An Interesting Kiev - and More

[Jocko]

Most of us have wondered about where our cameras came from and who owned them. Sadly that usually remains a mystery - If we're fortunate there may be a few notes on a card or unusual marks, the remains of lost events. But sometimes we strike lucky...

In the last few weeks I've had the pleasure of corresponding with Mike Haley, a very active British photographer, FSU collector and teacher who lives in Kiev. Mike and his Ukrainian friends are organising an exhibition on Soviet cameras and photography which will hopefully soon be seen in Western Europe.

Mike knows many workers from the Arsenal Factory and introduced me to a particularly fascinating character, the former head of the lens division - and quite a bit more. I quote:

"He's a very old guy, formerly an aeronautical engineer who was
sent to work at Arsenal as the only English speaking representative of
the factory. He was often sent to Moskow with 'prototype' cameras for
Moskow's approval before production could commence. He has supplied me
with several preproduction cameras and lenses, including experimental
non-production or limited issue lenses. His name is Valerej. He now teaches English here in Kiev and is still pretty active in photography. He likes German Gear and refers to all Soviet cameras as 'rubbish' 🙂 It was he who introduced me to most of
the former and present workers at the factory (now called 'Arsat')".

I subsequently asked if Valerej could share some of his memories with us. It seems this may be possible: Obviously he's a very old gentleman and it would be wrong to press him - but other workers are certainly happy to share stories and we will hopefully hear some soon - all of which should resolve a few myths.

My first FSU was a Kiev. It was stolen and I've always longed for another. Through Mike I was honoured to buy Valerej's 1982 Kiev 4AM and, most excitingly, it's exquisite 1953 J-3, which he had personally adjusted for optimum performance, plus a similar Helios 103. I also obtained one of 4 immaculate J-9s which were kept at the factory as examplars for use in testing production lenses. All were given a check at Arsenal prior to being sent - a very bad digital picture is attached 🙂 One interesting feature of the camera is that officially it never left the factory, so the passport remains blank as does the "Made in USSR" panel.

Mike has absolutely unique access to knowledge, people and cameras, all of which is obvious from his superbly enlightening website - http://cccp.webstar.nl/index.htm . He also offers wonderful cameras for sale and a range of other services - including Kiev servicing and repair at the Arsenal factory for just 30-40 Euros. The quality is exceptional and his prices are very fair indeed. I heartily recommend him to all FSU enthusiasts. Tell him I said so and I might get a discount 🙂

One of his latest projects, already under way, is to get the factory repair manual for the Kiev 4 on-line in English.

This is a beautiful camera and I cannot wait to use it!

Cheers, Ian

 

[robin a]

Ian,great piece on the Arsenal guys.I didn't have gas till I read it.Thanks Alot ! Robin

 

[Valkir1987]

In the last few weeks I've had the pleasure of corresponding with Mike Haley, a very active British photographer, FSU collector and teacher who lives in Kiev. Mike and his Ukrainian friends are organising an exhibition on Soviet cameras and photography which will hopefully soon be seen in Western Europe

If so I'm looking forward to it maybe it reaches the newspapers someday 🙂 The site is great.

 

[ZorkiKat]

Great post, Ian. I'm looking forward to reading those 1st person stories- testimonials from the Kiev Arsenal people themselves. 🙂


edit: PS- Is Mike part of the forum already? I looked at his site. Much honoured to see my FED Survival site linked. 🙂
Jay

 

[40oz]

I WAS thinking it is beyond time to hear from those who had a hand in the design/manufacture of what has to be some of the most popular and important cameras/lenses in the world. If the production numbers tossed about in anecdotes are to be believed, more people have used and are using Ukrainian cameras/lenses than the product of any other nation. There's surely some good stories to be told, and some fascinating photography to be shared.

The FSU world has been a closed system for those in the US for far too many years. I find it hard to believe that such a rich, diverse culture has not generated a vast body of work that richly deserves sharing and recognition. Every snippet I see from Romania, Yugoslavia, Russia proper, etc., inspires nothing but a thirst for more. Hopefully the coming years bring more revelation of life that was largely hidden behind bombast and rhetoric for much of the 20th century.

 

[Jocko]

I'm looking forward to reading those 1st person stories- testimonials from the Kiev Arsenal people themselves.

So am I, Jay! Mike e-mailed me after I posted and said that in the next day or so he hoped to have a feature up about the factory-made black Kievs - there were 500 preproduction models made in 1977, all - oddly enough - with silver frontplates. Moscow denied permission for further production. Amazingly Valerej has just found him one - still in stock at the factory!

