Russisch Leder by Farina Gegenüber, 1967

From a vintage bottle: it starts staight as leather; pure smooth leather. No initial citrus blast á la Creed's Cuir de Russie, and no harshness in the opening like with Knize Ten or TF's TL. And this beautiful smooth and a touch creamy note of only slightly aged leather sets the tone, developing light background notes of mild smokiness and a touch of tar; the latter remains in the background on me. Unlike in Chanel's counterpart there are no floral tones on my skin at all, and it has only little sweetness, which makes it different from Creed's REL. Overall a discrete leather scent, which means limited projection and poor silage; not one to draw attention to the wearer. A great traditional leather.

Quite strong at first, but it soon changes into a subtle skin fragrance that lingers on skin for a long time. And as it is with these animalic composions, it reacts strongly to skin temprerature.

It smells like a mixture of tar and vintage leather, just like a scent called "russian leather" should. Smoky and very balsamic in structure.

I think the EdC concentration fits very well to this juice. Due to it`s subtle nature it could easily be worn all year round, anywhere anytime. And if it would be stronger, I`m sure it would lose it`s lovely quality of the scent of animalic skin.

Just brought from Cologne. When I tasted the Chanel "Cuir de Russie" for the first time, I wished there would be something resembling for men. Here it is!
"Russisch Leder" immediately reminds you very much of Chanel's "Cuir de Russie". It also (logically) has some similar notes with Guerlain's "Derby" and almost unknown classical russian "Chyprè".
It's also very well balanced and respectful. The only one weak point - the concentration: it exists only as "Eau de cologne" and evaporates too fast...
Any way it's good and quite economic - only 22 Euro for 100 ml.