Leather USSR Passport Cover

Various collectibles: a leather passport cover (wrapper) in red featuring the USSR State Emblem.

Genuine leather... must be some 40-50 years old.

State emblem of the USSR with hammer and sickle over the globe and the rising Sun.

 In fact, I use it as covers for my current passport.

"Vermillion booklet".

While I am on the subject, here's a poem:

My Soviet Passport

---

Source: Sputnik no.12/1982, translated by Herbert Marshall;
Transcribed: by Liviu Iacob.

---

I'd tear
         like a wolf
            at bureaucracy.
For mandates
         my respect's but the slightest.
To the devil himself
         I'd chuck without mercy
every red-taped paper.
         But this ...
Down the long front
         of coupés and cabins
File the officials
         politely.
They gather up passports
         and I give in
My own vermilion booklet.
For one kind of passport -
smiling lips part
For others -
         an attitude scornful.
They take
         with respect, for instance,
            the passport
From a sleeping-car
English Lionel.
The good fellows eyes
         almost slip like pips
when,
         bowing as low as men can,
they take,
         as if they were taking a tip,
the passport
         from an American.
At the Polish,
         they dolefully blink and wheeze
in dumb
         police elephantism -
where are they from,
         and what are these
geographical novelties?
And without a turn
         of their cabbage heads,
their feelings
         hidden in lower regions,
they take without blinking,
         the passports from Swedes
and various
         old Norwegians.
Then sudden
         as if their mouths were
         aquake
those gentlemen almost
         whine
Those very official gentlemen
         take
that red-skinned passport
         of mine.
Take-
         like a bomb
         take - like a hedgehog,
like a razor
         double-edge stropped,
take -
         like a rattlesnake huge and long
with at least
         20 fangs
            poison-tipped.
The porter's eyes
         give a significant flick
(I'll carry your baggage
         for nix,
            mon ami...)
The gendarmes enquiringly
         look at the tec,
the tec, -
         at the gendarmerie.
With what delight
         that gendarme caste
would have me
         strung-up and whipped raw
because I hold
         in my hands
            hammered-fast
sickle-clasped
         my red Soviet passport.
I'd tear
         like a wolf
            at bureaucracy.
For mandates
         my respect's but the slightest.
To the devil himself
         I'd chuck
            without mercy
every red-taped paper,
         But this ...
I pull out
         of my wide trouser-pockets
duplicate
of a priceless cargo.
            You now:
read this
         and envy,
            I'm a citizen
of the Soviet Socialist Union!