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From Russia with Love |
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From Russia with Love:
As I have mentioned elsewhere I have a very nice collection of Russian
cameras; to be more precise, Kievs, and particularly early ones. The
Kiev works at Arsenal in the city of Kiev commenced building these
Zeiss Contax copies with material, machinery and technical know how
confiscated from the defeated Third Reich and transported all the way
to the Ukraine. The complete story reads like a thriller and over the
course of time I will fill in a few more details. But the purpose of
this little article is just to show what the Comrades were up to in the
early years after World War 11.
 1948 Kiev 2
This 1948Kiev 2 with collapsible SK 50mm f2 lens is the earliest Kiev
in my collection. Manufacture of these cameras was started in 1947, but
the whole project proved fraught with problems The Kiev 2 was a copy of
the Contax 2 and as such was immensely complicated. Very few of these
cameras were made in the first year and in fact they are the only ones
missing from my collection. For the first few years many original Zeiss
parts which had been liberated from the Zeiss factory were incorporated
into these Russian copies.
According to the books a metered version the 111 was produced in 1952.
However the earliest I have is 1949, but my favourite is this
immaculate 1950
camera. This camera operates as though it has just come out of the
Zeiss factory at Dresden. Various authorities have stated that some
early Kievs were actually made in Germany and so this might have been
one of them. Now, I cannot guarantee that the lens is the one that was
originally supplied with the camera but it certainly was made by Zeiss.
 Kiev III
Kiev 111 made in 1950 fitted with Zeiss Sonnar 50mm f1.5. This camera
is in full working order and even the Selenium cell meter is accurate
to within half a stop.
Nearly all of my Kievs have been bought via E-bay from dealers in
the Ukraine or the Russian Federation. Many of these guys and in fact a
couple of girls have become friends. I now buy direct from them and
find it very simple to agree a price without the complication of the
auction system. By building up this sort of relationship I also get
offered some rather nice examples of the rarities before they come on
to the market, I’m sure my friend Yuri Davendenkov knows my collection
better than I do
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