Russia Calf Shoes

Just like CNN, I too have been thinking of picking up a pair of new shoes. Not just any shoes mind you, but one of the most distinctive shoes in the world! The Russia Calf shoes that are made by New & Lingwood from London's Jermyn Street. What makes these shoes so unique you ask? These shoes are made from a limited cache of reindeer hides that were found aboard a ship that sank off the English coast in 1786. They lay at the bottom of the ocean for nearly 200 years until the wreck was discovered in 1973. Despite their prolonged submersion in salt water, the hides were as good as ever. The reason is that the hides had been processed by a secret technique that was lost after the Russian Revolution, and which made pre-revolutionary Russian leathers world famous for both their water resistance as well as their beauty.
First the hides were cured in baths of rye or oat flour and yeast , they were then hand finished and soaked in wood liquor. They were then hand-curried while still wet and soaked in seal oil and birch tan oil , which gives the leather its distinctive, rich aroma. Now these shoes don't have an anti microbial feature and they aren't odor resistant, so it may be difficult to justify the $1550 price tag, but then again that's a mere round of blinds and antes in a decent no limit game!