There are already some great stories on his site - the day the rats eat the entire stock of ever-ready cases is not easily forgotten! I totally agree with 40oz and other members - I grew up fascinated by the human story of the mysterious east-of-the-Oder - I so want to know more 🙂

Cheers, Ian

 

[Jocko]

The FSU world has been a closed system for those in the US for far too many years. I find it hard to believe that such a rich, diverse culture has not generated a vast body of work that richly deserves sharing and recognition. Every snippet I see from Romania, Yugoslavia, Russia proper, etc., inspires nothing but a thirst for more. Hopefully the coming years bring more revelation of life that was largely hidden behind bombast and rhetoric for much of the 20th century.

40oz, I'd recommend a couple of e-bay sellers who regularly have large numbers of Soviet/Eastern photographic books and magazines. The best is Katya (mcfitzen) -
http://stores.ebay.co.uk/SLOBOZHANKA - who amongst much else often has full year runs of Sovietfoto. Roman Gorbenko - http://stores.ebay.co.uk/TradingAssistantUkraine - despite wildly odd pricing - also has many gems. Both are totally reliable and the books can provide a real eye-opener. The Sovietfoto annuals from the 70s are usually excellent value and consist entirely of pictures.

Cheers, Ian

 

[rxmd]

Hi Ian,

great post! Thanks! 🙂

The price for repairs appears somewhat standard. I've had some conversations with Gevorg Vartanyan of Arax (I met him twice in Kiev) and he said that basically most Kiev-based firms that offer camera-related services have their repairs done by the same relatively small group of former (sometimes present) Arsenal employees. That's how they can offer complicated high-end processes such as lens recoating for a relatively low price. It also. The offer you're referring to is interesting because it covers Kiev 35mm cameras and not their medium format cameras - apparently there is more of a demand for MF camera services, maybe because these cameras are less reliable, or because the MF cameras offer more of a uniqueness and price-performance advantage to shooters in the West because MF interchangeable lens setups are so expensive, or because it's less of an option just to get a $20 replacement camera if your camera breaks.

Publishing the repair manual in English would be doing the world a service. On the other hand Soviet repair manuals tend to be very terse; I have a PDF of the Soviet repair manual for the Kiev 88, and basically it's 18 pages of very specific procedures what to do when what is wrong, that also partly rely on in-house special tools. For comparison, there is a German-language repair manual for the same camera that is much more detailed at 50 pages plus drawings of parts. Judging from that I guess it would be more of an interest to a specialist who already has experience with opening and tuning the camera and wants to get a specific problem ironed out. Still, as such it would a great reference to have around.

Philipp

 

[ruben]

The Missing Uk Link

The Missing Uk Link

Hi Ian,

In his website, Keith Berry makes a reference to a Brittish company:

"The best quality in Russian cameras is reputed to be those originally imported into the UK by Technical & Optical Equipment (T&OE) in the 1970s as they inspected everything and corrected any faults they found. If a camera comes with documentation showing that it was a T&OE import, it should be a better than average choice, but, of course, that is no guarantee that the camera has been well treated in the intervening thirty-odd years."

I recall this at this thread for 2 reasons. First is that it seems to have been a special commercial link concerning the kievs between the UK and FSU, that to my poor knowledge is unprecedented for any of the most industrialized countries of the 20th century.

The second reason is theat this gentleman you recall, Mike Haley, may have had either connections with or info about T&OE.

So somehow I am smelling some interesting story with Kievs at the UK too.
Could you expand what Keith Berry started to talk about and I quoted ?

Cheers,
Ruben

 

[lushd]

A genuine factory made black Kiev? Blimey! This is like locating a supplier of powdered unicorn horn. Although someone will tell me that there is a website somewhere.

Many thanks for a fascinating insight so far and more to come, I think.

Cheers

 

[Jocko]

So somehow I am smelling some interesting story with Kievs at the UK too.
Could you expand what Keith Berry started to talk about and I quoted ?

Cheers,
Ruben

My pleasure, Ruben - oddly enough this is about the one area where I have some personal knowledge! Incidentally, Mike is unconnected with TOE.

TOE (Technical and Optical Equipment) was a Soviet-owned British limited company set up circa 1961 following talks in 1959 between the British Prime Minister, Harold Macmillan and the Soviet leader, Nikita Khrushchev.

There were several reasons behind this. In the early 60s Britain was the USSR's major western trading partner. Khruschev, unlike Stalin, had encouraged light industries and the production of consumer goods, so the Soviets had much to sell. The British market was particularly open to eastern products. There were immensely high tariffs on Japanese goods and much popular goodwill from the wartime years.

Prior to the advent of TOE Soviet cameras were available in the UK through Photopia. In 1960 the Kiev cost £59.00 (a Leica IIIig cost £88.00) so it can be seen that such cameras were not in any sense cheap. TOE changed this. Their first major success was a deal wiith Dixons to import the FED 2, advertised as "from the country that sent a camera round the moon".

