The Lavra Gallery of Arts has hosted its first specialized exhibition of modern and antique blades, titled White Arms. This term was applied to cold steel in olden times (French, armes blanches) to emphasize the weapons’ purity and honesty, the qualities that formed the basis of our ancestors’ philosophy.
As the exhibition manager Alla Hasanova told The Day, the exhibition, dedicated to Ukraine’s Ground Forces Day, acquainted Kyivans with the art of cold steel production inside this country and out. Indeed, along with such universally acclaimed trademarks as Victorinox and Remington, the exposition also displayed the products of private Ukrainian producers and firms. But what stirred up the greatest interest of visitors were antique blades and armor of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth at its prime, Persian and Turkish scimitars of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, and, of course, a huge 168 cm-long seventeenth-century German sword, which hardly ever saw action.
Stylized Japanese swords also aroused much curiosity. A rep of the Lev-Arm Company said that, contrary to a prevalent opinion, it is women, not men, who usually buy such dangerous toys — for example, to please their bosses. “And what else should I present to a man who’s got everything?” Such gift blades are in brisk demand and, in spite of rather high prices (700 to 2000 hryvnias), the store manages to sell as many as five units of these arms a week. Yet, Ukraine is still to pass a law on cold steel. The bill is still being drawn up. And here is information for those worried if it is legal to freely carry such gifts (not swords, of course, but all kinds of knives and daggers): the maximal permissible length of such blades is 90 mm. Also important is the class of a weapon. For example, professional-type arms can only be carried by law-enforcement officers. Conversely, the hunting knife falls into the category of semiprofessional weapons: so if you are going to the countryside, you can take one with you without fearing of breaking the law.
