My Canadian friend @JRPipeSmoker bought a set of pipes from the Canadian online market site Kijiji. The seller included a free box of Soviet "Zolotoye Runo," meaning Golden Fleece. JR wrote: "It was dry as dust when I opened it but rehydrated to a good level now... It's sort of nutty which makes me think some kind of burley. Maybe a little floral. But definitely a VA of some kind."
The front cover says:
The back cover has a circle at the top saying:
The back cover says,
The "Ministry of Taste Industry" only existed in 1946-1949, so the box is very much a vintage product. The blend was discontinued in the early-mid 1990's. Nowadays Ukraine or Russia has a Yellow VA variety called "Golden Fleece", but the leaf variety is different from the pipe blend. The pipe blend's name must come from its mix of honey and vanilla.
On the right, JR has a photo of his Medico pipe loaded with Golden Fleece. I am sharing his photos with his permission.
Golden Fleece was the most popular Soviet pipe blend. It was a vanilla, coumarin, honey aromatic. Standard Soviet-grown pipe tobacco leaves were Orientals like Samsun, but not Latakia. They also had a series of VA-Oriental hybrids called "American." In my page on Soviet "Captain's" blend, I quoted the standard casing ingredients for Soviet pipe blends from the 1957 Soviet catalog, like geranium. I also cited the Soviet standard on leaf varieties.
Kapitanskiy: Captain's rum from Leningrad :: Pipe Tobacco Reviews
A friend from a pipe-themed Discord server generously gifted me a box of Kapitanskiy with a sealed 50 gram tinfoil packet. He got it on a well known auction website from a seller in Estonia. I was excited to get it and liked it a lot. Kapitanskiy means "Captain's," or literally "Captainish" in...
pipesmagazine.com
JR sent Golden Fleece to me after rehydrating it. Its tin note was like old medium-dark wood, like oak, walnut, or maple. It also reminded me of dog sweat. I barely noticed sweet vanilla and geranium tin notes.
The smoke sometimes had the tin note's medium-dark old oak smell. The dog sweat smell was faint and only in he start of the bowl. The smoke has a normal tobacco smell, like VA and borderline Oriental, like in Camels. It has a musty side and it often gives me a vanilla note.
The smoke turns bitter and nutty like walnut in the bowl's second half. The tin note wasn't moldy, and the blend basically didn't come across as moldy. But the bowl's second half maybe had moments like faint mold. It might have just been the normal musty smell.
It burned pretty well but needed occasional relights. I put two fat pinches and a couple small ribbon flakes of Golden Fleece in my full bent Grabow, and it burned well for an hour.
I liked the blend, except for the bitter walnut part, but even that bitter part was tolerable.
The nicotine level seemed normal.
Near the end of the bowl, it gets hard to keep lit, so I stirred it with a matchstick. Then when I relit it, I get a more geranium perfume fragrance, and a light sweet note that reminds me of candy flavoring. The candy flavor is familiar and could be vanilla, anise, or licorice.
The aftertaste was like a solid VA's aftertaste, but with a bitter oakwood or walnutwood old tobacco flavor.
I don't know if versions of Golden Fleece in later years smelled much differently, or if its bitter walnut flavor came from it's age. I'm guessing that the bitter walnut flavor was not an age issue. For instance, burleys often get bitter near the end of the bowl.
To compare Golden Fleece to other blends:
Captain's blend didn't have Golden Fleece's bitter walnut flavor. Captain's blend and Germain's #7 had much stronger floral scents than Golden Fleece did. Golden Fleece's floral smell wasn't especially rosey.
Captain's blend had a light VA-Oriental smell that reminded me of Daughter and Ryan's "Bulgarian" blend. But Golden Fleece smelled like a stronger, darker, more complicated blend than Captain's. Golden Fleece's Oriental note maybe reminded me more of Camel's than Captain's because of how much darker Golden Fleece came across.
