In Girls (part of Your Ad Could Go Here), Darka's mother had the "little joy" of getting a leather coat:
Everything that followed in her life was fine with her: marriage, poverty, children, sickness, a job she didn't like, as well as the little joys, like a new apartment or a leather coat. It's true, the leather was only pigskin, but it had been well tanned.
From what I've been able to gather, pigskin leather is currently cheaper (and regarded as less durable) than cattle leather. I'm not sure if that was true at the time that the story took place, though.
Was pigskin leather more abundant (or otherwise easier to acquire) in the former USSR, or did she have it due to it being cheaper and her being poor?
