Yesterday, my friend and perfume expert Victoria Belim called out the fragrance brand Les Indemodables for how they use the concept of ‘legendary Russian leather’ in the marketing of their latest scent Vanille Havane ‘Cuir des Abysses’. She pointed out to the company that romanticising the Russian Empire is perhaps not what we should be engaging in right now. Disappointingly, but predictably, the brand replied that this is just a reference to a specific tanning technique (more on this later) and asked whether we should now all stop reading Dostoyevsky. When Victoria shared her thoughts and the brand’s reaction, I went to their Instagram feed and asked them to reconsider the use of the concept – in what I though was a reasonably respectful manner.

And this would have been the end of it, if I hadn’t discovered this morning that my comment was no longer there. Clearly, what I had considered a snappish but otherwise unremarkable comment was deemed unacceptable by the brand and removed. Which is honestly silly, as the damage I did to their reputation, if any, was minuscule. Now, however, I am writing a whole essay. Not that this will have a much larger impact and my goal is not to damage anyone anyway, but this small erasure prompted me to elaborate.

I am aware that this is a topic where I am more sensitive than most and many people may find it difficult to understand why I (and Victoria) reacted the way we did. To be clear, we are not trying to ban any mention of Russia, but questioning how and why it is done, especially as the country in question has long used its cultural capital to soften or justify its aggressive image. As an Estonian and a Ukrainian, we are intimately familiar with Russian and Soviet imperialism in its different forms and Russian war against Ukraine has of course heightened that awareness even further. I have always found it disappointing that while the West has become increasingly anti-colonialist (as it should), this sentiment doesn’t seem to extend to Russia. The current war has changed things somewhat, but there is still little understanding that Russia is a colonial-imperial project by nature.

What is even less understood is that this colonial impulse has been directed not only towards the West and South – Finland, the Baltic States, Poland, Ukraine, the Caucasus, Central Asia and others, but also towards the East. We are used to thinking of Russia as this massive unitary state filled with Russians that has always been there in more-or-less the current proportions. When in fact Siberia and the Russian Far East (meaning most of its territory) were conquered slowly and painfully from the 16^th to the 19^th century. The country contains about 160 indigenous groups that did not all want to become part of the empire and who have often been almost fully assimilated by force.

For people who have been – and are – at the receiving end of these processes (Estonia was a non-voluntary part of the Russian Empire from 1710 to 1918 and then occupied by the Soviet Union from WWII up to 1991), it can be triggering to read the following: “Russian leather” is not only a material, it is a myth, a legend born from centuries of secret craftmanship. In the salons of St Petersburg and Moscow, it covered aristocrats’ armchairs and writing desks; in Paris and London, it adorned trunks, boots and bookbindings. Its perfume alone could fill a room, an invisible signature. Owning Russian Leather was more than possessing an object, it was participating in a culture of rare luxury, inseparably tied to the grandeur of Imperial Russia.” I don’t know about you, but when I read this text that accompanied the launch of Vanille Havana, I do not get the sense that ‘Russian leather’ is here simply referring to a tanning technique, as the company now modestly claims. It seems rather to be “inseparably tied to the grandeur of Imperial Russia” – which in turn was tied to endless wars, serf labour, absolutist rule and faith in the superiority of Mother Russia.

Of course, the perfume world is filled with imperialist imagery and colonial tropes. Complaints about fragrances inspired by Napoleon or Ottoman Empire are also valid and Vanille Havane is not the first scent to reference Russian leather: I do personally own and wear Chanel’s Cuir de Russie. Apart from my background, which of course influences my thinking, there are two reasons why I think that the Havana Vanille case is more problematic.

First, unlike most other colonial powers, Russia is still at it. It is of course fair to say that UK, France, Belgium*, etc have a long way to go to repair their colonial legacy, but there aren’t many people in these countries actively advocating for recolonisation or rebuilding an empire. In Russia, it is state policy and supported by most of the population. Estonia has been conquered not only by Russians but also Danes, Swedes, Germans and Poles, but only one of these nations seems to contemplate doing it again. Gushing about the imperial grandeur of Russia while the country is simultaneously killing Ukrainians to restore said grandeur therefore seems worse to me than some other examples of the genre.

Second, many cases of unfortunate naming choices or marketing language are old. Chanel released its Russian Leather in 1927, and thankfully manages to refrain from any mention of imperial grandeur on their website. We can – and should – have a conversation about what to do with things that have already become part of our cultural canon** and how we relate to them when context or our own awareness has changed. But to actively choose, in 2025, to praise the opulence of Russian empire indicates a failure of reflection and empathy.

It is also ill informed. As Victoria pointed out, the original Russian leather was in fact mass produced by serfs – it was treated with birch tar for durability. When Russian troops entered Paris in 1814, Parisians complained that they could smell them before they could see them. This arrival of Russian leather in Paris was a traumatic experience for France, marking Paris’s surrender and the end of Napoleon’s rule. But the memory – and smell – of that seems to have faded…

*I know that empires are not an exclusively European phenomenon, but I am writing in a specific context and with limited scope.

**Personally, I am no longer reading Russian classics, although a number of them have been formative experiences for me. But this is a more nuanced discussion and I am not stopping my daughter from reading Dostoyevsky for school. However, implying that this entirely uncritical representation of Russian empire is OK because people still read Brothers Karamazov is delusional.