TAM - the first post-Soviet magazine on interests
Here it is, this very diploma of the All-Union competition, from which, in fact, my passion for modeling armored vehicles began
“...I’m offended for the state!”
Customs officer Vereshchagin
"White Sun of the Desert"
Customs officer Vereshchagin
"White Sun of the Desert"
Memories of times gone by. Having read Soviet magazines (which was discussed in the previous article of this series), and there were actually many more of them than mentioned in the article, I began to think that perestroika was opening up prospects for me... to get “behind the curtain” and get acquainted with the magazines “ from there."
Moreover, my interest in them was, as they say, direct and connected with one very important matter.
And it so happened that after regularly participating in All-Union toy competitions, and even with prizes, I received an official invitation to the next competition in 1981. And it was very flattering, but flattery alone will not satisfy you, and I decided at all costs to achieve a better result than before.
By that time, I already knew that no one needed original and unusual toys at this competition. But you need... the skill of the participants in order to boast at the exhibition in the Ministry of Light Industry: this is what our participants can do. Therefore, this time I didn’t bother with any vibration rovers and lunar rovers, but made a series tanks for the Ogonyok plant (this is where they told me that why make new toys when new children grow up every year) under the loud name “Tanks of the Land of the Soviets”.
They included the T-27 wedge, the two-turret T-26, the BT-5, the IS-2 and the T-35. All on a scale of 1:30 and made in such a way that they were in no way different from the models of this plant: KV-85, IS-3, ISU-122 and 152.
Can you imagine what would have happened if they had put my entire series into production?
But for a known reason this did not happen, but they still produce everything else.
Screensaver for an article from the magazine “Technology for Youth” No. 4, 1984
Its second part...
And the series was celebrated... with a 2nd degree diploma and 2nd prize. The first one, if my memory serves me right, went to Georgia to the Sikharuli factory, which produced a prefabricated model of the Oxidan steamship, which, of course, was the Sirius steamship, and was made using molds from the French company Elle.
And so it began! They sent me a 150 ruble bonus - decent for those times. We were invited to the editorial office of the magazine “Technology for Youth” to discuss the problems of modeling in the USSR.
The article was published in 1984 with photographs of my tanks. Well, after that I firmly decided to become a “tanker” and collect a collection of models of tanks from all over the world. And, already in graduate school at KuGu, I made a model of a West German artillery observer vehicle, fortunately its drawings were found in the journal Foreign Military Review.
Amphibious tank. A toy that even received a copyright certificate for an industrial design
Here it is, this is a certificate obtained together with Victor Kaye, an inventor from Moscow. So to speak, official evidence of our mutual stupidity and purely Soviet gullibility. The fact is that recipients of such a certificate received 80 rubles for two. And... they waited for industry to accept their development! But it was necessary not to wait, but to fill out an application like this every week for any toys, even if no one needed them at all. Regularly, even taking into account the fact that some developments would be rejected, we would have a good income without much difficulty! Alas, this idea came to me too late. I just want to say to myself: he was a naive fool!
I returned to Penza from Kuibyshev, but... there are no drawings or good photographs. How to make models?
And it occurred to me in 1989 to write a letter to the British embassy with a request to connect me with some English club for amateurs of armored vehicle modeling - “probably you have such”?
Then the West and I tried to “actively be friends,” so this idea seemed to me quite reasonable and “in the spirit of the day.” And... that's how it turned out!
This is what the cover of the very first Tankmaster magazine looked like.
Page from the first issue. Because of the frightened typesetters, the entire text had to be written by hand. It’s good that the artist Igor Zeynalov got down to business. He also painted screensavers and figures of tankers
The answer came from none other than MAFVA, the British Armored Vehicle Modeling Association. And not just a letter, but a package. And in it is a model of a German self-propelled gun based on the T-4 (with a set of paints!) from Tamiya and magazines - Fine scale modeler (USA), Model graphics (Japan), Military modeling (England), and an invitation to become a member of their association.
Like, they'll pay a £25 membership fee for me, I'll get their Tankette magazine, but in return I'll have to keep sending them photos of my models (and I sent them competition photos of tanks) and maybe even articles about them, because no one does this to them!
Cover of the second issue
Needless to say, what I felt when I looked through all this and opened the box with the model. I felt like I was living in a deep hole! Well, if we can’t do this, then where are we going with our unshaven faces and even talking about some kind of socialism “with a human face”. But, as they say, there’s no point in moaning and cursing, we need to fix things.
And there was only one way to correct it: to give people information that they were initially deprived of. I started publishing articles in our magazines. In particular, in "Aviation and Cosmonautics" an article was published about the Luftwaffe uniform based on an article in Military modeling, which had never happened before!
