Russian Military Demobilization Uniforms

Carey Schofield describes the Russian military demobilization process in her book “Inside the Soviet Military”. As a part of the "Dembel" process, servicemen will decorate and embellish their going-home uniforms so that it looks like they had very successful military careers. Here are a few dembel photos:



Here is a dembel uniform of a Russian VDV soldier. It is a 4 pocket type II uniform. The soldier’s name, looks like Vlasenko, is written on the inside of the jacket and pants.

The shoulder boards and para sleeve insignia have been reinforced so that they have a stiff rounded shape.

A couple of years after I acquired this uniform, I found a train ticket in the pant pocket that says it is a “no cash military ticket” with Moscow as the destination. It has perforations in the ticket that appear to show the date of October of 1991. It is probable that this is the train ticket that the soldier used when he was discharged from the service and went home. Please see photos.

All these dembel uniforms are ugly as hell.

Your example looks quite mint, did it see any use?

Hello Kolja,

I think the TTsKO dembel is pretty cool, just different.

The uniform looks barely used. With a uniform manufacture date of 1991 and the train ticket dated 1991, I speculate that the soldier wore the uniform very few times. Probably the only time he wore it was as a dembel uniform when traveling home after leaving the service.

Erick

At least we know these Russian soldiers are in good physical shape. Otherwise they wouldn't be strong enough to walk with all that "bling" on their uniforms

Reminds me a lot of the South Korean "veterans" uniforms. Some of them are overdone, others are more modest like the TTsKO example above.

Steve