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Communist Camera Collectors Podium
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Rangefinder cameras Images Useful links
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Items for sale Contact: Soviet Camera Exhibition: History of the Soviet Photographic industry 1930-1992 Kiev Street Fashions |
Quick link to index of all cameras My price guide for soviet cameras 25 years ago, in England, I bought myself a cheap camera, a Zenit E, and after using it for a couple of months I traded it and some cash for a Pentax Spotmatic and promptly forgot about the Zenit. 20 years later I travelled to Kiev to take a holiday and as a bonus meet with a friend I had made on the internet. I carried with me a list of soviet cameras to 'look out for...' for an English friend of mine in Amsterdam. This included strange sounding names such as Drug, Moskow, Kiev, Horizont and Iskra. Two weeks later I returned to Amsterdam with thirteen cameras, various lenses and a promise to return and marry my friend, Alla. So I fell in love... it happens... anyone who has used a Kiev rangefinder camera will understand. Although the Ukrainian Customs officer at Borispol Airport thought I had seriously lost my marbles, and she only found five of the thirteen cameras in my luggage. Ukrainians covet cameras such as Nikon and Olympus and can't understand why anyone would want to buy old soviet cameras, though this doesn't prevent many of them from consulting the camera buyers guide and asking $200 for a dirty, non functioning Horizont.
My real prizes from this trip were a Kiev 4, pictured above, a Jupiter 3, 50mm 1.5 lens and a Moskow 5 that some enterprising comrade had adapted to take 6x9, 6x6 and 6x4.5cm frames. I used these cameras a lot in the next few months and quite apart from the pleasure of fiddling around with things I'd half forgotten, such as parallax correction and having to guess the settings I found the quality of the lenses to be far better than I'd expected. My cameras of choice these days are the Contax 139, G2 and RTS models, of which I have one of each, and 35mm, and 85mm are the lenses I use most often (45mm and 90mm with the G2) so perhaps its not so surprising that I would be attracted to an early Contax which can be supplied with both lenses at no great expense. I now live in Kiev, teaching English and taking photos and have made many friends here among camera enthusiasts. I have good contacts now to find most of what I want for myself at reasonable prices and feel I can now offer the kind of service that collectors or photographers would wish for if ordering direct from Ukraine. I can repair and service cameras via my network of fellow enthusiasts and former Arsenal workers. The cameras I offer here for sale are the best of what I find when I browse the markets and newspapers here in Kiev. If you don't want the best then let me know what you want and at what price and I'll get it for you. My thanks to Alla, my wife, for her patience and help with translations (she now knows more about soviet cameras than I do), and to Constantine for his help with the loan of cameras and literature from his collection. Also to Nathan Dayton for his commie cameras site (see links), which has been very helpful as a technical guide for me over the last few years. My friend Vlad of Rus-camera.com in Rhivne, Ukraine, who found some really nice items for my own collection at sensible prices. And to all those former and present workers at Arsenal factory in Kiev who have been so helpful. We are happy to receive visitors from other countries, so if you are coming to Kiev for any reason and need help with finding accommodation or a guide to visit the markets or camera shops, find good restaurants etc.. We hope to soon be able to offer a complete and reasonably priced package for camera clubs or individuals who wish to have an interesting holiday in Ukraine. If you have comments or questions please use e-mail and I will publish answers and comments on separate or relevant pages. Mike the Camera Commissar Feb 2006 contact napchop@gmail.com
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