Since cameras are essentially a consumer product...

[rbiemer]

Some thing has been nagging at me for a while and maybe somebody here can educate me.
Since cameras are essentially a consumer product and the soviet system seemed to be anti-consumer just how did your typical soviet citizen get their camera?
Presumably those people whose job required a camera were issued one(reporters,police,scientists,etc) but what about folks who simply wanted shots of the family at holidays or people like us?
I know I am laboring under the stereotypes I was taught as a child of the cold war but I just wonder how the process went.
If any one could either answer(Natalia? I know you are much too young to really remember the soviet system but maybe your parents/grand-parents told stories of the old days?) from experience or reccomend a history or other source that would explain how these cameras got to the users?
I know we have some teachers here so reading assignments are happily accepted!
Thanks, Rob

 

[einolu]

well people had jobs and they made money, they could buy things with this money. it really wasnt that different from a capitalist economy except that it was controlled by the government and prices were not determained by competition and such.

PS: I was born in 1986 in Latvia, so I dont know much first hand, more from my parents and such.

 

[phototone]

In Communist Russia people did get paid for their work. Not much, by western standards, but paid, none the less. With government subsidized housing, food, and medical care, public transportation, there was not a lot to spend money on, therefore people saved and could afford a little luxury once in a while.

Nikita Khruschev (sp) was an amateur photographer, and he encouraged this hobby to the people.

Probably camera ownership did not reach the levels it has in the WEST, but remember we are seeing the selling of 50 years of product from Former Soviet Union Countries on popular auction sites.

I read somewhere that the Ukrainian/Russian factories produced far more "Leica copies" than Leica made originals.

I think that a camera was a luxury item, and people took care of them, therefore there are lots of them around to sell., also the factories produced goods on Five Year Plans, and had to produce a certain number, whether they could sell them or not. Was not their responsibility to sell them, only make them in numbers issued by Central Planning Committee. In some cases, I am sure there were warehouses just stacking up to the rafters with built unsold cameras, as well as other consumer goods. Once can still purchase FEd 5b's new in box on popular auction sites, and they haven't been made for at least 15 years.

 

[rbiemer]

Showing off my ignorance with this question. I have read some political histories but they were biased(some pro most con) and I've never learned any thing about the day to day lives of people in the FSU. Where I grew up in the US we weren't expected to think of the population of USSR as actaul people. And I remember getting into fairly serious trouble at school when I remarked that most US corporations sounded like they were run just about as the Soviet Union was being run: Decisions made"on high" for the masses as they couldn't manage themselves, advancement of the corporation at the expense of any other corporation..I was told I just didn't understand corporate culture(and I probably don't) and was mis-applying what my teachers were telling me.
Any way, I am always trying to minimize my ignorance in general and am hardly ever ashamed of asking a "dumb" question.
Rob

 

[Pherdinand]

rob, you were probably annoyingly close to the truth, that's why the negative reaction🙂

Dunno about FSU but i lived in Romania; in my first 13 years it was still a communist country. Heavily communist.
Money was enough, most people had some savings. The problem was with the products. The reasonable quality stuff (including food) was for export and better restaurants only. Everybody knew persons working in factories, restaurants etc, so stuff was mass stolen from these export-intended productions. That's how we survived.
Officially, we were allowed for half a butter per month, that is, 125 grams. Per person. That's what you were allowed to buy in a shop in the eighties. Also, half a bread per day per person, usually with one to three hours of standing in line for it. Sometimes more.
Grandparents living on the countryside were a bless. Baking bread, keeping chicken for eggs and meat, a pig or two in the winter, ment much more than having a big salary.

The only import products were coming from China, Vietnam and USSR. Not often from the Eastern Germany or the Baltic countries, which were too liberal and wealthy for our standards. Oh and plenty of "friendly relationhip" with arab countries, especially Irak and Lybia, resulting in dates regularly popping up in the shops. We loved dates. (The fruit,i mean.)

As to cameras... Photographers used mostly Zenit's. Some lucky ones had east german Praktica's, usually "imported" by a friend or themselves with some luck and bribing the corresponding guys at the border. The father of a friend of mine, former classmate, had a chinese tlr, a Seagull, very proud owner indeed. He also had a rf FED, don't know whick model, bottom loading, with a collapsible lens, up to 1/500 sh speed, that's all i remember about it. But he always used the zenit's when photographing our class.
Simple non-pro photographers had mostly little plastic Smena's.

