The Ushanka: A Winter Gift From the Slavics

Greetings, readers! It's time for our very first Our World post! Hope you enjoy as I give you a little background history and story of a hat that many of you are probably familiar with...

The ushanka is famous for its fur ear flaps.
These make it very nice for the winter!

Chances are, you've either worn or have seen an ushanka before.

It sounds like a strange word, but in reality we use lots of ushankas, all over the world. Pronounced "Ooo-shank-ah", most of us who have ever spent time in the cold have worn one.

When folded up, the ushanka becomes the classic military hat we're all familiar seeing in Cold War movies.

The countries the ushanka came from, marked with
red X's for your convenience. ;)

The ushanka originated from fur hats with ear flaps on them that came from some of the Slavic countries- mainly Russia, Ukraine, Serbia, Slovenia, Croatia, Macedonia, Bulgaria and Germany. (Which, obviously, Germany is not a Slavic country but it's the only none Slavic country on this list so we'll just excuse my slight erratum.) ;) Most people think of Russia and the Soviet Union when they think of the ushanka, and rightly so. The ushanka became a symbol by the rest of the world of the Soviet Union. Everyone associated the famous fur hat as a Soviet icon.

November, by Joachim von Sandrart.

Hats with fur flaps have been around for centuries, the predecessors to the ushanka. Like in this old painting, November, from 1643 by Joachim von Sandrart, you can see that the German hunter is wearing a fur hat with the ear flaps down. These ear flaps became crucial to the Slavics during wartime and winter, to keep their heads warm and safe from the cold.


Now some of you may be familiar with the Cossacks from my story, Fourteen Cossacks. They too, wore big fur hats, but there's didn't have ear flaps. Those hats are called papahkas, but that's a story for another time.

A Soviet soldier wearing an ushanka.

The "ushanka" itself didn't emerge until the twentieth century. It was actually created by the Finns during the Winter War. Their version of the fur hat was called a turkislakki m36, and was the inspiration of the later Soviet army ushanka that was created after WWII. Since then, the ushanka has been widely used by the former Soviet Union, the now Russian federation, the Chinese and the North Koreans.


As someone who has owned two ushankas and have used other ones, I can personally testify that I love these fur hats from the Slavic countries. My brown ushanka has been my favorite winter hat on record, and I currently am using my black ushanka as a substitute for a Cossack papahka.

From the early medieval times to now, the ushanka has gone through many changes, but it is still one of the best winter hats in the world. We can thank the Eastern Europeans for their invention that has kept many skiers and winter lovers heads warm. :)

Me in my ushanka. I have the imperial eagle symbol
pinned in front instead of what should have been
the more historically accurate and used pin
of the hammer and syckle. I can't afford a papahka yet,
though, so we'll just go with an ushanka. ;)