Although sold cheaply, TOE backed its cameras with exceptional customer service, fast repairs and western levels of quality control. They also had priority access to the best products - it is said that most Kiev-fit Orion 15s were sent to TOE. In the UK at least, Soviet cameras were generally well-liked, perceived as unsophisticated compared to their Japanese rivals, but also as rugged, reliable and capable of excellent work. An important element in this was the advocacy of Ron Spillman, a leading photographic journalist, who was especially fond of Kievs.

By the 1970s, TOE, based at "Zenith House" offered an enormous range of Soviet optical and electronic goods - fridges, stereos, TVs, telescopes, microscopes, binoculars, radios and - of course cameras. I get the impression that Kievs were not always available - they seem to have finally dropped out of the catalogue in the very late 70s, about the time at which the 4M and AM were introduced. I believe they cost around £20-25.00 at this time. Soviet Cameras were available from most major retailers but many people - myself included - used Global Cameras, an independent shop and mail order specialist who dealt almost exclusively in Soviet gear and were absolutely superb. They worked very closely with TOE.

TOE did well in the early 80s - in unit terms the Zenits accounted for as much as 1/3rd of all SLR sales - but by the end of the decade the products were looking very tired. In 1991 I was writing an article on cameras for amateur astrophotography when I contacted TOE's sales director. We had a series of long talks about the company. He believed it could exploit niche markets - particularly rangefinders - but the management had completely lost interest and - being Soviet civil servants - were engrossed in internal politics.

By the end of the year the USSR vanished and TOE followed a little later - around 1992-3. Photopia - the preTOE importer - reclaimed the market for what were now really "Russian cameras", but gave up in the late 90s. Global soldiered on until a year or two ago.

And that is the story of TOE 🙂

Cheers, Ian

 

[lushd]

Ian - Zenith House, The Hyde, Colindale, London, lives on, although it is only an office building now.

I spent my teenage years living less than a mile away and use to regularly pass by in the glory days. I returned a faulty camera to them once and the chap who repaired it dropped it around personally!

 

[murrayb53]

FYI.......

TOE is the distributor of the little Helios Viewfinder we have all seen offered on eBay, and sold in the UK.

Steve

 

[nico]

Hey Ian!
your posts are always interesting ... a great story to read even for the ones - like me - that don't already own any FSU camera. Hope to read more.
Btw, about your interesting posts ... I'm still looking for dr. Paul Wolff book (I found a couple of copies but the price were out of my budget)... consider yourself responsible 😉
Thanks for sharing,
ciao

 

[fanshaw]

Helios Viewfinder

Helios Viewfinder

Was the distributor. TOE has long since gone.

FYI.......

TOE is the distributor of the little Helios Viewfinder we have all seen offered on eBay, and sold in the UK.

Steve

 

[Valkir1987]

Another part of TOE (East West Agencies) was set up in the Netherlands to sell Soviet Optics guided with a high service. I have several folders and a small book off them, but none of them show the Kiev 2 3 and 4. I wonder if they did appear here at all. I'm suprised to hear they where sold in the Uk 🙄

 

[Spider67]

Hi Ian, I could not find the link at the website where they offer repairs....

 

[Blank288]

Hello Valkir,
Do you refer to the booklet 'Nieuwe dimensies in beeld en geluid. Handboek over optische en geluidsapparatuur uit de U.S.S.R.'? I got a copy around 1976 at East West Agencies in Arnhem (NL) together with two different price lists (one official example and one hand typed and stencilled, with considerably cheaper prices). The booklet is introduced as a translation of the British TOE publication, specially adapted to the Benelux situation.
Kiev rangefinders are not mentioned in my copy of the booklet, nor in both price lists. I think EWA indeed didn't import them into the Benelux.
I first saw a Kiev-4 in a Budapest shop in the beginning nineties (and bought it - beginning of FSU rangefinder fever). Before I didn't even know of it's existence ...

 

[Jocko]

I'm suprised to hear they where sold in the Uk 🙄

Indeed they were - so much so that they were quite common in used camera stores in the early 80s and virtually given away. I was sorely tempted by a "mint" 4 with multifinder, 28,35,50,85 and 135 lenses for £40.00 in 1986 🙂

Ron Spillman had an excellent 4-page article on the Kievs in AP in 1974 in which he gives full details of current UK pricing for cameras and lenses and cites TOE as the importer. There had also been several earlier reviews and features on the cameras (reprints available for a modest fee from Oldtimercameras. 🙂 )

Believe me, Kievs were sold in the UK - apart from anything else, I had one! 😀

Spider - if you e-mail Mike (address on site) he'll tell you all you need to know 🙂

Cheers, Ian

 

[murrayb53]

I've got the package here that the Helios Multi-Finder come is. I'll type out what is printed on the header.
"Another Fine Photographic Product Exclusively Imported And Distributed By Technical Optical Equipment (London) Ltd. Zenith House. The Hyde Edgware Road, London NW9 6EE".
However, the finder does say "Made In Japan".
The Toe logo is placed on the upper left corner of the package.
Someone could have bought the name and logo, like Argus.

Steve