The romanian film manufacturer, AZOMures, produced surprisingly good black and white negatives. (Colour was a different story.) Sometimes a shipment of ORWO (east german, again) film arrived in the local photo-and-audio store, but all was sold "under the bench" that is, to friends and relations, never to simple customers.
We have never heard of tri-x or such. Agfa was only known for its audio cassettes.

 

[Zorkiiglaza]

From my experience of 11 years in the FSU, I have seen alot of cameras and lots of people taking photographs. Some of my friends have large albums of snapshots from vacation trips to the Black Sea, Uzbekistan and other "exotic" places.
I have also seen lots of photo studios where one would get formal photographs as well as photographers at monuments and parks who would take your photo infront of some monument and you would pick it up the next week.
I believe that photography was one of the largest hobbies that the average soviet citizen had.

 

[varjag]

It could be tougher in Romania, but in USSR of 1980s cameras weren't particularily luxury items; not throwaways, but neither the items you'd mention in your last will. Photography was pretty common hobby, cheap enough for a schoolboy me to get involved into.

 

[zhang]

It could be tougher in Romania, but in USSR of 1980s cameras weren't particularily luxury items; not throwaways, but neither the items you'd mention in your last will. Photography was pretty common hobby, cheap enough for a schoolboy me to get involved into.

Photoraphy was popular too in the past for ordinary Chinese people even though they didn't make much money. The top Chinese SLR Pearl River S-201 cost RMB650 in the 70-80's when a young worker could earn only RMB40 a month. A seagull 203 folder was much cheaper at about RMB70. The central planned economy is a totally different thing. Even at this price, people had to go through back doors or need some tickets in addition to money to get a camera.
I heard that Russian peole also needed to get a permit from some commitee to buy a Kiev 4 or Kiev 88. Is that true? Perhaps a Lubitel or Smena was easier to buy.

 

[Oldprof]

The Feds, Zorkis, and Kievs we buy on eBay are actually the upper tier of Soviet camera production. There were also much cheaper and simpler cameras for the masses who just wanted snapshots for the family album.

 

[StuartR]

Showing off my ignorance with this question. I have read some political histories but they were biased(some pro most con) and I've never learned any thing about the day to day lives of people in the FSU. Where I grew up in the US we weren't expected to think of the population of USSR as actaul people. And I remember getting into fairly serious trouble at school when I remarked that most US corporations sounded like they were run just about as the Soviet Union was being run: Decisions made"on high" for the masses as they couldn't manage themselves, advancement of the corporation at the expense of any other corporation..I was told I just didn't understand corporate culture(and I probably don't) and was mis-applying what my teachers were telling me.
Any way, I am always trying to minimize my ignorance in general and am hardly ever ashamed of asking a "dumb" question.
Rob

Hi Rob,

I actually just finished up a masters in Russian and Japanese history -- while I focus more on late Imperial Russia and Meiji Japan, I think I can recommend a good book for you.

Sheila Fitzpatrick's "Everyday Stalinism" is a good book on everyday life during the Stalin era -- it should give you an idea what things were like at one of the toughest times. Fitzpatrick is a revisionist, but that term has specialized meaning in the field, so don't let it put you off. It basically means she isn't focusing on political history and she is less of a cold warrior. She is a very highly regarded historian, and her books are widely cited by historians on both the left and the right.

Another interesting book would be Orlando Figes's "Natasha's Dance: A Cultural History of Russia". This one focuses on the cultural life of Russia from the 18th-20th centuries and is focused on artists, musicians, writers etc, so it may be a bit more removed from what you are intersted in.

In any case, as others have said, if you saved money, you could probably afford to buy a camera rather easily in Soviet Russia -- more often than not, the problem was not affording something, but having access to it. When I was at Yaroslavl State University, my professors would tell me about how they would have to take the train to Moscow (about a 4 hour trip each way) on the weekends to buy good kolbasa or other types of food. They would often come back with backpacks full of foods that they could not get easily in town. For something like a camera, even if you could afford it, you still might need to excercise your "blat" (influence/connections) to be able to have access to it. Like others have said, many of the best items were located in special stores that were meant for foreigners, politicians or other people who had a special dispensation to shop there. But to get a regular camera, I am sure it was not that hard at all. The Soviet government did more than pay lip service to encouraging cultural development -- I am sure that university students that were interested in taking photo classes could easily obtain access to cameras.