But most importantly, having received a lot of old magazines with BTT drawings from there, I thought about starting to publish my own private magazine! But although it was already 1990, it turned out to be very difficult to do this. Here is the cooperative's own toilet - please open it. But a magazine for modellers was absolutely impossible!
The third issue... All three issues were published before the new year of 1992. Such people showed interest in the magazine!
I went to the editorial office of our Penza newspaper “Young Leninist”. He suggested making a page “Armored Modeling” - “Armor of the Land of the Soviets”. The idea was approved!
I went to Moscow, received permission to go to the special storage facility, received Steven Zaloga’s book “Soviet Armored Vehicles” from it, and copied all the projections of our tanks from it.
He came back, we did the first issue and... The Committee for the Protection of State Secrets in the Press cut it down for us. “Where did you get the drawings of the T-28 tank, and even shielded with additional armor, model 1940?” This is absolutely impossible! Where did you get the drawings of the T-27 wedge? Oh, from Leninka’s special storage facility?! You can't, you can't!
So, in the summer of 1990, our tank page was covered with a copper basin.
In the third issue, a competition was announced for the best emblem of the Tankmaster magazine. And in the fourth issue its results were summed up, right on the cover!
And I started thinking about... a magazine! Which would be published with the official permission of DOSAAF. But it needed a memorable name. I came up with it for exactly six months. I tried all sorts of names, and then suddenly it seemed to hit me: “Tankmaster”! Here you go story, and modeling, and everything, everything...
I tried to get more drawings from the English.
I wrote them articles about the Ni tank with photographs of it from Odessa, about the first Russian armored cars, which they had never heard of there, about how I make my models from polystyrene, onto which I glue sheets of thin brass embossed with rivets. And for all this he asked for one thing - drawings according to the list.
At the international book fair in Moscow, where my book “For Those Who Love to Craft” was sold by the Prosveshcheniye publishing house, I asked for Pierce Hunnicutt’s book “Firepower” about US heavy tanks at the American stand. In a word, I rowed literally everything I could for myself.
And then... We arrived in August 1991 with the whole family from Anapa, turned on the TV, and there... “Swan Lake”. Well, there is no point in retelling what happened next here. However, already in October I realized that... Finally, “the hour has come.” There are no more stupid women from the Committee for the Protection of State Secrets in the press, and you can print absolutely whatever you want. The issue was money. Where can I get them?
From issue to issue, fonts changed, the design was transformed... Here is the cover of No. 3, 1993
And here the BTT modeler from Moscow, Lev Brodsky, who also wanted to publish a magazine for BTT modelers, really helped me a lot. I advertised this in the “Technical Youth”, collected applications, but couldn’t release it, so I decided to go to Israel. But before that, he gave me all the addresses of potential subscribers, for which I am grateful to this day.
And so I made a layout for the first issue of the Tankmaster magazine, and... a strange thing immediately became clear: not a single printing house was willing to... type the text! Moreover, even typists in newspaper editorial offices did not want to type it.
And do you know how they explained this? With a simple rhyme, with which one of the readers recently tried to scare me again: “Comrade, believe me, it will pass, the so-called glasnost, and state security will immediately remember your names!” This is how much our people were intimidated by the omnipotence of the party and organs.
I had to ask the artist Igor Zeynalov to write the entire text by hand. And he wrote, so that the very first TAM, to the surprise of everyone, came out handwritten. And then I wrote letters to all potential subscribers, explained the situation and asked for money... in envelopes!
And people... sent, and only a few demanded guarantees against deception. We had (and still have, of course) good people who were modelers, and also “tankers.” Although, it is possible that it was like this: a fisherman sees a fisherman from afar.
No. 11 for 1995 is interesting because color finally appeared in it, and its emblem was chosen - a scale grid icon with an origami tank. But, unfortunately, I can’t remember who invented it. And there is nowhere to read about it. I don’t have any of these magazines in my hands at home. There were always people who begged for the last number... That's how the shoemaker was left without boots!
The magazine was printed in the printing house of the Penza plant "Electroavtomat". They refused to type the text about the tanks, but why not print the circulation? Then the second issue came out, the third, the fourth...
People wrote that they “got a breath of fresh air.”
This is how we wiped the noses of the British, because the quality of printing in TaM (and this is the abbreviated name “Tankomaster”) was practically no worse than in the same magazine “Tankette”, only ours was much more informative. After all, need is a great stimulator of creativity!
Well, then things went on and on, but how it went and where it went - this will be discussed next time.
To be continued ...
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