RUSSIAN BEARDS.

Oamaru Mail, Volume XXXIX, Issue 10957, 23 December 1911, Page 3 (Supplement)

RUSSIAN BEARDS.

A STRICTLY-KEPT TRADITION

British diplomacy may do much, but it cannot force the handy safety razor, or any razor, in fact, down the throat of the Muscovite. For ever since the human tribe inherited beards from its Simian ancestors the Russians have been loath to relinquish the heritage. Barbers could not find a more unpromising Held to work in than the. land of the Little Father. Now and then you will find what the Russians term a ••parakmahkhar," but he has to trada a side line of toupees and Parisian perfumes manufactured in Moscow to raise the price of a weekly glass of vodka. Tlie Russian beard is as firm as the Rock of Gibraltar. It is the eleventh commandment of the Greek Church decalogue. It is all part of the Government and the system. If you don't believe—listen. Last spring, when Grand Duke Nicholas, military commandant of the St. Petersburg district, was inspecting his officers he came to an ambitious young ranker whose face was as clean shaven as a putting green. "Where's your beard?" thundered, Nicholas. '•1 can't grow one, sir; none of my people ever had hair under their" "But that does not prevent you from letting your moustache grow." Then followed a long dissertation on the evils of American safety razors, of the American clean shave, and all attempts to do away with hirsute adornments. Nor did Nicholas stop at that. The next day an order was issued from the commander's headquarters been brought to our attention that a grievous habit is growing among the younger generation of his Majesty's officers, viz., the shaving of the beard and the moustache. Such is not in conformitv with Russian tradition."

Nicholas might have carried the idea, further, for it was not so long ago that Russian tradition forbade the cutting of the hair.

11l the "good old days" those unsanitary, tclcphouclcss and soapless days that old men in their second adolescence like to weep over, the Muscovites refused to allow shears or razors iu the kingdom. And the result was none of those oiled French queues or the powdered Georgian bagged tails. It was the unbound, uncombed, and probably unwashed style. The fathers or priests of the Greek Church still affect the old coiffure. They claim it is in keeping with their unworldly calling, lends an air of spirituality, and is a worthy imitation of the Old Testament Nazarenes and the popular conceptions of Christ. Their locks flap in the breeze in strange keeping with their blue cassock skirts and their undergrown top hats. Were it not for "the edicts of Alexander 1., who. despite his devotion to the Church, was possessed of modern ideas, the average Russian to-day might still be longhaired. Alexander spent his summers in the south of Russia. _ And summer there is apt to be anything but ideally cool. Alexander found this out when his long locks began to bother him. So he kicked over the traditional traces and cut his hair. The custom developj ed into a full sized, imperial edict, and [ for a. generation human hair was cheap I in Russia.