> ## Content Index
> Fetch the complete content index at: https://theparnassian.com/en/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further.

# Origin of the name of laika leather and the use of dog hides in 19th century Russia
- URL: https://theparnassian.com/en/damskie-laikovye-tufelki-1820-kh/
- Published: 2025-01-28T05:38:02.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-02T18:39:21.000Z
- Author: Alexandr Radayev
- Tags: Observations, Mores, Ethnography

Ladies' Kid Slippers of the 1820s.

Kid leather is called "lайка" in Russian, but not after the breed of dog: the word is a borrowing from Polish, "loika", from "loj", meaning fat.

It turns out, however, that dogs' hides did go into the making of kid leather after all, although the technology properly calls for the skins of rabbits and lambs. They write that in the second half of the nineteenth century whole kennels of borzoi hounds were handed over in Russia for the manufacture of such leather: with the abolition of serfdom there were far fewer huntsmen, and coursing with hounds fell into decline.

Sad, this

![](https://theparnassian.com/content/images/2026/09/photo_15078@28-01-2025_08-38-02.jpg)