Lenin's Tomb 1988

Add Stalin and Mao then have a bonfire.Good way to get rid of unwanted taxidermy.............JMO.....Harold
 
Do not they still use the SKS for some forms of ceremonial?

Gotta admit that it does look good with that bayonet. Russia has always favoured the bayonet; cheaper than ammo and it always works.
 
Don't know where Yoko might be but I suspect Jane is back with her friends in Hanoi.

I don't think anyone will EVER forget those photos.

Iconic, you might say, like the Wild Beaver Hunt photos that the PM's wife treated the Press Corps to, once upon a time.
 
Very cool! My Mother got to go there for a high-school trip in 1976 or so and I'm sure saw similar soldiers with similar SKS's. Apparently, she was standing on red square with her class waiting for something to happen (nothing happened quickly there, she said, which sounds about right for a Communist nation) and was tapping her foot and ended up chipping a piece of it off, so she pocketed it as a souvenir. Also, when they left they had to turn in their Rubles and (I believe) were reimbursed in a western currency as the Soviets did not like tourists taking their money out of the country. She pocketed several notes and a few coins of it and slipped it through and back to Canada. Quite the rebel! She has a shoebox full of stamps, pins (she said the people there really liked trading pins and buttons) and her piece of red square and rubles. I should ask to see it sometime and take a picture or ten. Apparently, the people there were quite nice - even their secret police tour guards were, on the surface, really friendly. It's a facade, of course, but when you're just a high school kid I'm sure that was appreciated. Gotta indoctrinate the foreign youth into thinking you're a nice nation.

It was only when she met my Dad, a military officer who knew a bit better than her how these things work, that he informed her that both actions likely would have gotten her detained if not arrested outright should she have been caught!

Beautiful wood stocks on those SKS's, I have an unissued '50 Tula that has a very similar pattern. Were you into guns when those pictures were taken? If so, did you recognize them as SKS's and realize you could have bought a Chinese clone when you got back to Canada or something? I'm really rather jealous that you got to go there, I abhor communism but I probably would have gone to the Soviet Union just to see it because I am curious and like travelling. I was born in '92, so I never got the opportunity. There's still North Korea, but I'd like a security clearance one day so that's out of the question.
 
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smellie said:
Do not they still use the SKS for some forms of ceremonial?

Gotta admit that it does look good with that bayonet. Russia has always favoured the bayonet; cheaper than ammo and it always works.
Click to expand...

I believe the SKS is still used by honor guards. It would be really awkward to do any serious rifle drill with an AK.
 
@ 762 SHOOTER:

I can quite believe that.

I remember the transition from the Number 4 to the FN C-1. Number 4 drill was very snappy and looked good, just as with the old SMLE. FN drill, OTOH, always looked sloppy, no matter HOW good you were at it. I have no idea what it must look like today, what with little plastic carbines everywhere.

For ceremonial, we should have kept a stock of SMLEs with Pattern 1907 Mark I bayonets.

"Comp'ny, SLOoooooooooooooope AMS!" (Count ONE......two, three, ONE..... two, three, ONE!) (Movement on ONE only.)

Looks right smart.
 
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