Large-scale modeling: between the USSR and Russia
Scale models for every taste. Past article about large-scale models in the USSR ended in 1987 for a reason. This year, in the Minsk publishing house Polymya, finally (5 years after writing!) My first book, Out of Everything at Hand, was published with a circulation of 87 thousand copies. And she parted in two weeks. There was about models, but the main thing was not this, but the fact that after that letters from all over the country came to me. There was no Internet, so people expressed their opinions on sheets of paper. Someone wrote that one could do both, and that the volume of the book is small. And many who noticed that almost all the homemade products in this book are “ready-made sets of prefabricated models” wrote directly to me that “you must (!) Bring the matter to their release for our children!” That's even how! “Write to the ministry ...” One even list of Russian ships fleet sent to me for release at the Ogonyok factory. This is for me to go there and “implement” it. Naive! There was a rule: “Why make new models when new children grow up every year!” However, I began to ride. In parallel with graduate school studies. And to go to different rooms, in Zagorsk he was at the Research Institute of Toys, met with various "bosses". And I realized that nobody needs my initiative. There is a plan, there are solutions from above ... And now, if they and your desires coincide, then everything is ok. If not, then who needs you so smart! Everything, as Arkady Raikin said: "Personal peace is above everything!"
But on the other hand, it was lucky that now it was possible to bake books like pancakes: 1989, “Fire” - “When the lessons are done”, 1990, “Enlightenment” - “For those who like tinkering”. But, perhaps, the main thing is that, already in 1986, knowing that the book on homemade goods and models would be released, I went to the publisher DOSAAF with the book “Tankodrom on the table”. And there they supported the idea of the book! Before that, there was already published a book "about airplanes" - "Airfield on the table." It was logical to continue it tanks. And while on a regular business trip in Moscow to work in the archives of the Komsomol Central Committee (collecting materials on the party leadership of NIRS and NTTM), I also obtained permission from DOSAAF to work in the library’s special library. IN AND. Lenin with foreign books "about tanks". Before that, I had permission only to “special literature”, and here also tanks !!! So I just didn’t spend the night in the library. The first to come and the last to leave. But the photocopies gained a lot. And again, having returned to his place in Kuibyshev, he sat down for models: in the morning - a dissertation, in the evening, when the mind was already behind the mind - models.
Then, already 1989 year, I finally realized that if our models are sent "there", then there with the models should be all different. And since “perestroika” had already gone quite far, he wrote to the PR department of the British Embassy, so that they would give me the address of some British society of modellers so that I could contact him. They gave me the address, I wrote to them there, and they answered me. They responded from MAFVA, the British Association for Scale Modeling, and did not just answer, but sent a bunch of model magazines — the English Military Modeling, the American Fine Scale Modeler, the Japanese Grandfix Model, and their very small “home” magazine Tankette. . Moreover, looking at the photos of my tanks from the magazine “Technology Youth”, they were amazed (T-35 on the scale of 1: 30 from zero) and offered ... membership in their association. “Membership fees, 25 pounds per year, we will pay for you, you only send us photos of your models and write us articles about models and modeling in the USSR. It is very interesting for us. ”
I looked through all sent, and, honestly, took me a strong anger. Why do they have all this, and we have - “FIG ... you are an Indian hut!” But what about the slogan: “All is the best for children”, beautiful words about the development of the creative principle of our people, about the “new historical society - the Soviet people”, the bearer of all conceivable virtues, for which the party works day and night and satisfying all its needs ... And here it’s not enough that there is a joke about “long green and smells like sausage” (a train from Moscow to the regions closest to it), so even such a trifle, like plastic models, it’s impossible for people to buy.
But since then you were a “man of the system”, then ... so that you don’t think about it, but you shouldn’t have to talk about it out loud. Although it was quite possible to criticize some of its shortcomings and indicate ways to overcome them. So I wrote to the magazine "Innovator-inventor" an article about what models we need, and that "not every toy model, but any model is a toy." And what if we want effective vocational guidance for young people (another slogan then fashionable in the USSR), then we need children's toys “Livestock Farm” and “Poultry Farm”, toy harvesters for grain harvesting, tractors with plows, and not only cranes and fire engines (these toys were!), but also concrete mixers, milk trucks, dolls the size of a bed, and beds the size of a doll (and this was a serious problem!), and even furniture for them, at home, and for military-patriotic education ... a fleet - not only Potemkin and Aurora, but also Slav "," Varyag "," Korean "," Memory of Azov "destroyers" terrible "and" Guarding "and the battleship" Marat "and many other legendary ships of our Russian and Soviet Navy. What is needed are not only the IL-2 and MiG-15 models, but also Steel-3, UT-1 and UT-2, K-7, TB-3 and Pe-8, Ercobra and Kittyhawk ...
