Probably we all love to receive gifts. Here, in fact, there is nothing to ask. It is pleasant to receive them from colleagues, acquaintances, it is even more pleasant from loved ones, because they know you better than anyone else. For example, this new year it was very pleasant for me to receive two gifts from my granddaughter at once. It used to be something pleasant, but not for the soul. This time, to my great surprise, I received two boxes at once from her. In one there was a Matilda tank (a combined model of the Zvezda company) at a scale of 1: 100, in the other a Hurricane fighter (of the same company) at a scale of 1: 144. “But I have never assembled planes, have I? - I was surprised. " “Yes, but you always said that you wanted it! She objected. - And this airplane is small, very “cozy”, it won't take up much space. And then I always wanted to see how such models are assembled and painted … "" Why else a tank? " "Tank? You said that you like Matilda …”That's how I had to collect these two models, and at the same time tell her the history of large-scale modeling in our country. The story turned out to be very instructive and, having told it, I thought that the readers of "VO" would not be uninterested in "shaking off the old days" and remembering their youth and their early childhood hobbies. Well, in general … once again think a little about the past.
Miniature diorama "Matilda" on the bridge "from the" Zvezdinsky "set with the" Matilda "tank in a scale of 1: 100. The tank, as you can see, is branded, but everything else is the work of the author. I wanted to "have fun" … And then you write and write …
Well, this is the aforementioned "Hurricane" on a scale of 1: 144. I don’t know how anyone, but I really liked this model. Well, and you can make it literally in half an hour. Taking pictures is just difficult. You need a special lens, and it is quite expensive for such rare shots.
I got acquainted with large-scale modeling a very long time ago, when I was in the fourth grade in 1965. One boy brought a glued model of the Yak-18 plane to the classroom, of course, I liked it very much, and I wanted the same for myself. I wanted to and … went to the store that he named to me, went and bought. Of course, I drove him in glue just scary, but … even in this form, he aroused my admiration, and most importantly, it was possible to play with him. Then came the turn of the Mi-10K helicopter (crane helicopter), in which I really liked the propeller blades made of yellow plastic and the black struts of the spider-like landing gear and the same wheels.
Gradually, I learned to glue such models quite cleanly, but the decals (decals) that were included in the set did not translate into them, because their quality was terrible. And then, in the same store, I suddenly saw a completely different box with a model of an aircraft manufactured by the GDR An-24 by VEB Plasticart in the characteristic red coloring of the keel and stripes along the windows. Moreover, inside there were not only details cast with amazing quality, and again incomparable with our decals, but also glue and silver paint with a smell … which seemed to me more beautiful than the fragrance of roses. And the box, and the tubes of glue, and it was all kind of … "not ours" and a little cosmic. Not a toy, made according to the principle “you, baby, will do for you”, but “a small object of real art”. The prices for the models ranged from 60 kopecks, quite acceptable for me, for the MiG-21 and Saab J-35 Draken to the absolutely unbearable 3, 50 and 4 rubles for the Tu-144, Trident and Vostok-1. Saab J-35 Draken in 1: 100 scale shocked me by the fact that for the first time I saw a modern combat aircraft "from there", with such unusual futuristic outlines, and even with such beautiful identification marks - three crowns in a blue circle. Of course, they could have been painted with camouflage, and they would have become even more interesting, but I was just afraid of that. I didn’t know what paints they should be painted, and they were not on sale either. That is why I preferred the GDR ones, already painted in silver, or requiring minimal coloring from the modeler. It is true that even then I did not like that all the models are in different scales. SU-7, for example, MiG-15 and Tu-2 (scale 1:72) were much larger than MiG-21, that is, what was this “model line”? I personally didn't like it. And one more thing - the backing (base of the decal) was yellowish in color and turned yellow even more over time. That is, the numbers on the yellow substrate did not look at all on white plastic.
MiG-21 from Plastikart - packaging.
In the store where they were sold, I almost went to work, so the saleswomen there already knew me and left new items, because otherwise these models, unlike ours, flew away in the blink of an eye.
In 1968 he saw on sale three ships of the Ogonyok factory at once: the Lenin nuclear-powered ship, the Potemkin Battleship and the Aurora cruiser. I did not like the nuclear-powered ship, but I bought the battleship and the cruiser right there, especially since the magazine Modelist-Konstruktor published excellent material about this ship with a color spread, where both the Potemkin itself and the destroyer No. 267 were given in "Victorian livery", that is, livery with a black hull, white superstructures and yellow pipes (or rather black and yellow!), And masts.
