Treads - cavalry boots with high tops with overhead sockets that cover the knee. Also known as bottes fortes. Originally invented as a rider shoes to help him for a long time to be in the saddle: his boots werehard on top, giving almost no ability to bend knees or ankles. High part of the boots could be turned down for town wear.
Treads were military uniform shoes of cavalry in Europe in the Middle Ages, in the Russia army were used in the XVII-XVIII centuries.