Babel's intriguing zmeiki

[Mark Yoffe]

My 10 cents: Even in the 70s zippers were relatively rare. They only came with Western-made jeans or jackets, which were hard to obtain. Western-made zipper was a black-market item, and you had to go to fartsovshchiki for these. These were called in youth slang: zippery. There were Soviet-made zippers, called molnii, or among children zmeiki. They appeared in the late 60-s early 70-s, and were a sign of "moda" and sophistication. Particularly so when they adorned so called STROIOTRIADOVKIE KOSTIUMY, that is uniforms of student volunteers of summer construction crews.

----- Original Message ----- 
From: Alina Israeli <aisrael at AMERICAN.EDU> 
Date: Friday, January 27, 2006 4:35 pm 
Subject: Re: [SEELANGS] Babel's intriguing zmeiki 
To: SEELANGS at LISTSERV.CUNY.EDU 

> > Those who remember 
> >the 40's will confirm that 
> >flies (pl. flys?) were only buttoned (or unbuttoned, as the case may 
> >be...) at that time. 
> 
> And in Russia much later. We find in Galich of the 60's: "Dazhe 
> brjuki u 
> menja i te na molnii" because no one else at the time had zippers. 
> 
> __________________________ 
> Alina Israeli 
> LFS, American University 
> 4400 Mass. Ave., NW 
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