Cintarka

Cintarka
Type	Combat boot
Designation	Unknown
Place of Origin	Kingdom of Bulgaria
Produced	At least 1940 - late 1970s
Manufacturer(s)	Unknown
Material(s)	Unknown
Evolved from	Unknown
Evolved into	Unknown
Service
Used by	Army of the Kingdom of Bulgaria, Bulgarian People's Army
Wars	World War II, Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia

The Cintarka (loosely translated as Hobnail boot) is a combat boot of Bulgarian origin.

Overview

The cintarki are a standard low boot type shoes. They are made of leather and have six or five lace holes lacking eyelets and their most distinguishing feature is the loop on the rear part of the shoe that goes into the heel cap. The soles are made of stacked leather pieces with hobnails and the heels are reinforced with metal cleats.

They are commonly known as cintarki (sg. cintarka, Bulgarian: цинтарка, pl. cintarki, Bulgarian: цинтарки) which derives from cint (цинт), the Bulgarian word for hobnail.

History

These shoes were the standard issue combat boots for the Royal Bulgarian army during World War II and later for the Bulgarian People's army.

They were used by the Bulgarian army during the Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968. The cintarki continued to be used as the primary footwear of the communist Bulgarian army well into the 1970s, although the design was heavily outdated by this time.

The Bulgarians introduced a more contemporary design after 1965 known as Kubinka, however, this type was intended only for officers. It was not until the early 1980s when the Bulgarian army adopted a more modern combat boot on a wide scale thus finally ending the service life of the outdated cintarka. However, according to some, the cintarki were still used in mandatory military service up until the 1990s.

Gallery

A World War 2 period cintarki

Left boot

Frontal view

Heels

Soles

Markings

Another pair of 1940 manufactured cintarki

Soles

Year of manufacture markings "ИА 1940"

Heel