Recent military parade shows the Russians never really throw anything away (PHOTOS)

Tankers with TT holsters

Trotsky-capped 1920s Red Army troops with three-line (7.62x54R) Mosins and mounted bayonets along with a Red commissar. The Bolsheviks hit on the commissar idea to make sure that former Tsarist officers kept enough red in their pencil, at the point of a revolver if needed.

Female medics in heavy coats with Nagant M1895 revolvers in traditional pebble holsters. Their feet are clad in Valenki, felt boots which are ideal for use on snow, which we hear Russia has.

The typical “Frontovik” Ivan from WWII, complete with plash-palatka rain capes and SSh-40 steel helmets. They appear to have SVT-40 rifles from a distance, which would be correct.

However, on closer look, they are SKS-45s.

Yup, SKSs. The Soviets made these in the early 1950s and they were soon replaced by the AK fam. So maybe you could argue these were just after WWII-era troops.

Russian Naval Infantry

Siberian ski troops of the sort that famously marched through Moscow in the winter of 1941 on the way to fight the Germans. They should have SMGs and Mosin carbines but are carrying SKSs instead.

A Dnepr M-72 motorcycle, and dig the sidecar comrade with the DP-28 Degtyaryov machine gun

Red Cavalry of the 1920s with distinctive “Budenovka” or Trotsky caps and lances

Known as a “tachanka” this cart-drawn Maxim machine gun was popular in the Russian Civil War and continued to be used into the 1930s.

Santa ain’t got nothing on the Russians

Mosin-armed Red infantry in a rattle trap ZIS-5 truck, of which more than a million were made in the WWII era

This U.S. made M4A2 Sherman tank, reportedly recovered last year in great condition and restored, was one of 4,102 sent to the Reds under Lend-Lease during WWII, or as the Russians call it “Lendlizovsky”

This cute fella is a cobbled up NI-1 “tractor tank” of the darkest days of WWII and is literally just an up-armored tractor. Hey, if the Nassis are coming, you do what you have to…

The T-34, the Soviet’s go-to tank for heavy lifting in WWII. Hungarian rebels reportedly found that those great big external fuel tanks made great sport in street fighting in 1956!

The giant IS-3 heavy tank, meant to chew up German Tigers, and named in honor of Uncle Joe himself

An SU-100 tank destroyer. (This, is a literal “assault gun,” btw.)

Today’s Russian troops, complete with the bane of any modern military– the reflective PT belt