When Growing a Real Beard Just Isn’t Enough
Most of the things I remember from the three years of Russian I took in high school have little to do with the language. I remember drawing Kermit the Frog on the whiteboard every day, unintentionally creating a mystery for some friends in the next class who wondered for months who kept drawing Kermit the Frog every day. I remember another student complimenting me on my accent, which made me feel a little embarrassed because my strategy was to imagine speaking like Boris Badenov. And I remember our teacher telling us that you used to need a special badge to demonstrate you had permission to wear a beard in the Soviet Union.
For years I thought I must have misunderstood this last one, and maybe I did. This was pre-Google, but rest assured I checked on Google as soon as it occurred to me. “Russia beard permit,” “Soviet beard permission,” “beard badge” – nothing, nothing nothing. Maybe I imagined the whole thing. I wanted a beard badge so badly, though. I am a big fan of small accessories that can act as conversation pieces. I have gotten a lot of mileage out of my hat with the MBTA “T” logo. The beard badge would admittedly be less useful for identifying me as an “in-group member” like the T hat identifies me as from the Boston area, but come on. It’s got a picture of a beard on it.
Now I am old, and I have a real beard as old men should. While I sat stroking my beard the other night (as we fuzzy academics are wont to do), I remembered the beard badge, and I thought I’d check Google one more time. I only found one thing. Maybe it is what I think it is, and maybe it’s not. It’s being sold in an auction on eBay alongside other rare coinage and jewelry. I could pronounce the words on it, but I couldn’t tell you what they say. All I can tell you is that it costs $400, which means that if I want to stick one of these bad boys on my backpack, I’d better find a crafty way to steal the design for a button or a patch. I think it might be worth it. Some day, I want to be able to tell strangers: “I have permission to wear a beard in the Soviet Union.” Hopefully they won’t realize it’s a forgery.
12 Comments so far
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No Ebay linkage?
By Richard Neal on 12.12.06 10:59 pm
I spent a while trying to translate this with no success. The closest I got was a translator which equated the first word with “to place,” but I’m fairly suspect of that. It’s a little sad that with 7 combined years of Russian knowledge between us, we have no idea what this says.
I also dug around to see if I could find any references to beard permits, and the closest I got was this reference: “Indeed, during the Soviet era, a beard was associated with Western hippies, U.S. surrogate radio broadcasts, and Soviet dissidents.” Seems plausible, but I couldn’t find any mention of a permit.
Do you still have Ms. Eisenhauer’s email address somewhere? Maybe we could get her to give us a reference.
By Dan on 12.12.06 11:10 pm
From the current version of Wikipedia’s beard article:
Maybe that was it.
Most recent eBay link is here.
By Jason on 12.13.06 1:01 am
Better picture: here
I’ll try to translate it later. Though I did find one site that claims it says “Beards are a ridiculous ornament.” I doubt it though.
If you search “beard token” you get better results. Basically, Peter the Great levied a tax on beards. Anyone who paid the tax could keep their beard and got a token saying as much. It’s very interesting.
By Kristen on 12.13.06 3:10 pm
Thanks, Kristen. The better picture cleared up that it says “dengi” not “denti.” Which has not helped me translate it at all.
By Dan on 12.13.06 3:28 pm
And it took my dad to remind me that dengi = money.
By Dan on 12.17.06 2:46 pm
[...] As Hamed and Dan can attest, I have a pretty lousy track record at making t-shirts in a timely fashion. So, given my general cursed nature in this arena, I’ll probably keep doing what it is I do day in and day out and not make stuff (besides blog posts) for Doombot, for the time being at least. But if I were to make stuff, I’d make t-shirts, zippered hoodies (the most versatile article of clothing known to humankind), and beard badges. I don’t know that there would be enough demand for actual “merchandise” per se, rather than just general “craftiness.” But in my fantasy world where I am not doing schoolwork and playing bar trivia games all the time, that is what I would do. [...]
By doombot » Hypothetical Goods and Services on 12.31.06 1:32 pm
[...] A Time photo set: The World Beard and Moustache Championships. I hope they get medals. [...]
By doombot » The Faces of Victory on 09.05.07 6:27 pm
[...] the beard coin? Well, someone else remembered it, too, and “Jenny” offers this grain of knowledge in a [...]
By doombot » More on Beards on 12.10.07 10:17 pm
It says dengi bzyati (in old russian writing). It means money paid, or taken. It shows the the owner has paid the beard tax so he can keep his beard.
By Kostya on 12.06.09 12:58 pm
opps i got alphabets mixed up when I tried to transliterate that… should be dengi vzyati
By Kostya on 12.06.09 1:00 pm
Awesome, thanks! And don’t worry, we are unlikely around these parts to correct transliterated old Russian. (It’s when people use “Я” as “R” to make something “look Russian” that gets our goat.)
By Jason on 12.09.09 7:29 am
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