copplestone's Caucasian Cossacks are wearing the same uniform as the Tsar's Escort in service dress. If I wanted to paint Nicky with guards I wouldn't hesitate to use them straight. Parade dress is a bit different, but parade dress was exactly that.

The generals would require some conversions, but nothing too elaborate. Some headswaps and green-stuff medals really.

(I wish my 1860 Mexicans were so simple!  )

[former user]

Name them!

Pushkin (not an exile, but banned for a time)
Gogol
Dostoyevsky (not an exile, but in prison and Siberia)
Saltykov-Shchedrin
Pieshcheyev
Maikov
Taras Shevchenko
Petrashevsky and others from his circle too (see above)
the Lyubomudry circle

OK, these were opressed before the Okhrana was founded, but nonetheless victims of Tsarist anti-liberalism (even if "only" banned from the cultural centers)
the Opression of "politicos" came of course later, after the murder of Alexander II

The list is longer....

@CDR sorry, I can't find a link...

returning to uniforms, the picture of the Tsar and his HQ (mounted), shows some Cossacks in the uniform pictured before, so basically it seems that with some proper freehands, Cuban Cossacks can be painted to look like the "convoy" bodyguard
not my cup of tea anyway, I'm rather poor with freehands

[cdr]

http://s343.photobucket.com/albums/o480/cdr_2008/

sorry
curse this technology thingy 

Carl

[former user]

I guess You mean these:



quite similar to the photographs

and the hell of "retro" I'd say about the chainmail
reminds me of Darfour cavalry from the same period...

If You please could explain the terms "Peloton" and "Lezguin", at least to me ignorant
I guess "montaignard" means mountaineer (seriously mountain troops?)
and the Chavalier would be the cavalier guard?

[Mark Plant]

Montagnards are indeed mountaineers. Not mountain troops, but people from the Caucasian Mountains. Excellent cavalry, they put up stern resistance to Russian occupation throughout the 19th Century. The Kuban and Terek Cossacks were moved to the Caucasus region to act as a buffer against the mountain people, and ended up adopting their dress. That's why their uniforms are different from those of other Cossacks.

Some tribes you may have heard of. The Chechens and Russians have had a few rather brutal goes at each other over the last 200 years. The Ingush are related to the Chechens.

The Ossetians have been in the news recently. They are mostly Christian whereas most mountaineers are Moslem, often quite strongly so.

The Lezgins are one tribe, but the name used to be used to cover a whole group of them in the Dagestan region. Another similar group are the Cherkes, usually translated as Circassians in English, which covers both one tribe but formerly a whole group.

Peleton is platoon. Cavalier is horseman. Petite tenue is service, and grande tenue is parade dress.

These uniforms are all pre-20th Century though, I think.

[Mark Plant]

Service dress as it was about 1914: http://masteriza.ru/photogallery/photo00002145/mil_044.jpg
http://www.xenophon-mil.org/rusarmy/shenk/shenk6cs.htm

Parade uniform more or less : http://www.livekuban.ru/files/images/2009-04-13_104510.preview.gif
http://www.xenophon-mil.org/rusarmy/shenk/shenk6bs.htm

[cdr]

The Caucasian Guard Squadron was raised in 1828 and existed until 1882. There is still a group of Lezguins (about 600000 strong) in Azerbaijan. Mark Plant explained all the rest

Carl

[Altius]

If You please could explain the terms "Peloton" and "Lezguin", at least to me ignorant
I guess "montaignard" means mountaineer (seriously mountain troops?)
and the Chavalier would be the cavalier guard?

Peloton is the French word for platoon, and montagnards are any people who live in the mountains. Chevalier most often means a knight, but it also indicates a cavalryman. The Lezguin are a race of people who live in Azerbaijan.

As for the man with the chainmail hood and bow, I said earlier that Circassians used these, but there may have been other groups of people in the Caucasus Mountain region who dressed similarly. Some of these fought for the Turks, and I believe they used this gear fairly late in history too, although I don't know how common it would have been in the early 20th Century.