Renaming the "Russian Gear" topic

[Aapo Lettinen]

for the current Russian Federation already having a somewhat worse reputation than the former Soviet Union, and all the cameras labelled "Russian" here being clearly manufactured during the Soviet era and not in the actual Russian Federation,

it would maybe be sensible to permanently rename this forum section to "Soviet Gear". 

I think it would both honor the heritage of the cameras better and would clearly distinguish them from the modern Putin country which has nothing to do with these cameras anyway except the language on the manuals and labels.

So what do you think, naming this forum section to "Soviet Gear" to better indicate the heritage and origin of these interesting cameras?  ?

 

[Travis Shannon]

I thought from the post title I was going to hate this but this is actually quite sensible to me.

[Gareth Blackstock]

Well I reckon that on the face of it, its seems a reasonable idea, considering Putin's long history of sharing many traditional dictators traits.... however, I disagree on changing the name of this forum.

Firstly, for some reason this forum is the only one named after a culture, Russian that is.  All the other sections are by manufacturer.  Odd.  Perhaps the forum should have been named Kinor/krasnogorsk/kiev/ et all... but that would not have been a good choice, not enough users of each brand to justify it.  So Russian gear it was it seems. 

Secondly, Russian gear, as it appears to me, loosely represents all the film equipment manufactured within Russia, either before or after the USSR fell.  And includes all the equipment made before the revolution of 1918 (not much used in Russia was made there anyway) And in my mind, if the forum is going to be named after a culture, and not a manufacturer, I think even Russian's would prefer it remained Russian gear and not Soviet gear.  Then you would be labelling an entire industry after a political regime. 

For example, imagine the 16mm forums were named after cultures instead of manufacturer, you could have American, European, British, and Russian gear.  Not a bad idea perhaps, now changin the Russian gear forum's name to Soviet gear because of putin would be like changing American gear to Mc Carthism gear, or Bush era gear because Trump gets elected.  British post-war gear could be created from European gear because of brexit, etc. 

I imagine many people within an industry would prefer not to be labelled as per the political regime of their time.  And I doubt many Russian's employed in the film equipment industries would like their equipment being denoted as Soviet.  

Putin hardly represents Russian culture, and i hope that when he is gone, normal everyday Russian's won't have to bear the inevitable collective guilt of their country's leader being responsible for throwing the world into turbulence.

I think the loose term Russian gear fits well over the enormous amount and variety of equipment manufactured over God knows how many areas and regions within the Russian borders over the last hundred years.  And I think changing the forums name would mean all the old posts might get deleted....

Gareth

[Mark Dunn]

Well, I assume all the camera factories actually were in the Russian SFSR, as opposed to one of the others? If so, then continuing to call it "Russian" seems appropriate. It would also continue to cover equipment made after December 25, 1991 (there must be some!), when the USSR ceased to exist and the Russian SFSR became the Russian Federation.

Edited October 2, 2022 by Mark Dunn

[Aapo Lettinen]

52 minutes ago, Mark Dunn said:

Well, I assume all the camera factories actually were in the Russian SFSR, as opposed to one of the others? If so, then continuing to call it "Russian" seems appropriate. It would also continue to cover equipment made after December 25, 1991 (there must be some!), when the USSR ceased to exist and the Russian SFSR became the Russian Federation.

there was factories in other parts of the SU as well. For example the "Kiev" cameras were mainly manufactured in Ukraine as far as I know and there were lots of factories in the Eastern Block countries too.

I think there was no film gear manufactured after the fall of the soviet union because the film gear was always mainly manufactured for movie and propaganda use (which were not needed anymore after the fall). News gathering etc. had already went video just like in the western countries.

In the 90's and 2000's pretty much everything coming from the Russia was just refurbished/slightly adapted versions of the Soviet cameras. The Russians had one or two high speed video camera designs in the 2000's but that's about everything I can think of they have done camera wise after 1991

[Mark Dunn]

1 hour ago, aapo lettinen said:

the "Kiev" cameras were mainly manufactured in Ukraine

How did I manage to miss that! Maybe it should be "Soviet" then.

[Aapo Lettinen]

3 hours ago, Gareth Blackstock said:

 

Putin hardly represents Russian culture, and i hope that when he is gone, normal everyday Russian's won't have to bear the inevitable collective guilt of their country's leader being responsible for throwing the world into turbulence

I have undestood that Russians have a long tradition of being politically passive because getting involved in politics in any way would get you and your family into trouble, even getting everyone killed. Another reason is them feeling that the politicians are not on their side and thus it is impossible to get anything good done via political/other official routes. Friends and family are the ones who help you to get things done and the political system and politicians just run their own agenda not caring about normal people at all.

I think it has always been that way there at least from the middle ages and I don't thus have high hopes of real democracy being established in the country after Putin is gone as they don't have any democratic tradition at all and likely another dictator will rise after putin very easily

[Dom Jaeger]

2 hours ago, aapo lettinen said:

there was factories in other parts of the SU as well. For example the "Kiev" cameras were mainly manufactured in Ukraine as far as I know and there were lots of factories in the Eastern Block countries too.

Yes, East Germany (Pentacon, Zeiss Jena) and Czechoslovakia (Meopta) were large manufacturing centres for Soviet cameras and lenses, as well as Ukraine. 

[Simon Wyss]

Kinap, Odessa comes to mind. Clearly Ukrainian manufacture although of Leningrad descendance, the town originally named St. Petersburg. The optics were all German. An Industar is a Tessar, the Vega is the Biometar, and so on. We should change to Soviet and at the same time acknowledge a huge technology transfer from the US to the various SSRs, the Sputnik included.

The balance is that some US optics are of German origin, too, for example Wollensak Tessar and Raptar, some Bausch & Lomb, and Schneider lenses for Kodak. Christoph(er) Graf was a German.

[Daniel D. Teoli Jr.]

On 9/30/2022 at 9:46 PM, Travis Shannon said:

I thought from the post title I was going to hate this but this is actually quite sensible to me.

 

Yes, me too.

I will defer to those that know more about this than I do. But it sounds right to me, as it was explained in the OP.

[Frank Wylie]

FSU (Former Soviet Union) is a term used a lot for gear originating from that entity. 

Maybe an option?

 

 

[Okto Simaia]

On 10/3/2022 at 9:35 AM, Frank Wylie said:

FSU (Former Soviet Union) is a term used a lot for gear originating from that entity. 

Seconding this. Still camera gear from Lomo, Kiev, etc has been referred to as FSU for years.

I think changing the name for political reasons is pretty terrible, along the lines of the US fad of calling french fries "Freedom Fries" after the French declined to join us in bombing countries that weren't involved. The misdeeds of a country's ruler, despotic or no, don't change the nation of origin of things that country has produced, and a nationality--of items or of the laborers who built them--is distinct from a government.

Rather, I think the name should be changed because it simply isn't accurate: many of these optics and cameras were made in Belarus or Ukraine.