Period Photos of People with Ethnographic Arms

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Originally Posted by AvtoGaz

Its not a souvenir picture, they really were just that heavily armed in everyday life. It was really not uncommon at all for many of the peoples of Anatolia and the Balkans "

Indeed, hereby a few more pics from several peoples on the Balkans.
Don’t forget, those times where dangerous with bandits, brigands, local militia, unpaid soldiers from armies wandering around at the border of great empires…it was not that safe and one had to protect oneself….

I never forget the first time I arrived in Sarajevo and Kotor on motorbike in 1985, I was asked where I came from. On my reply “ Maastricht”, they asked where that was. When I said “Limburg” a big long laughter followed.
Asking what was so funny, they told me that Limburg was synonym for BS, nonsense, nothing….
Root cause was simple :
since Medieval times when all were part of the Holy Roman Empire ( Emperor Sygismund) and also later when the Ottoman and Habsburg successors took over, if a guy would travel from Sarajevo to Cologne , Maastricht (Limburg)or Brussels, chances he arrived or worse returned were a minimum . Also found in Crnojanski’ semi historical book “ the Pandurs” AKA “ migration”. Hence Limburg became quite understandable a “ funny ” laughable name, implying either a suicidal mission or one of no return caused by danger on the road….so not to be compaied with Jack Kerouac’s “ on the road”….
Just a simple indication or justification one had to arm himself very well. A matter which continued through the Balkan wars of the 1912ies to the tragic events in the former Yu during the 1990ies

Made sense to me and if you look which borders one had to cross from the Balkans and which dangers to face, one had to be carefully and good armed as there was no 2nd amendment on the Bill of Rights in the Balkans…:-)