And what models of ships need to do in the calculation of impatient people and children from already painted parts, that is, colored plastics, so that houses do not stink with paint. And to divide ship models into halves, and the bottom separately, and the top separately, and between these details already painted waterline of a given thickness as a “stiffener”.
Again, naturally, this is not over. Yes, and could not have a positive decision in those conditions. The opportunity came only after 1991 ...
Here, finally, everything really became possible! First of all, my magazine “Tankomaster” began to appear, and the fear - “as if something did not work out” before the collapsed “scoop” was so great among people that the first issue was written in manuscript! Yes, you can ask on the web. No one agreed to type and print text about tanks, even models! That is, print the magazine itself - please, but type in any. And the artist Igor Zeynalov had to write the entire number with a handwriting pen. And they still say to me that there was no “bloody twist.” Again, at that time, probably, it was not. But then what were they all so afraid of?
But there was one number, then the second. A circle of like-minded people appeared and I began to have firms in Penza that produce armored vehicles like mushrooms after rain. For example, the company “Province of Russia” (which sold cheap wines from sunny Anapa in Penza!) Created a small “garage” production of models made of epoxy resin, which included such rare examples of BA as the German “Erhard” and the Italian “Lancia” of the First World War I, as well as the famous German tank A7V. I found a website on the Web, which tells in detail about how the author of the model shown here in the photo collected her, well, and you can look at it here and there. All this was packed in cardboard self-made boxes, with photoprinted "pictures" in the graphic, again I. Zeynalov.
A separate private firm, Major-Models, was opened by Yu.Pivkina, specializing in armored vehicles of the First World War, starting with Russo-Balt and ending ... oh, which wasn’t just on his list. The tankmaster also acquired a small in-house “production”: the conversion model of the T-60A tank based on the AER model from Moldova, the Ford-T armored vehicle — the first Polish armored car, and the Pancho Villa Rebel set of figures. To them, the kit could be ordered BA Pancho Villa and a set of cacti.
Neptune has released the Battle of Kursk game with miniature tigers and T-34 on the scale of 1: 144, and even such a large enterprise as the Research Institute of Physical Measurements, which provides all our rocket industry with instruments, and then opened a workshop where they started to produce models of Odessa tanks ... "Ne" and "Ne-2". Both models were simply popular in the West, especially in the set with figures of sailors of the company "Zvezda". We sold them for 40 dollars, and there they went for 80!
But the PTS company began to produce 1 figures: 35 from “white metal”, depicting Penza governor, denominator, archers, in a word, relied on “local coloring”. And although in the city she did not sell a single set, the benefit from their release was great. All the authorities of the city, going “on business”, captured these figures as a souvenir in order to give the right people. ” Americans came on adoption - "Do you collect action figures of soldiers? - We collect! - In their TCP! "Well, it is clear that the" joy "was from this mutual. However, we were not the only ones who did this. The Interros company (one of the largest private investment companies in Russia) even released two gift books with a gold edge on stories pre-revolutionary Russian army and the Red Army. Not only was the paper and the print simply gorgeous, the white metal figure also relied on each one: the 1812 hussar of the year to the first and the red commander to the second, plus a set of colors, a brush and a colorful instruction booklet. A good gift to the "right person", is not it? Well, our masters have developed and cast it all in Penza.
By the way, our Penza had a chance to become the leader in the production of polystyrene models. To begin with, these were supposed to be T-24, T-26 tanks arr. 1937 and 1939-oh with a conical tower. But the issue of plastic models of tanks could not be adjusted here. Neither at the Penza GPZ-24, nor at the toy factory. The first seemed to be expensive to order molds from Dragon, and at the factory ... the salaries of the workers in the area rented by the Muscovites were laid out on ... the whole enterprise. Well, what about the quality after that you could talk? That deal did not take place.
But in Moscow everything was different. In 1989, the history of the Zvezda company began here - at first only a small area based on the Moscow factory of grinding machines. But already in 1990, the company became a separate legal entity, and its first products were sets of soldiers - Red Army figures of the beginning of the Second World War. In 1992, Zvezda won an investment competition and obtained a Lobnensky plastic toy factory (Lobnya, Moscow Region) at its disposal, where it launched a large-scale production. The basis of it was the release of prefabricated scale models of military equipment, which was initiated by the founder of the company, Konstantin Krivenko.
