Sore Feet

"You can't just stick your feet in and go off on a cross-country march" - he recalls. "It takes a while to get used to the foot bindings and to the canvas, and then you grow enormous corns, and just don't care any longer. Your feet become so hard you can drive in nails with your toes".

A traditional foot binding is a rectangular piece of thick cloth 35 by 90 centimetres (13.6 by 35 inches) in size.
First worn with bast sandals by Russian peasants, they remained almost unchanged through the ages. But, for all the blood, sweat and tears involved in wearing bindings, former soldiers say the thick cloth and the canvas boots were a perfect match.

Former infantryman Ian Leder described typical Soviet boots as "a tough piece of work".
"There were stitches in places where you'd least expect them. And measurements were rather vague. So the thicker the layer between your feet and your boots, the better", he says.