Orders for the Life-Guards Horse Regiment.

5 January 1800

 

            1.  Colonel Sablukov is to get it completely out of his head that he can dare speak to HIS IMPERIAL HIGHNESS THE TSAREVICH CONSTANTINE PAVLOVICH during training at Pavlovsk.[1]

            2.  Colonel Yankovich is not to be too smart.

            3.  The gentlemen officers are to live in the regiment, as are all non-commissioned officers.

            4.  General and field and company-grade officers are to be every morning at the grooming [of the horses], and also at the issuing of oats and hay, and at roll call in the evening at 8 o’clock.

            5.  Non-commissioned officers are not to have their own broadswords [palashi], but rather the big government-issue ones, and non-commissioned officers are to dress like privates, as are also officers, so that non-commissioned officers do not have an aristocratic appearance.

            6.  All non-commissioned officers are to groom their own horses…

            8.  Gentlemen officers are to have the collars on their coats and kolety [heavy white cuirassier tunics – M.C.] that are two fingers high.

9.  The boots of gentlemen officers are to be two fingers higher than the knee, and the cloth boot stocks [shtibel’ manzhety] are to be one finger higher than the boots.

10.  In each squadron there is to be one non-commissioned officer on duty at the stables and another at the barracks.

Constantine Tsesarvich

 

RGVIA, F. 3543, Op. 1, D. 97. L. 2-4.

 

 

 

“Special bedrooms for married men.”

(Or, soldiers’ life in barracks.)

 

From an order to the Life-Guards Horse Regiment.

16 November 1800

 

            3.  Personnel are to hang all their accouterments above their beds, but the new kolet and hats are to be in the armories [tseikhgauzy].

            4.  Married men are to be placed in special bedrooms apart from the single men, closer to the wooden stairs, and as they do not have enclosed beds [krovati s zagorodkami], they are to have curtains, if they wish.

            5.  There is to be extreme cleanliness in the barracks, food is not to be cooked in them, tubs and similar kitchen vessels are not to be kept by the men, but rather placed in the kitchens where food is prepared…

            7.  Over the stalls are to be put labels like those the men have over their beds, with the name to whom it belongs written on it. Horse furniture, except for the new shabraques [chepraki], are to be at the stalls in the stables.

 

RGVIA, F. 3543, Op. 1, D. 97, L. 109.

 

[ILLUSTRATION.]

Page 9: Non-commissioned officers of the Life-Guards Horse Regiment (2nd, 3rd, and 4th Squadrons), 1796-1801. Watercolor by P.I. Razumikhin, 1840s. (Istoricheskoe opisanie…Ch. IX, No. 1168. VIMAIViVS.)

---

[1] The idea behind this part of the order illuminated some reminiscences of N.A. Sablukov, at that time colonel of the L.-Gds. Horse Regiment: