Quote:
Originally Posted by ariel
I am sure it has nothing to do with Armenians and Kurds.
Attached you will find a picture from a Russian book-album , a catalogue of the collection of Eastern weapons from the Russian Ethnographic Museum in St. Petersburg.
My train of thought uses 3 elements: the remarkable similarity to the North Anatolian Laz Bichaq; origin from Tashkent ( Uzbekistan) and the date of acquisition ( 1948).
I suggest this is a Meskheti Turks weapon.
Meskheti Turks lived in South Georgia, right on the border with Turkey and close to ( or even mixed with) Laz Turks. Both ethnicities were Turkish ( or islamized Georgians), both spoke Turkish language and had overlapping cultures and likely weapons.
In 1944 Soviet government forcibly exiled 115,000 of them to Central Asia ( Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan and Kirghizstan), accusing the entire people of spying on behalf of Turkey. They were loaded into train cars and sent to their new destinations without food and warm clothes. In the 2-months long transit 20-30% died of cold and hunger ( mainly children, women and old people). This is identical to the fate of Chechens, Kabardians, Balkars, Kurds, Crimean Tatars et cetera.
The place of acquisition of this sword is Tashkent, a capital of Uzbekistan, where most Meskheti Turks were exiled without any right to change their place of living. The date of entry is listed as 1948, just 4 years after the exile. Russian " ethnographers" just likely bought it from one of the starving exiles , likely for pennies. Or got it as a confiscated item from the local security goons for a bottle of vodka.
I would gravely doubt the alleged name "Shoi", the attribution to Kazakhs and the alleged acquisition by the closed Museum of the Nations of USSR : the museum records and the authors of the book committed so many attributional errors that one cannot rely on any statement.
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May I perhaps suggest a Hemshin Armenian origin. The Hemshins live mostly in Turkey but a group of them also used to live in Adjara in the Georgian SSR, but were deported to Central Asia at the same time as the Meskhetian Turks. While the Meskhetian Turks lived further inland in Samtskhe, the Hemshin Armenians lived right next to the Laz and Adjar people in the mountainous highlands of the black sea region and had a much more similar culture to them. Indeed, most photos of Meskhetian Turks show them with rather typical Caucasian style weapons and clothing, not Pontic.
I feel this explanation accounts for everything you mentioned plus its previous attribution as being "Armenian".