Potemkin … the packaging has changed …
I did not paint them either, but I assembled them with all the necessary rigging, the ropes for which I pulled out of the sprues from the same models, stretching them over the candle flame.
At the same time, Oglikovsky tanks appeared on sale - T-34, KV-85, ISU-122, ISU-152 and IS-3. I collected all of them, but … I was horrified by the “copy” of the T-34, and was surprised at the choice of other models. Why, for example, “Ogonyok” immortalized the KV-85 and IS-3, which did not play any role in the victory, but “missed” the KV-1, IS-2, SU-76 and SU-152?
T-34 of the Ogonyok plant - "model forever"
By this time, three of our models MiG-15, MiG-17 and MiG-19 had appeared, but … their scale differed from the scale of "Plastikart", and most importantly - the embroidery on them was … convex, and even the stars were imprinted with an outline. And again, they were different from the Yak-25 model. And I had to fine-tune all three models with sandpaper. Brought! And how to paint? Therefore, the same Yak-25 had to be turned into … an atomic submarine "Skipjack" with a rubber motor and a propeller from a tin can. I was able to paint it with nitro enamel in a deep black color, since nitro enamel in cans by this time had already begun to appear on sale. By the way, there was no need to paint the "plastic" Mi-2 helicopter, as well as the "maize" An-2: the first was green-marsh color, and the second was all the color of aluminum. By the way, today the "plastic" model of this aircraft costs 2,000 rubles on the market. Rarity, however!
The assembled MiG-21 from Plastikart looked like this.
Then … then I had no time to deal with models for a long time, and when I moved from an old private house to a modern apartment in a high-rise building, I gave those that were to the neighbors' boys. "Not a serious matter for a certified teacher of history and a foreign language" - I thought then.
Then it turned out that, while working as a teacher at Pokrovo-Berezovskaya secondary school, I took part in two All-Union toy competitions, and in both my toys won prizes. And the last time, in 1980, it was the tank "Berets for freedom comrade. Lenin ". The scale was large, not less than 1:12. I did not know how to make rivets from polystyrene at that time and came up with a funny technology: the tank itself was all plastic, but where there were rivets on it, it was all pasted over with a sheet of thin riveted brass.
Such a technique "untied my hands", and for the 1982 competition, where I was already officially invited, I prepared a whole series of models, since by this time I had already worked at the Penza Regional Station of young technicians and time, and I had plenty of space for that. … The “collection” turned out to be simply gorgeous! It was attended by many models from those that for some reason "missed" the "Ogonyok" - the T-27 tankette, T-26 with two turrets, BT-7 model 1939, T-34/76 model 1942 (with "Mighty Mouse ears"), IS-2 and my pride T-35! In addition, from the details of two models of the Oksidan steamer, which was then being made in Tbilisi, I made a model of the "Tom Sawyer steamer". With such models it was a sin not to take the next prize, which was given to me - the second, not the first, but the first was received by the plant, with which it is, of course, impossible for a “private trader” to compete. They gave me a diploma from the Central Committee of the Komsomol and (to the delight of my wife!) A solid prize, and then invited me to the editorial office of TM for a "round table" - to discuss the problems of large-scale modeling in the USSR.
By the way, photos of all these models were featured on the headline of the article in TM # 8 for 1984, so you can see them there. Many things were said in this article, and people were very surprised why in a country where "all the best is given to children", where patriotic education is at the forefront, children do not have what a long time ago there is in the "decaying West", that is prefabricated models of our own, domestic, glorious and truly legendary technology, which would bring up pride for our country in our children, and … would give them the basics of technical education.
All my tanks can be seen at the top of the page.
Even then, the TM editorial staff timidly hinted that it was immoral to send bright and colorful boxes with a full set of parts and decals to the West, and to ours to sell the same models in packaging cardboard, without the most important component, not to mention paints. However, even the TM “secret” of the Novo firm could not reveal. I was afraid. Yes, this is understandable, the 37th from the memory had not yet disappeared.
But what was written at the end of the article, as its result … But the editors could not know that a solution to the problem could be found without problems: it is enough to replace state capitalism in the country with private-state and then we will have everything. Including any model, both your own and from any country in the world.
Yes, but where did the USSR suddenly get molds on the model of the "potential enemy" aircraft, including the same "Hunter"? And it so happened that back in 1932, two Englishmen Charles Wilmotom and Joe Mansour created a company that began to produce prefabricated aircraft models from plastic. At first it was cellulose acetate, since 1955 - polystyrene. Moreover, since 1963, the 1:72 scale has become the standard for aircraft models of aircraft that are not too large in size. By 1970, the Frog catalog (as it was called for some reason) included dozens of the most diverse models. Moreover, very rare models were produced, for example, Avro Shackleton, Martin Baltimore (and Maryland), Vultee Vengeance, Curtiss Tomahawk, Blackburn Shark (and Skua), Bristol 138 and (Beaufort), our Soviet SB-2, Supermarine Attacker and (Scimitar), Armstrong Whitworth Whitley, Gloster Javelin and many, many others.