 

[DougK]

Very interesting thread.

Probably way off-topic, but one of my favorite history courses in college (my degree was in history) was "History of the Soviet Union", taught by a European professor from Berlin if memory serves correctly. In fact, if you were an Army ROTC cadet (I was) and a history major, the expectation was that you would take this course. We kind of skimmed over the history from the Middle Ages up to WWI and the October Revolution and then hit it in detail from that point on. Very balanced course, not pro- either side, and absolutely fascinating stuff; I came away with a huge respect for the peoples and cultures of the FSU. While I was in the course, the Berlin Wall had just come down and the world was changing all around us, wondering what would happen in the USSR. Very heady stuff; all of us were hoping it would lead to a "soldier exchange" program so we could train with them and just get to know them as people rather than as "the opposing forces." Too bad that never happened... I know I would have come home with at least a couple of cameras.

See how I brought that back on topic? 🙂

 

[varjag]

I heard that Russian peole also needed to get a permit from some commitee to buy a Kiev 4 or Kiev 88. Is that true? Perhaps a Lubitel or Smena was easier to buy.

Never heard about that. You could buy any camera you happen to catch on the shelves 🙂

Regarding the deficit problem: it came in waves. Sometimes there was a surplus of cameras, the Gosplan was cutting production numbers then, and as a consequence the wave of deficit was coming in a couple of years. Of course, then Gosplan was ordering tons of cameras, and in a year or two you had surplus of devices with quality control issues again. In 1970-80s it has happened several times. The joys of the planned economy 🙂

My first camera was Vilia, a simple 35mm non-rf camera. It had a nice finder with framelines and projected aperture indication, hinged back, lever wind, a triplet lens with central shutter and was farily well built. It set us back 20 roubles; for reference a school teacher's salary of my mother was around 140 roubles at the time. A more popular Smena-8M could be yours for 15 roubles IIRC.

Rangefinder and SLR cameras were more expensive. A Zenit could set you back up to 150 Soviet roubles depending on the model. Can't recall prices for FEDs, Zorkis or Kievs, although of the three Kievs were naturally the most expensive.

 

[Oldprof]

Enjoyed your post Varjag! Very informative.

 

[zhang]

Never heard about that. You could buy any camera you happen to catch on the shelves 🙂

Yes, the problem usually is not the money but the availability of the commodities.
I remember that many articles were rationed. For example,a person could only buy 1kg of meat,15kgs of grain,cetain yards of cloth,etc a month with cupons. in the 70's in China. Something like cameras were easier to find both new or used.
Just for a record, a Kiev 4 was about RMB1200 in the 70's, 30 times of the monthly salary of a young worker. But a used Contax II could be found in a pawn shop for about RMB300.

 

[Nikon Bob]

Sort of off topic, but what is the average monthly wage compared to the cost of a camera in the FSU today? I guess I am really wondering if they are any further ahead today?

Bob

 

[varjag]

Oldprof, glad that you like it 🙂 I also think the huge variations in annual production could explain the seemingly bizzare difference in quality between samples from the same time period. When pressed with huge orders the manufacturers would sacrifice quality, while in the calmer times they could do the right job. That's my speculation though.

Zhang, the coupon system for certain articles was adopted here too by mid-80s (first time since the WWII); the economy became pretty stagnant by then.

Also I'd like to mention that the late USSR was quite a different place from the one of Stalin's reign; "liberal" enough that North Korea was seen as a terrible place by Soviet citizens who happened to visit it.

 

[gabrielelopez]

This thread is very nice...it tells of a way romantic approach to the love of photography. Hard, surely, but still probably better than today's hurry to the latest digi-product.
Sound bad? Well doesn't the being in the lack of any kind of money and the derivant possession of just a simple camera with one or two lenses help your photography and fantasy way more than stepping from one camera to another.
I experienced it, and to me the answer is a simple YES. Thanks God I'm in the lack situation now, and I'm totally happy with the few I have, I learned the lesson.

Forgive this (partly) O.T.. 🙄

 

[rbiemer]

Very helpful responses, folks! I will look for those books Stuart. They sound like just what I need to gain some understanding here!
Once again this forum proves delightfully helpful!
Rob