Arsenal
Description
After World War II, much of the tooling at the Carl Zeiss factory was appropriated by the Soviets and installed in the Ukraine, at a defense factory in Kiev known as Arsenal. Arsenal is best known for having cloned some notable cameras, including models by Hasselblad, Contax, Nikon and Pentacon. Most of them were not copied directly, but were instead simplified for production behind the Iron Curtain. Some, such as the Contax clones, were quite good. Arsenal also created one of the most original of all cameras: the Kiev 10. Of all Soviet camera manufacturers, Arsenal also has the largest cult following, given their product complement of cheap yet usable medium format equipment.
The Arsenal factory produced all Kiev cameras. The most well-known camera produced at Arsenal is the Kiev 88 (derived from the original Salyut), which shares origins with the original Hasselblad 1000 and 1600. Who borrowed whose design is the subject of endless debate, which you can read about in a number of places.
The Arsenal factory also made Mir and Arsat lenses, which were good Zeiss copies. Their ubiquitous quality-control problems notwithstanding, the Ukrainian lenses are quite good, and some of them are outstanding.
Links
- Rick Denney's Kiev camera page
- David Haardt's Kiev 88CM page seems to have an Arsat bias
- Alfred Klomp's page of Soviet logos
