Zvezda

This isn't a scientific observation or anything, but it seems to me that the first major exports from Eastern Europe I saw after the breakup of the Soviet Union were plastic models. The Czechs seemed to lead the way, but the Russians were not long in following.

Who remembers the old Ogonek models from the days of the Cold War? Or VEB from East Germany? I paid through the nose to get a VEB model of a Tu-20 "Bear" strategic bomber, and I seem to remember it being the worst thing I ever bought. Not just the worst model, but the worst thing. Worse than the Rotato. Worse than the tube of flat tire sealer than had congealed in the can. Worse than the DVD of "Random Hearts." Worse, indeed, than my 1970 AMC Hornet.

But to quote the movie announcer dude, a new wind was about to blow. Among the first true Russian-made model companies to arise after the tawdy collapse of the USSR was Zvezda. The first Zvezda kits I saw were actually reboxed by Italeri, so at least they had professional graphics and Italeri's traditional ugly but functional instructions. But then I started to see Zvezda stuff in actual Zvezda boxes, though I use the term "boxes" with caution. They weren't so much boxes as monuments to flimsiness. Get them a little wet and they dissolve like toilet paper, and some of them had such a strange texture you almost wonder if they were made of cardboard or recycled skin.

But today, they turn out excellent kits. The most recent Zvezda kits I've bought are their 1/72nd scale Il-2M3 Sturmovik and their 1/72nd scale Roman trireme. They carry on their tradition of having slightly less than optimal instructions and boxes, but the part that counts, the plastic stuff in the box, is excellent. They are to be commended. They are so much better than the dreadful Ogonek things of the Khrushchev era.

I think it was inevitable that we (the West, that is) would win the Cold War. When I was a kid, practically every weapon in the US arsenal was available as a model, especially airplanes. Almost no Warsaw Pact stuff was available. For years the only Soviet models I knew of were an old off-scale Monogram Tu-16 Badger and a very early MiG-21F (so early it was even predated the MiG-21PFMA).

One look at my ceiling could have predicted the outcome. A hundred USAF and USN aircraft, and two Russian ones. I almost felt like loaning them an A-5 Vigilante just so it wouldn't be so grossly unfair.

What was my point?