03/09/2018 03:43
Very interesting.
From the '60s, Italy (my country), was a strong importer of USSR made cameras, through a company associated to Olivetti (once a famous maker of typewriting and calculating machines), being part of the export agreement with the USSR, receiving part of the balance, with cameras and optics.
Earlier, the company was known as "F.O.S. - Foto Ottica Sovietica" (Soviet Photo-Optics), then, Antares and Atemsa.
From the late '60s until the mid-'70s, our photo magazines where usually presenting detailed advertisements, stressing the extremely favourable prices with extra-discounts for workers, peasants and students. The importers, als organized a well-distributed network of repair and maintenance laboratories.
It still happens to see Soviet cameras bearing the lithographed metal, round escutcheon with a red star and the achronym "F.O.S.".
Recently, I've found a fine, illustrated catalogue of Atemsa: in this later period (1975-'79), the firm was also importer of cameras and lenses made in the DDR, once imported by "Fotoexakta" of Turin.
In my country, USSR/DDR-made cameras and lenses were widely diffused, especially among young people and beginners, although being often despised and accused of being ureliable and prone to defects and various problems (part of this opinion, perhaps due to our "side" in the so-called Cold War).
My first "serious" camera, was a Kiev-4A, bought back in 1975, when I was 16 years old, being very similar to my grandfather's Contax-II, with which, under his guidance, I've learnt the "fundamentals" of practical photography (by the way, my Kiev still works flawlessly, together with the now mine, 1937-made Contax).
In the early '80s, until 1992, a lot of USSR-made photo-optics arrived in Italy via-emigrées and Russian tourists, being available at prices that were a minor fraction of the pieces of regular import.
The last importers, were the "Pentacon Italia" and "Exakta Italia" of Genoa, later united under the brand "Investimenti Cattaneo" These three companies, owned by the Cattaneo family of Genoa, once importers (from before WW2 and until 1979) of Leitz cameras.
In my country, USSR-made cameras and lenses, never changed their name; only, the lenses made by Carl Zeiss, Jena in the GDR, when officially imported, were signed "aus Jena" only.
I think that the history of how this material was exported to the non-socialist countries, could be an interesting sector of research.
Best wishes,
E.L.
. I am still missing the straight logo FED-3 and the 135! 