KIEV 2a without rangefinder/flash sync/self-timer

[Patruck92]

Hello everyone,
Recently, at an old Russian people's sale in Italy (on the street), I bought a Kiev 2a camera, from year 1959 and in working condition. I knew nothing about that camera, so I didn't check the rangefinder nor other components.
But, after searching info about it in the web, I only found, in pictures, KIEV with self-timers and rangefinders... so WHAT is my camera?
I'm not meaning that rangefinder, sync and selftimer are missing, I'm saying they apparently weren't supposed to be here.
After a new search on the net, I found this dead Italian website,
http://www.geocities.com/RodeoDrive/8595/
where the author shows photos of a very similar camera, and a "list" of that model's exemplars: they are only 3 (with mine).
I'm just wondering: has anyone of you got a similar camera? Does anyone know what it had to be? (Maybe a cheaper version of the 2a, or a special version for specific uses... don't know).

 

[rxmd]

I'd say it's a version for scientific or medical applications like the Leica MD. I don't find his argument against that convincing. He argues that such cameras tend to have special lensmounts, when in fact they often don't, and that it's difficult to focus, which in fact it isn't. You focus by distance to the film plane. If you do need to look at things, you use a ground glass. Both are just the same with any rangefinder-based camera for scientific applications.

I guess the factory just got a request to churn out a number of Kievs for medical applications, and it was cheaper just to drop the RF and flash sync from existing models than to design an entirely new one. The viewfinder in a Kiev is not really complex, so they left it in.

The "list of exemplars" mainly says that around that serial number block there supposedly were quite some of them.

His argument that this was some kind of an "anti-M1" doesn't convince me; why should the Soviets have bothered about that? If they wanted to develop a new camera model, they usually did so, with new casing and all, and didn't just leave out a couple of critical pieces from an existing one. See the FED Zarya for an example.

 

[dee]

What is odd is that I am having Kievs modified by ex-Arsenal Technicians , and have been told that the self timer is integral with the shutter mech - it must have needed a special part to remove the s/t . Interesting .
I would suggest an attempt at simplifying / cheapening - as Zorki did ...
It is of course , a Kiev 4a , not II a .

 

[rxmd]

There's a fair number of Kievs without self timer out there. In most cases it's just the lever that is missing, with the hole simply glued over with leatherette.