Civilian Fire Defense Caps

As is fairly well known even in the West, the Soviet MVD was responsible for national (and probably large city) fire defense. These firefighters were militarized and wore uniforms only slightly different from their interior troop cousins - standard MVD uniforms with red-brown (nettle) colored bands and tabs, but with crossed wrench insignia indicating their fire defense status. During one of my visits to Moscow, I walked past a MVD fire defense motorpool - guarded by a private indistinguishable from any other MVD conscript except for this collar insignia. Caps from this force are not shown on this page - since they were identical in every way to those caps worn by the MVD troops shown on my "MVD/NKVD" page. Instead, the caps displayed on this page are those belonging to local Soviet civilian fire defense organizations. These organizations apparently provided the only readily available support in smaller towns and villages and backed up the MVD in larger towns and cities. Unfortunately, this is conjecture, since I have not been able to confirm their role using available source documents. And whether or not they were full time paid individuals or all volunteers - I cannot say at this time.

I split Fire Defense from my other non-military caps since my collection has recently grown quite a bit in this area. Unfortunately as indicated above, I don't have a great deal of insight as to the background of most of these caps, since, as with other non-military groups, information on Soviet Fire Defense "uniforms" is very difficult to find (in fact, I don't believe rank and fire firemen even had uniforms - probably just caps to wear while on duty but not actually fighting fires (when they would wear helmets)). In spite of this dearth of information, I believe the caps I display here are authentic and represent different periods and groups of Fire Defense personnel - I just usually don't know what that is!!

Rather appropriately I believe, the underlying color scheme for these caps is black (although as you can see in my collection - dark blue was sometimes used, particularly in the late 1980's and early 90's). Piping colors and insignia also varied. Again, the fact that most if not all these fire defense groups were local organizations, means that a variety of different color/emblem combinations were likely to have been used.

As is well known, Soviet state-level fire departments were part of the MVD and most of their personnel wore variants of the unified MVD uniform (with the rust brown band/piping). Typically, the only way to identify these MVD personnel from others was by their use of a crossed hammer and wrench emblem on their collar tabs. However, many other city and local fire fighting organizations also existed which apparently wore a mixture of uniforms - much like the different VOKhR security organizations. The following Firemen's caps appear to be from these local organizations.

This is an older fireman's cap probably from the early 1950's. The cap is completely black, with a felt band and wool crown and piping. There is no band ribbon as is found on similar-appearing merchant marine caps. The cockade is an early brass version of the standard fireman's emblem - consisting of a crossed fire ax, a wrench and a hose nozzle encircled by a wreath. This one is both heavier and finer made than later "pot-metal" issues shown on the caps below. Other than the older cockade, the age of the cap is primarily identified by its small "teller" crown and its spade-shaped fiberboard visor. Finally, a black oilcloth chinstrap is held in place by two brass buttons. Like many other Soviet organizations, Fire Protection personnel did not have organization-specific buttons, and simply wore the common army-style. Scarce

Fire Protection
Fireman
1970's-1980's

These two caps are later versions of the above cap and are identical except that one is overall very dark blue while the other is black. All elements - crown, band and piping are wool. Although the colors are subtlely different, I believe they were meant to be the same and only reflect local variations in cloth availability. Railways personnel had a uniform cloth color described as "invisible" - meant to be a very dark blue, but which often was purely black. I believe the same situation existed for fire defense personnel. Although one of these caps is dated 1983, both caps have the small "teller" crown. Likewise both have rounded fiberboard visors. Both of these styles were generally phased out before 1983, but I have noticed before these old features being retained in both Fire Defense and Railway caps for some reason. Again, as rank and file firemen, both caps have black oilcloth/plastic chinstraps held by gilt army-style buttons. Both fire defense emblems are the same as well - made of cast "pot metal" instead of the more expensive brass. Scarce

Fire Protection
Fireman
1970's-1991

Another Fire Protection cap - this one was manufactured in 1989 and reflects a continued evolutionary change from the previous caps. The crown is now the common dark blue cloth used by a number of non-military uniformed departments of the 1980's and 90's. However, the felt band and the piping both remain black - creating a combination I believe was unique to firemen. The badge is the last model fire protection emblem; two earlier versions of this badge dating back to the 1960's are shown here. The visor and chinstrap are both late-style plastic and the metal buttons are normal "army" type with a hammer and sickle within a star. Available-Scarce

Fire Protection/VOKhR?
1960's?

I have identified this cap as belonging to a Fireman - based upon the black top/band and the emblem, which is fire protection related. I have two versions of this same cap badge - differing only in size. The smaller one shown here came pinned to the cap. The top of the badge has been altered with the addition of a junior officer rank star painted red. Since both of my badges have been so altered, I cannot determine exactly what the original looked like (anyone know?). However, the cap has a couple elements not seen on my other fire protection caps. First, it has a black ribbon encircling the band - typically only found on navy or merchant marine caps. And second, it has red piping along the crown. As you can see on my "Other Non-Military" page, the VOKhR also used red-piped black caps. So, this one will now have to go into the "I'm not sure category". My guess is that is still fire protection related, but it is admittedly less "standard" than even the others on this page. Perhaps it is associated with the Merchant Marine. The rest of the cap is typical of 1960's or earlier manufacture - napped wool teller-shaped crown, black fiberboard visor, black oilcloth chinstrap of a junior commander or private and brass Army-type buttons. No markings remain to tell more of its origins. Scarce