Babel's intriguing zmeiki

[Edward M Dumanis]

A small correction: zippers became fashionable in the USSR already in the
early 60s. Anyway, still too late for Babel.

Edward Dumanis <dumanis at buffalo.edu>

On Fri, 27 Jan 2006, Mark Yoffe wrote:

> 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.
> 

-------------------------------------------------------------------------
 Use your web browser to search the archives, control your subscription
  options, and more.  Visit and bookmark the SEELANGS Web Interface at:
                    http://seelangs.home.comcast.net/
-------------------------------------------------------------------------