Malahai

[8] As of 2012[update], seven authentic malahais with varying degrees of damage survived in museums and private collections in China, Kazakhstan, and Russia.

[2] The headgear typically had four flaps and the front one, rectangular and shorter than the rest, was habitually folded upward and only lowered to cover the wearer's forehead during severe cold snaps or snowstorms.

[12] Malahai became part of the Russian clothing in the mid-18th century after the Bashkirs and Kalmyks introduced the headgear to the country.

[3] Among Old Believers—Eastern Orthodox Christians who maintain the liturgical and ritual practices of the Russian Orthodox Church as they were before the 17th-century reforms of Patriarch Nikon of Moscow—wearing malahai was forbidden because the wearer of the headgear cast a silhouette that allegedly resembled that of a horned demon,[4] and some malahais were lined with wolf fur, which was proscribed for them to wear especially in group prayer meetings.

^ Variously romanized as malahai,[16] malahay,[7] malakai,[1] malaxay,[7] malaqai,[7] malaqay,[7] malakaj,[7] and malakhai[17] b.