"He should not have gone alone." The plot of the diorama is very simple: the war in the Libyan desert. The British raider from the SAS units (and they often rode the camels on the desert, portraying the Bedouins), and the Bremen Carrier’s watchmen trapped the German communications delegate at Kübelvagen and killed them. And now they have arrived, they look like he is lying on the seat of his car, and exchange impressions. I personally especially liked the dust on the glass and traces of the wiper, as well as artistic “holes” in it from bullets. I managed to pick up a camel from a set, right on the scale of 1: 35, Kübelwagen and Bran-Carrier - from the sets from Tamiya, as well as weapon (“Bran” machine gun and “Boyce” anti-tank rifle) and helmets of English soldiers. But the figures are all conversion or not like everyone else. For example, a standing tanker is a figure from the “white metal” of the Led-Sled company, a camel fighter made of everything under his arms. The tanker sitting on the bulkhead underwent alteration, and he had a steel rod in his priest. So this diorama could well be submitted to an international competition of conversion models and dioramas. Unfortunately, this is the only photo I have preserved, the last thing that remains of the collection of all-time and all-Russian armored vehicles in 100 models of BTT.
And then, then it went on its own. I held the 100 model of BTT in Penza, and in 1998, I sold it all safely, because my family didn’t want to live in a “tank warehouse” anymore. It turned out that it is more profitable to write about tanks than to collect them, especially in our apartments, for such collections that are not adapted. Many Penza firms changed their profile, while others went bankrupt. The head of the TCP company covered his business and became a traveler, riding a car in Europe. The firm "Province of Russia" is now called Dera and produces beautiful wooden doors. And only Mr. Yury Pivkin still makes very high quality models! It does not collect, but makes crafts on a large scale on the orders of various reputable institutions. That's the way it happens with models, and ... with people.
Surprisingly, the company "Frog" released even the national model of the airship.
But on the other hand, it was lucky that now it was possible to bake books like pancakes: 1989, “Fire” - “When the lessons are done”, 1990, “Enlightenment” - “For those who like tinkering”. But, perhaps, the main thing is that, already in 1986, knowing that the book on homemade goods and models would be released, I went to the publisher DOSAAF with the book “Tankodrom on the table”. And there they supported the idea of the book! Before that, there was already published a book "about airplanes" - "Airfield on the table." It was logical to continue it tanks. And while on a regular business trip in Moscow to work in the archives of the Komsomol Central Committee (collecting materials on the party leadership of NIRS and NTTM), I also obtained permission from DOSAAF to work in the library’s special library. IN AND. Lenin with foreign books "about tanks". Before that, I had permission only to “special literature”, and here also tanks !!! So I just didn’t spend the night in the library. The first to come and the last to leave. But the photocopies gained a lot. And again, having returned to his place in Kuibyshev, he sat down for models: in the morning - a dissertation, in the evening, when the mind was already behind the mind - models.
"Southern Cross" was produced by the company "Frog"
The Novo company also produced it ...
... and produces the company "Star".
Then, already 1989 year, I finally realized that if our models are sent "there", then there with the models should be all different. And since “perestroika” had already gone quite far, he wrote to the PR department of the British Embassy, so that they would give me the address of some British society of modellers so that I could contact him. They gave me the address, I wrote to them there, and they answered me. They responded from MAFVA, the British Association for Scale Modeling, and did not just answer, but sent a bunch of model magazines — the English Military Modeling, the American Fine Scale Modeler, the Japanese Grandfix Model, and their very small “home” magazine Tankette. . Moreover, looking at the photos of my tanks from the magazine “Technology Youth”, they were amazed (T-35 on the scale of 1: 30 from zero) and offered ... membership in their association. “Membership fees, 25 pounds per year, we will pay for you, you only send us photos of your models and write us articles about models and modeling in the USSR. It is very interesting for us. ”
At the time, I first published an article about our T-24 tank in the magazine “Tankette” and told the British about it. And now his model is “there” in the 1: 35 scale.
I always liked this tank, really and far ahead of its time.
I looked through all sent, and, honestly, took me a strong anger. Why do they have all this, and we have - “FIG ... you are an Indian hut!” But what about the slogan: “All is the best for children”, beautiful words about the development of the creative principle of our people, about the “new historical society - the Soviet people”, the bearer of all conceivable virtues, for which the party works day and night and satisfying all its needs ... And here it’s not enough that there is a joke about “long green and smells like sausage” (a train from Moscow to the regions closest to it), so even such a trifle, like plastic models, it’s impossible for people to buy.
