Fotokor Compur

I have received my Fotokor Compur today in mail. I had opened the box and as soon as I saw the outer case my hands started to tremble.. I had felt the smell of old leather, the smell that did not get extinguished in 80 years! This was the camera that was manufactured when my grandfather was born!! My eyes started to water, I could not get myself to open that case. I knew in it was the legacy of 80 years of hard labor of engineers and designers that made the photographic history in USSR, the place were I was born. I was about to hold one of the very first Soviet cameras ever made there. When I finally took it out and held it in my hands I realized that having all these cameras is not about using them or stacking them up nicely on the shelf, it's all about this feeling that you get, that each one is an individual trip through time, if only they could tell their story....

Yes, and if only we could magically retrieve (and transfer to CD) all of the images they have taken in their lives. That is my dream!

Regards, Bill

Vlad,
I can imagine your sentiments ...

Vlad
You touched the point! As a Russian born your feelings have their own way, but there is no doubt that in general, the Russian contribution to the camera making was indeed a learning legacy to mankind. In its basis and concept, its production and final products were a departure of the commercial stuff of the West. Neither the always increasing profit idea enterprises of the West nor the Minded oriented Propaganda machine of the Nazis.
Just simple for all the people- with the highest possible level- at the available resources. This is untold, but just felt to all the open minded people. (Like our members group !)
LP

It is different, isn't it? As much as notion of communism in USSR was twisted, crumbled into a wad of unrealized hopes and thrown out of the window by the corrupt and power hungry dictators, these cameras after all were created to be used by people and not made for profit. These were created to last, by the engineers whose first goal was practicality and longevity and not making it into a material possession that would get obsolete in a few years after use.

As much as communism didn't work on the high level in USSR, there were pockets of industry where the notion of it did create some positive results. I still find it quite fascinating. Through darkness shined a tiny beam of hope of Soviet optical industry.