Any patriots out there?

2F/2F · Mar 20, 2011

My friend just sent me a link to this lovely patriotic camera on Etsy dot com. http://www.etsy.com/listing/70248397/1963-zorki-4-camera-leica-copy-in-box?ref=mt. Just what I should be using, with my Ukrainian blood.

Jeff Kubach · Mar 20, 2011

I like that camera, I woundn't mind buying one but I'm unemployed right now.

Jeff

2F/2F · Mar 20, 2011

Careful; It's in Russia, and shipping to the U.S.A. is over $20! Not sure if this setup is really worth $90 shipped.

ann · Mar 20, 2011

now that is colorful

mopar_guy · Mar 20, 2011

That's quite a lens cap.

CGW · Mar 20, 2011

Hmmm. Wonder if that's the camera used to remove comrades from "official" photos...

http://www.newseum.org/berlinwall/commissar_vanishes/

benjiboy · Mar 21, 2011

Wasn't it Samuel Johnson who said "patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel"

mr rusty · Mar 21, 2011

ha! looks like a used zorki 4 and a spray can of paint to me!

stevebrot · Mar 21, 2011

Yep, it is a spray-painted Zorki-4, but what interests me is the FED Industar-61 lens (not original to the camera) mounted to it. Most early I-61 have black focus ring and black aperture ring (the so-called "Panda" version). This one has a silver aperture ring. I have a similar lens and had felt that mine might have been assembled from the parts bin from a mix of I-61 and I-26 components. Now I am not that sure.

Steve

Photo Engineer · Mar 22, 2011

My aunt was Ukranian. They left their native country many years ago, but her father was an engineer who did some great feat of engineering which earned him the Order of Lenin medal. She gave it to me! So, I don't have the camera, but I do have a genuine Order of Lenin medal!

PE

MattKing · Mar 22, 2011

Photo Engineer said:
My aunt was Ukranian. They left their native country many years ago, but her father was an engineer who did some great feat of engineering which earned him the Order of Lenin medal. She gave it to me! So, I don't have the camera, but I do have a genuine Order of Lenin medal!

PE

PE:

I would guess that having a genuine Order of Lenin medal would have created "difficulties" for you if you had had the medal at the height of your time working with NASA and the space program

Photo Engineer · Mar 22, 2011

Matt;

At that time, I did not even know about the medal. I did not get it until about 40 years later.

PE

2F/2F · Mar 22, 2011

Photo Engineer said:
My aunt was Ukranian. They left their native country many years ago, but her father was an engineer who did some great feat of engineering which earned him the Order of Lenin medal. She gave it to me! So, I don't have the camera, but I do have a genuine Order of Lenin medal!

PE

Stick that puppy to a lens cap and hawk it, for Lenin's sake!

Photo Engineer · Mar 22, 2011

Bo zhe moi! Well, I also have her collection of Tolstoy and her Russian Bible. The latter keeps me honest enough to prevent what you suggest.

PE

perkeleellinen · Mar 22, 2011

Any idea what he did to get such an honour?

Photo Engineer · Mar 22, 2011

I have no idea what he did. I never even knew of this until many years after his death. I know that in the US he became one of the chief engineers at Clairton Coke Works, which was at the time the largest Coke plant in the USA.

PE

Dan Fromm · Mar 23, 2011

Hmm. That monstrosity adds weight to "better dead than red." But it could be dead and red.

2F/2F · Mar 23, 2011

Dan Fromm said:
Hmm. That monstrosity adds weight to "better dead than red." But it could be dead and red.

Reminds me of something. In the Navy, we learned a trick for remembering a fool-proof process for solving algebraic equations:

Remember, My Education is for Destroying Red Commies (or "Driving Reactors Carefully," officially).

R.M.E.D.R.C.

The letters stand for the steps of the process.

Adrian Twiss · Mar 24, 2011

mr rusty said:
ha! looks like a used zorki 4 and a spray can of paint to me!

Yes, but like Hooters its "delightfully tacky"

Steve Smith · Mar 24, 2011

Adrian Twiss said:
"delightfully tacky"

I think that's the best description. I was trying to think of something to describe how it was beuatiful and hideous at the same time.

And I never did understand all of the American paranoia over Russia and communism.

Steve.

2F/2F · Mar 24, 2011

Steve Smith said:
I think that's the best description. I was trying to think of something to describe how it was beuatiful and hideous at the same time.

And I never did understand all of the American paranoia over Russia and communism.

Steve.

There is a lot about this place that is hard to understand.

Though history seems to point to the fact that the U.S.S.R. was even more afraid of the U.S.A. than the other way around.

Adrian Twiss · Mar 24, 2011

Steve Smith said:
I think that's the best description. I was trying to think of something to describe how it was beuatiful and hideous at the same time.

And I never did understand all of the American paranoia over Russia and communism.

Steve.

Indeed, especially as the buggers would get us before the US.

CGW · Mar 24, 2011

The new film, "My Perestroika," will probably help show how shaky the USSR was in its last decades.

http://movies.nytimes.com/2011/03/2...t-growing-up-in-russia-review.html?ref=movies

Pumalite · Mar 28, 2011

Broke; you mean; like us now

benjiboy · Apr 1, 2011

The camera looks like a "mugs eyeful" meant to be sold to tourists, probably Chinese ones.

Any patriots out there?

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