KLMK Berezka: A Field Guide to Soviet Camouflage Colorways
What is KLMK Berezka?
KLMK — an acronym for Kamuflirovanny Letniy Maskirovochny Kombinezon, or camouflaged summer camouflage coverall — entered Soviet service in the late 1960s. The pattern takes its common name, Berezka (birch tree), from the elongated leaf and branch shapes that define its visual character. But the garment format preceded the pattern by two decades.
The Garment
The KLMK's predecessors date to around 1948, when a reversible coverall — the MK — was introduced with a tan leaf design on bright green, reversing to a grid pattern reputedly intended to degrade early night vision equipment. There is little evidence this was more than a trial, though the pattern later appeared on KLMK-style suits and is known among collectors as the “Type II leaf.” A blotch design followed in 1960, also reversible to a grid, issued primarily to airborne, reconnaissance, and GRU spetsnaz units.
The stair-step birch design entered service in 1968. Jagged angular shapes on a grass-green field, it was developed specifically to counter the widespread adoption of night vision optics by NATO forces. It became the dominant pattern in the KLMK format — and eventually gave the garment its popular name: Berezka, birch, for the pale trunk and dark leaf clusters the pattern was designed to evoke.
The birch design was not confined to the oversuit. It appeared on two-piece uniforms, berets, field caps, and sun hats. From 1981 it was printed on heavy cotton spetsodezhda — special purpose uniforms — issued to KGB Border Guard units. The same design on loose-weave KZS oversuits, produced by multiple manufacturers with inconsistent quality control, resulted in a wide variety of documented dye combinations.
The reversible construction of the KLMK was not decorative. First-generation night vision devices paired an infrared illuminator with an image intensifier tube that amplifies reflected light — rendering hard edges and high contrast most clearly. The reverse side works against this through texture and tone: a microgrid houndstooth ground introduces fine repeated structure that the intensifier tube struggles to resolve, while the low-contrast, faded birch motif avoids the sharp silhouette edges that read cleanly under amplification. No special treatment — the fabric itself, and the way the pattern sits on it, does the work.
Why So Many Colorways?
The original KLMK uniform was never produced to a single consistent standard. Manufactured across multiple Soviet-era factories over more than two decades, the pattern appeared in a wide range of color expressions — some the result of inconsistent dye batches and varying fabric stocks, others deliberate adaptations for different operational environments and issuing branches. Collectors and researchers have documented dozens of distinct variations, ranging from bright yellow-green to deep olive, from stark white to warm khaki, with the spaces between shapes shifting from near-black to medium green depending on the production run.
The Two Color Families
Two broad color families define the historical record. The first pairs white shapes against a medium green ground — produced as a reversible uniform from 1968 onward, with the anti-night vision reverse described above. Nicknamed solnechnye zaychiki (sun bunnies) for the dappled light effect the white shapes produce in woodland, it remains the most visually distinctive of the KLMK variants.
The second and more prevalent family features yellow or yellow-green shapes on a dark olive field. This colorway was carried by a distinct garment format: the KZS — Kamuflirovanny Zasadny Skafandr, Camouflaged Ambush Suit — a lightweight oversized coverall purpose-built for ambush and close-reconnaissance work, looser cut and lighter than the KLMK. The KZS saw extensive use during the Soviet–Afghan War, where its yellow-on-green palette proved well-suited to the arid scrub and rocky terrain of the Afghan countryside. Photographs from the conflict document KZS-pattern garments worn by Spetsnaz GRU, KGB Border Guard, and VDV airborne troops. Within this family, color expression varies considerably — from bright yellow-green to warmer khaki and tan tones — reflecting differences in factory output, fabric stock, and likely some degree of intentional adaptation for drier operational environments.
Post-Soviet Production
The pattern did not retire with the Soviet Union. Ex-Soviet republics continued issuing KLMK uniforms well into the post-Soviet era, and commercial production for civilian and paramilitary markets has continued to the present day — further expanding the range of colorways and print qualities in circulation. Post-2000 reinterpretations appeared in Russian reconnaissance and special operations roles under names including Berezhka, serebryanyi list (silver leaf), and the gold-toned zolotoy zhelty list (golden yellow leaf). This extended production history makes definitive attribution difficult, and contributes to the breadth of variation seen across surviving examples.
The Maskirovka Outfitters Colorways
We carry four colorways — two from each family.
From the white-on-green family: Solnechnye Zaychiki — sun bunnies, white shapes on green — is the obverse, day side of the reversible woodland variant. Lunnyye Zaychiki — moon bunnies, a faded birch motif on a microgrid houndstooth ground — is its reverse, the night side designed to defeat early image intensifier optics.
From the yellow-on-green family: Listvenny — leafy, yellow-green — follows the classic spetsnaz issue. Yantarny — amber, khaki on dark green — represents the warmer end of the yellow-on-green spectrum.
Each name is drawn from the Russian descriptive tradition around the pattern, chosen to reflect what you’re actually looking at rather than an arbitrary numbering system.