Why are you blue?
Камыш Тигр (Reed/Cane Tiger) or simply "Tigr" first reared it's heads in the 1990s during the chechen wars alongside new variants of Russia's "VSR" family of camouflages.
Tigerstripe camouflages are naturally good in built-up wetlands, tall grasses, and environments adjacent to water... but why the heck is this bright blue?
Russia's "internal" security forces, the MVD, received differently colored variants of VSR and tiger stripe to identify their units likely as a means of distinction from Russia's military for better or for worse.
This "Blue" version likely emerged as an attempt to field an "Urban" version of the green/brown tiger stripe — naturally being given to the guys who did a lot of their work in the cities...


OMON
OMON, one of Russia's MVD police forces, would widely adopt the blue patterns all the way up until their reorganization in 2016 - by far one of the longest known uses of a single camouflage by the MVD.
What does OMON do?
They serve as a paramilitary police force much in the same way the US has militarized forces within the FBI, DEA, Homeland Security, and the IRS. The MVD has historical ties to the KGB, whom were basically all of those US agencies rolled into one, and quite a bit scarier.
The Boys In Blue
OMON would take part in several armed conflicts, counter-terror operations, and plenty of riot policing, all while sporting blue "Kamysh" tiger stripes and their cosmonaut-esque headwear.
Curiously, they'd even adopt the siberian tiger as a symbol of their forces for it's symbolism of strength, agility, and ferocity.
Infamously, Ukrainian "Berkut" units were also seen wearing a suspiciously similar blue tiger stripe camo during Ukraine's revolution if dignity...
Safe to say, there's no hiding from anyone wearing this camo.


Meanwhile In The West...
To the credit of Russia scrounging for commercial camos, it's garish aesthetics have become recognizable here in the west thanks to a particular photo of a man at a MilSim West event doing a flying jump-kick into a door.
Despite the photo not being technically "real", it seemed so much like what the OMON would do when presented with a door to knock down that it fooled us and countless other netizens for years.
That alone is worth a homage, but the camo deserves to live on too.
We consulted our favorite tracksuit-building slavs behind the making of our sasha jacket, and we've once again achieved perfection with the all-important stripes included...
