Epaulette of the director of the Don Cadet Corps, Colonel P.N. Lazarev-Stanishchev

Cadet corps appeared in Russia in the XVIII century . Initially, these were analogues of the current military schools, which graduated their students as officers directly into the troops. By the end of the 19th century, another important task was assigned to the cadet corps: to give the children of poor officers and officials a good education and upbringing at public expense, as well as to prepare them for military service. Such a pillar of the throne and the state as the Don Cossacks has always enjoyed the attention and care of the emperor. Therefore, in 1883, in Novocherkassk, the capital of the Don army, the Don Cadet Corps was opened, designed for 600 students, of whom 200 were incoming, and 400 lived in the building on full government support. The children of officers and officials of the Don army enjoyed the preferential right of admission. A distinctive feature of the Don Corps was that almost all of its students chose an officer's career for the rest of their lives. During the first 25 years of the corps' existence, 92% of its graduates enrolled in military schools.

An important privilege of the corps was the uniform, which was strikingly different from the uniforms of all other corps. The uniforms of the pupils were almost the same as those of the Cossacks of the Don army – dark blue, with red trim and silver hardware. The only difference was that the cadets were not supposed to have papakhas, and their trousers with lamps were long, worn loose, over their boots. It is assumed that the lamps of the Soviet Suvorov soldiers, which still exist today, were borrowed from the lamps on the trousers assigned to the Don Corps. The officers' epaulettes were silver, scaly (cavalry type), with a red lining. In 1899, in memory of the founder of the corps, officers and cadets were given a cipher on their shoulder straps in the form of the monogram of Emperor Alexander III, which lasted until 1917.

This epaulette belonged to a colonel (since 1906, Major General). Pavel Nikolaevich Lazarev-Stanishchev, who served as director of the corps for 14 years (1903-1917). In 1874, he graduated from the Konstantinovsky Military College, and in 1883 from the Nikolaev Engineering Academy. He rose to the rank of lieutenant colonel in the army. He served in the department of military educational institutions since 1899, first as a company commander, and then as a class inspector of the Warsaw (Suvorov) Cadet Corps. He was promoted to colonel, and in 1903 he was appointed to the highly responsible position of director of the Don Cadet Corps. A former cadet himself (a graduate of the 1st St. Petersburg Military Gymnasium), P.N. Lazarev-Stanishchev perfectly understood all the aspirations and needs of the students. For the exemplary order and level of training in the corps, he was promoted to Major General in 1906, and to Lieutenant General in 1913. In the February days of 1917, in front of the ranks of officers and cadets of the corps, he refused to swear allegiance to the Provisional Government, and was dismissed in June. He participated in the Civil War, supervised the quartering of military personnel in Denikin's army. He has been in exile since 1920. He took an active part in the accommodation of evacuated Don Cossacks, their families and cadets on the island of Lemnos, where he died on September 17, 1920. The epaulette refers to the first three years of Lazarev-Stanishchev's service in Novocherkassk (1903-1906), before he was promoted to the rank of general. A museum-grade rarity acquired from the general's heirs. Guarantee of authenticity.