This camera arrived in the mail a week ago with an epic history. Story time:
A little over a year ago I bought this from Yuri over at Fedka. They actually searched Ukraine for it and found me a minty copy. I told them take as long as you need to go through it and make sure all of it works. I had it shipped with the 50 f1.5 Jupiter 3 and altogether this combo set me back farther than my full RB67 kit with 3 lenses. Worth it though. They went through it for 4 months and got it completely sorted. It arrived to the States and I gacked the tensioner spring inside the big knob on the 3rd roll. No big deal, these things happen it's made by Communism in the 1950s, whatever. Yuri says he will take it back and get it fixed free, cool. So I sent it back with 3 other cameras that needed love, two FEDs and a Drug.
His repairman Oleg V. lives in Odessa. The cameras get there safe and sound, this was August. I'm not one to press for time especially on something like this where only a handful of people work on them in their spare time. Told him, get to it when you get to it, I have a nice Zorki 2c and NKVD FED both with full CLA to hold me over. Leningrads are finicky and I'll wait the time out for it to be done right. Everyone is cool with this plan. At about that time, a member of Oleg's family got sick and he had to put everything off to take care of them, no big deal. Get to it when you get to it, family first. He managed to get the FED cameras out right in time for Christmas. Sweet!! Both are FED-2's and one is a rare blue model, he did a fantastic job on both of them and the blue one was my first ever Soviet-era camera. I also had Yuri send them back with a 28/6 Orion-15 pictured above. Wonderful little lens. Also sent a spare Zorki 4 for parts. All is well.
Fast forward two months. The Russians decide to invade Ukraine. Great, my cameras are now riot weapons. Yuri assured me Oleg would get to them and if anything happened I'd get a full refund. A month goes by, Oleg finds the spring was broken and apparently Leningrads have different springs they use in the tensioner knob over the years and mine is an early 1958 model. He found a spring and got it all back together and mailed it off right as the Russians were trying to take Odessa. It traveled via rail, the same rail system Zelenskyy was riding on to evade capture or assassination from the Russians and made it out of the country and into the States along with my Drug which he said he couldn't fix, that's not a big deal. I got a Leningrad! God these things are so cool.
So, if you've been eyeing one on that auction site, from Ukraine, do it. Better yet, buy one from Fedka if you can. It took about 1.5 months to get out of the country. The focusing system is dope and the whole winder mechanism is just sweet and I can't believe Communists made this in the 1950s, and by the way the same exact Communists that made the LOMO. This camera was 20 years ahead of its time.