But today, taking into account the size of our apartments, excellent models of BTTs are produced on the scale of 1: 43. Price 999 p. Not cheap, although the quality is very high.
Want a plane, and not to mess around? Here you have a ready-made 1 scale airliner: 200 ...
.... or the legendary IL-2 (1: 72) at a price of 5700 p.
But since then you were a “man of the system”, then ... so that you don’t think about it, but you shouldn’t have to talk about it out loud. Although it was quite possible to criticize some of its shortcomings and indicate ways to overcome them. So I wrote to the magazine "Innovator-inventor" an article about what models we need, and that "not every toy model, but any model is a toy." And what if we want effective vocational guidance for young people (another slogan then fashionable in the USSR), then we need children's toys “Livestock Farm” and “Poultry Farm”, toy harvesters for grain harvesting, tractors with plows, and not only cranes and fire engines (these toys were!), but also concrete mixers, milk trucks, dolls the size of a bed, and beds the size of a doll (and this was a serious problem!), and even furniture for them, at home, and for military-patriotic education ... a fleet - not only Potemkin and Aurora, but also Slav "," Varyag "," Korean "," Memory of Azov "destroyers" terrible "and" Guarding "and the battleship" Marat "and many other legendary ships of our Russian and Soviet Navy. What is needed are not only the IL-2 and MiG-15 models, but also Steel-3, UT-1 and UT-2, K-7, TB-3 and Pe-8, Ercobra and Kittyhawk ...
The technology of "half models" was not popular then. But now there is the company "Kombrig", which produces excellent models for both the waterline and the full hull. Scales 1: 35 and 1: 700 with photo-etched details. Here are the details of the destroyer "Lieutenant Burakov."
Photo etched parts for models of the company "Kombrig".
Instructions for assembling the model of the battleship "Poltava".
And what models of ships need to do in the calculation of impatient people and children from already painted parts, that is, colored plastics, so that houses do not stink with paint. And to divide ship models into halves, and the bottom separately, and the top separately, and between these details already painted waterline of a given thickness as a “stiffener”.
Here is what was offered sometime at the end of the 80s. Two-piece hull with underwater painting. Model of the battleship "Tsarevich".
Today it is possible to produce the simplest models of paper. For example, the Greek unirema from this black-kilogram ...
But its scan and assembly scheme.
Again, naturally, this is not over. Yes, and could not have a positive decision in those conditions. The opportunity came only after 1991 ...
Here, finally, everything really became possible! First of all, my magazine “Tankomaster” began to appear, and the fear - “as if something did not work out” before the collapsed “scoop” was so great among people that the first issue was written in manuscript! Yes, you can ask on the web. No one agreed to type and print text about tanks, even models! That is, print the magazine itself - please, but type in any. And the artist Igor Zeynalov had to write the entire number with a handwriting pen. And they still say to me that there was no “bloody twist.” Again, at that time, probably, it was not. But then what were they all so afraid of?
Model T-III of one of the English modellers. Photos from the site of today's association MAFVA.
Made this model Paul Budman.
And this is a small table diorama again "from there."
But there was one number, then the second. A circle of like-minded people appeared and I began to have firms in Penza that produce armored vehicles like mushrooms after rain. For example, the company “Province of Russia” (which sold cheap wines from sunny Anapa in Penza!) Created a small “garage” production of models made of epoxy resin, which included such rare examples of BA as the German “Erhard” and the Italian “Lancia” of the First World War I, as well as the famous German tank A7V. I found a website on the Web, which tells in detail about how the author of the model shown here in the photo collected her, well, and you can look at it here and there. All this was packed in cardboard self-made boxes, with photoprinted "pictures" in the graphic, again I. Zeynalov.
That's how it looked then the packaging of our models "rubber kit".
Armored "Russo-Balt" in scale 1: 35.
And this A7V is our model, but the assembly and painting is not ours. Photo by Dronov V.A. http://scalemodels.ru
A separate private firm, Major-Models, was opened by Yu.Pivkina, specializing in armored vehicles of the First World War, starting with Russo-Balt and ending ... oh, which wasn’t just on his list. The tankmaster also acquired a small in-house “production”: the conversion model of the T-60A tank based on the AER model from Moldova, the Ford-T armored vehicle — the first Polish armored car, and the Pancho Villa Rebel set of figures. To them, the kit could be ordered BA Pancho Villa and a set of cacti.
