Two Canadian travellers were in Moscow to prepare to depart for Canada with four little Sables hidden in their bags. Sables were not exportable as live animals. Lenin wanted to keep the market cornered on his treasure and did not want a single one leaving the country. The penalty for smuggling Sables out of the Iron Curtain was death and the Canadians knew it.
One found out the hard way.
He was taken to Red Square on a cold winter day and tied to a pole. His clothing was cut away and he was skinned alive and shot before a ranting crowd. He was then burned and his skin was hung on the pole for all to see. This was the skinners end. The other Canadian as the story goes actually escaped to Canada with his four Sables.
To this day all Sable raised outside of Russia came from those four Sables.
And no Sable is as prized as the Russian Sable!
A fine Sable Coat today sells for two hundred thousand dollars.
Personally I think Faux Fur is perfectly fine and harms no animals.
In the 17 and 18 hundreds, the Sable was a Russian animal that was cherished by the people of the world and by the people behind the Iron Curtain. The animal was the only valuable asset for the Russian export trade for hundreds of years.The Sable lived nowhere on Earth except the Siberian plains. Lenin knew this and he wanted to hang on to his monopoly. 