Typical Soviet-made model packaging for the domestic market ("Fairey Swordfish", Donetsk Toy Factory).
But then, for some reason, the company went bankrupt and began to sell equipment for the production of its models. The last model "Frog" was released in 1976 and at the same time, namely in the mid-70s, most of the molds were purchased by the Soviet Union (except for models of German and Japanese aircraft - that is, "enemies" that were bought by the company "Revell"). Frog models began to be produced in our company under the Novo trademark. We were no stranger to copying, so there is nothing to be surprised at. Moreover, they were exported in high-quality "elegant" packaging and with decals, but for internal use they were simplified, without decals, and often even without specifying the name of the sample. They wrote on them, for example, like this: "Sea Fighter", "Bomber". Well, and about the quality of the cardboard packaging itself, you can probably not even mention. Although the prices of 20-30 kopecks were more than democratic. Most of the molds were given to the Donetsk toy factory, and the rest were given to other enterprises with injection molding machines in Moscow, Naro-Fominsk, Baku and Tashkent. Such models could be glued together, but the absence of decals and paints completely crossed out any of their educational and educational value.
German "Focke-Fulf-190". For some reason, the British were not afraid to release models of enemy aircraft. And we, the winners, who ground 80% of the German divisions on the Eastern Front … for some reason were afraid. Afraid of what? "Plastic airplanes"?
I must say that because of my work for OblSYuT and participation in the All-Union Toy Competition, I constantly had to visit Moscow, both in the assortment office of the USSR Chamber of Commerce and Industry, and in the Toy Institute in Moscow (I was in an old church near the Kazan station), and the Research Institute of Toys, and the Toy Museum in Zagorsk. In general, then I was thinking of connecting my fate with this work, especially since it was then that my guys became winners of the All-Union competition "Cosmos", their works received the first gold medals of the USSR Exhibition of Economic Achievements in Penza, so we were greeted with joy in all these places. and my boys in all these "offices" and research institutes - and I always tried to travel with them - were loaded with boxes of "Novo" models, and packs of decals literally lying there on the shelves. It was there that I was told this "story" with "Frog" and "Novo", and she greatly puzzled me. So it was possible to sell high-quality models abroad for money, but you can't sell the same high-quality models to our children? Well, they would sell at a higher price, even if not everyone would buy them, but at least someone could buy and collect them. Let not children, well, at least adults. After all, it’s better than chasing this blatant shit to our children … But … of course, no one gave me an answer to this point of view at that time. That is, there was a slogan "All the best for children", but, like many others, these were largely empty words. It is clear that the children of officials who had access to all kinds of import-export, as well as the employees of all these "offices" and specialized research institutes had all this and so, but what about the rest?
And this is how our assembly instructions looked like. Particularly impressive is the "air pressure receiver".
By the way, visiting all these research institutes and toy factories, I not only learned a lot of interesting things, but also heard a lot of really wonderful aphorisms. So, the chief engineer of one of the large enterprises told me this: "Why release new toys when new children are born every year?" And … apparently that is why the absolutely awful "Ogrekovsky" T-34 is being produced and sold to this day. In any case, I saw it in stores, but who buys them when there are Zvezda models, I just can't imagine!
Box "Novo". In this form, the products were sent to the “decaying West” on Frog rigging.
And here is a model of an airplane from this box, glued, finished and photographed by its creator Anton Finitsky. But such beauty could not have been done without good paints and … decals !!!
But these are boxes "Novo" interspersed with boxes for Soviet children. As they say - feel the difference!
However, the “toy” problems soon ceased to worry me, since I moved to work at the institute, and then in 1985 I entered graduate school. And there, for the sake of rest, I made my first model entirely of polystyrene and, moreover, on an international scale of 1:35. It was the "vehicle of the advanced artillery observers" of the FRG based on the American M113 armored personnel carrier according to the projections from the magazine "Foreign Military Review". I really liked the model, and the second one, the same, already according to the drawings in the Polish magazine "Small Modeling", I made after defending my thesis. It was the M114 armored personnel carrier - a reconnaissance vehicle with a 12, 7-mm M2 machine gun on the commander's turret - the "machine" is small and very elegant. This is how I basically returned to BTT modeling. And then came 1987, which changed a lot.