Magazine cover for M-Hobby No. 2 for 1994 year: the conversion model of the T-60 tank based on the AER model from Moldova and “our” tank crew.
Neptune has released the Battle of Kursk game with miniature tigers and T-34 on the scale of 1: 144, and even such a large enterprise as the Research Institute of Physical Measurements, which provides all our rocket industry with instruments, and then opened a workshop where they started to produce models of Odessa tanks ... "Ne" and "Ne-2". Both models were simply popular in the West, especially in the set with figures of sailors of the company "Zvezda". We sold them for 40 dollars, and there they went for 80!
One of the models Yu.Pivkina scale 1: 20.
But the PTS company began to produce 1 figures: 35 from “white metal”, depicting Penza governor, denominator, archers, in a word, relied on “local coloring”. And although in the city she did not sell a single set, the benefit from their release was great. All the authorities of the city, going “on business”, captured these figures as a souvenir in order to give the right people. ” Americans came on adoption - "Do you collect action figures of soldiers? - We collect! - In their TCP! "Well, it is clear that the" joy "was from this mutual. However, we were not the only ones who did this. The Interros company (one of the largest private investment companies in Russia) even released two gift books with a gold edge on stories pre-revolutionary Russian army and the Red Army. Not only was the paper and the print simply gorgeous, the white metal figure also relied on each one: the 1812 hussar of the year to the first and the red commander to the second, plus a set of colors, a brush and a colorful instruction booklet. A good gift to the "right person", is not it? Well, our masters have developed and cast it all in Penza.
By the way, our Penza had a chance to become the leader in the production of polystyrene models. To begin with, these were supposed to be T-24, T-26 tanks arr. 1937 and 1939-oh with a conical tower. But the issue of plastic models of tanks could not be adjusted here. Neither at the Penza GPZ-24, nor at the toy factory. The first seemed to be expensive to order molds from Dragon, and at the factory ... the salaries of the workers in the area rented by the Muscovites were laid out on ... the whole enterprise. Well, what about the quality after that you could talk? That deal did not take place.
But in Moscow everything was different. In 1989, the history of the Zvezda company began here - at first only a small area based on the Moscow factory of grinding machines. But already in 1990, the company became a separate legal entity, and its first products were sets of soldiers - Red Army figures of the beginning of the Second World War. In 1992, Zvezda won an investment competition and obtained a Lobnensky plastic toy factory (Lobnya, Moscow Region) at its disposal, where it launched a large-scale production. The basis of it was the release of prefabricated scale models of military equipment, which was initiated by the founder of the company, Konstantin Krivenko.
Another helicopter Yu. Pivkina.
"He should not have gone alone." The plot of the diorama is very simple: the war in the Libyan desert. The British raider from the SAS units (and they often rode the camels on the desert, portraying the Bedouins), and the Bremen Carrier’s watchmen trapped the German communications delegate at Kübelvagen and killed them. And now they have arrived, they look like he is lying on the seat of his car, and exchange impressions. I personally especially liked the dust on the glass and traces of the wiper, as well as artistic “holes” in it from bullets. I managed to pick up a camel from a set, right on the scale of 1: 35, Kübelwagen and Bran-Carrier - from the sets from Tamiya, as well as weapon (“Bran” machine gun and “Boyce” anti-tank rifle) and helmets of English soldiers. But the figures are all conversion or not like everyone else. For example, a standing tanker is a figure from the “white metal” of the Led-Sled company, a camel fighter made of everything under his arms. The tanker sitting on the bulkhead underwent alteration, and he had a steel rod in his priest. So this diorama could well be submitted to an international competition of conversion models and dioramas. Unfortunately, this is the only photo I have preserved, the last thing that remains of the collection of all-time and all-Russian armored vehicles in 100 models of BTT.
One of the latest works of Yu. Pivkina. Big, isn't it?
And then, then it went on its own. I held the 100 model of BTT in Penza, and in 1998, I sold it all safely, because my family didn’t want to live in a “tank warehouse” anymore. It turned out that it is more profitable to write about tanks than to collect them, especially in our apartments, for such collections that are not adapted. Many Penza firms changed their profile, while others went bankrupt. The head of the TCP company covered his business and became a traveler, riding a car in Europe. The firm "Province of Russia" is now called Dera and produces beautiful wooden doors. And only Mr. Yury Pivkin still makes very high quality models! It does not collect, but makes crafts on a large scale on the orders of various reputable institutions. That's the way it happens with models, and ... with people.
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