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Ill post a pic later but I noticed the Romanian lower HG I have has a name on it. Romeo. I figured that a lot of Romy's saw action in the Bosnian conflict but the name is throwing me. Isn't Romeo more of a Roman name?
Question about a name carving on battlefield wood.
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romanians are somewhat more of a latin people than slavic...
could be romanian service member's ak?
could be romanian service member's ak?
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Romanian conscripts were avid wood carvers. I bet they had a lot of free time. I picked up a bunch of Romanian wood from GFS. Most of it came with lots of carving. I have a Beni, Valy, Ramo, Dan/livia, Andi, Stephania, Roxy, and a Dark Angel. I'll bet yours came from a soldier who thought himself a real lady's man. Hence Romeo.
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Its Romanian in origin, during the revolution there were apparently ALOT of bored guys who carved lots and lots of furniture sets up with predominately names but also hash marks for better grip handling. I had a nice set that had 6 girls names on various parts as well as the hash marks on the underside for traction.
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DON"T ASK TOO MANY QUESTIONS:
I received a customer's Centerfire rough Yugo kit used in the Bosnian War to build some time ago and it had many carvings on the upper and lower wood handguards. I have seen carving like "Elvis LIve" and other statrments.
The customer also sent a new replacement set to put on his build and told me just to keep the old set. The barrel valve for the grenade lever was also completely eaten away from using corrisive ammo (must have forgot to clean his rifle). He liked to do the bluing himself at home.
Having placed these handguards on the furniture shelf for some time I kinda forgot about them until one of my good customers (Daniel) was over at the shop for one of his Yugo builds one day (he liked to watch while I would build his kits).
When I found out he was born and raised in the former Yugoslavia, I asked him to take a look at the carvings (looked like hyroglifics to me), he started to read the cyrylics like a book and showed what unit number (9793) the soldier he was in (carved). The top carved in four quadrants read "Only Unity Saves Serbs", the side said "God Saves Serbs", along with a couple of other markings.
I started to think how cool it would be to try to find this soldier today, and maybe even go over there to meet him. That was until my wife pointed out that the Serbs were considered the bad guys and under Slobondan Milosevic, he was arrested for War Crimes resutling in the genocide of 390,000 people and the rape of 50,000 women. He died in prison in March of 2006 suspected of being poisioned (never confirmed).
Well the plan was immediately scraped and I did the best think I could think of with the furniture, that was to sand out all of the carvings and refinish the wood for a nice "Shooter" and left it at that.
Kinda felt creepy after as this rifle very well could have very well been used in the genocide because of the loyality the soldier carved in his knife.
I sincerely appologize to the Forum if the posting is not appropriate and feel free to delete. We all see carving on furniture from time to time and usually ignoe it. In this rare case I was able to have it decifered was surprised as to what I found. This was a one time experience I have hadwith the 600+ Ak I have built over the years. Be careful of what you wish for. :doh:
I received a customer's Centerfire rough Yugo kit used in the Bosnian War to build some time ago and it had many carvings on the upper and lower wood handguards. I have seen carving like "Elvis LIve" and other statrments.
The customer also sent a new replacement set to put on his build and told me just to keep the old set. The barrel valve for the grenade lever was also completely eaten away from using corrisive ammo (must have forgot to clean his rifle). He liked to do the bluing himself at home.
Having placed these handguards on the furniture shelf for some time I kinda forgot about them until one of my good customers (Daniel) was over at the shop for one of his Yugo builds one day (he liked to watch while I would build his kits).
When I found out he was born and raised in the former Yugoslavia, I asked him to take a look at the carvings (looked like hyroglifics to me), he started to read the cyrylics like a book and showed what unit number (9793) the soldier he was in (carved). The top carved in four quadrants read "Only Unity Saves Serbs", the side said "God Saves Serbs", along with a couple of other markings.
I started to think how cool it would be to try to find this soldier today, and maybe even go over there to meet him. That was until my wife pointed out that the Serbs were considered the bad guys and under Slobondan Milosevic, he was arrested for War Crimes resutling in the genocide of 390,000 people and the rape of 50,000 women. He died in prison in March of 2006 suspected of being poisioned (never confirmed).
Well the plan was immediately scraped and I did the best think I could think of with the furniture, that was to sand out all of the carvings and refinish the wood for a nice "Shooter" and left it at that.
Kinda felt creepy after as this rifle very well could have very well been used in the genocide because of the loyality the soldier carved in his knife.
I sincerely appologize to the Forum if the posting is not appropriate and feel free to delete. We all see carving on furniture from time to time and usually ignoe it. In this rare case I was able to have it decifered was surprised as to what I found. This was a one time experience I have hadwith the 600+ Ak I have built over the years. Be careful of what you wish for. :doh:
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I had a nice Yugo M70 milled kit that I sold quite a few months ago. The lower handguard had a carving and I had no idea what it meant. I emailed a picture to a forum member in Croatia and he translated it to say, "Serb is a God". I agree with Johno. It is ugly but interesting from a historical point of view.
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Well the plan was immediately scraped and I did the best think I could think of with the furniture, that was to sand out all of the carvings and refinish the wood for a nice "Shooter" and left it at that.
That's up there with pinging out Chrysanthemums and Nazi Proof Marks..... Would not have done it. Your hand guards though......
That's up there with pinging out Chrysanthemums and Nazi Proof Marks..... Would not have done it. Your hand guards though......
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I agree Nazi proof marks are part of Military history. I recently gave one of my sons (an active Apache Longbow Pilot) a P-38 Pistol (in excellent condition) I inherited from my older brother, he found under a magnafied light the Nazi Swasyika Proof Marks from 1944. I do not have a problem with that, it was clearly Military history.Ol'Sarge2K said:
These carvings and what they said did not sit well with me due to the genocide that went on. However, that is just me and it may have just struck me wrong and I over reacted.
Other carvings do not, they just show a personalized rifle by some lonely soldier in the trenches and his closness to his rifle ("This is my rifle, there are many like it, however, this one is mine.....").
Now if it was a Nazi lampshade from one of the concentration camps during WWII (I hope) there would be no disagreement.
I'm done here.
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I agree with Jonpo. Also, the Serbians, though considered the bad guys, were often also just normal soldiers and were (and still are) discriminated against as an ethnicity. We once had a Serb exchange student whose family's house had been burned down twice and both times the non-Serb firefighters refused to come to the scene so they burned to the ground. There is definitely no group that is "right" or "wrong" in that region.....
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[email protected] said:
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