Kontush belt ("kontusz sash" or the Slutsk sash; , ) was a cloth sash used for girding a kontusz (a robe-like garment). It was one of the most distinctive items of male dress of Polish and Lithuanian nobility (szlachta) from about 17th through the 19th centuries. In an earlier period, sometimes narrower sashes of fine cloth or silk net were worn, but the wide kontusz sash is specific to the later period. Origins Like the rest of Polish national dress, the kontusz sash was of eastern origin. It comprised a 3- to 4.5-meter-long strip of fabric covered with varied designs, around 40 cm wide. Luxurious sashes were made with silk and gold. Depending on the sash's width, it might be folded a number of ways so as to reveal various designs on various occasions, the most ornate sashes were considered to have four sides. Initially such sashes were imported from Persia and Turkey. In the 17th century several sash manufactories were founded at places all over Rzeczpospolita, such as Kobyłka, Lipków, Hrodna, Kraków and Gdańsk. The largest and most notable manufacturies, however, were at Slutsk. Sashes produced there were considered the most desirable and were also the most expensive. Because of the popularity of the pas kontuszowy produced there, it was sometimes called pas słucki (Slutsk sash), regardless of the actual place of origin. Slutsk (city of Slutsk) sashes had two different color patterns on each side. A modern Polish poet and a singer, Jacek Kaczmarski, has sung about those sashes in one of his ballads, Z pasa słuckiego pożytek (The uses of a Slutsk sash). Slutsk sash is declared to be a cultural heritage of Belarus. Kontush Sash an Attribute of a Nobleman. The Kontush Sash (belt) has an oriental provenance rooted in Persian and Turkish tradition. Continual contact between the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth and Persia and even more with Turkey developed vast trade roots and raised popular interest in oriental art and decoration all over “Eastern” Europe. The Ideology of Sarmathism created in the XVIc a wide super-ethnos embracing many Central European nations. The Kontush Belt was a visual manifestation of Sarmathian identity and was widely popular in Lithuania and Belarus, in Poland, Ukraine, Hungary, Saxony, Moldavia, Besarabia and some parts of Russia. Kontush belts were worn by the Nobility, Cossack elders and high municipal officials. The time of prosperity during the period of XVI – XVIIIc created surplus