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| cameras from Moscow, Kiev and Leningrad under hammer and sickle |
The Russian Revolution of 1917 spearheaded the spread of Socialist regimes by establishing the first one over one of the largest empires in history. The Russian Empire became the Soviet Union. Socialism meant that the people's ideology was that the welfare of the masses of common people had to replace the welfare of the single bourgeois, and that citizens had to determine what even constituted their welfare through a system of Soviet Democracy.
Among a vast array of entertainment and creative venues that the Soviet Union developed for the interest of the Soviet People, Photography was one of the things. As the industry of the Soviet Union developed, especially after World War 2, most Soviet citizens came to possess a camera. Gradually, there were plenty of cameras available for soviet citizens, and there was increasingly plenty of top-notch camera equipment made available for amateur and professional Soviet photographers, including many legendary lenses that are sought after today. The production and availability of professional camera equipment for Soviet citizens only increased as industry expanded. A wide variety of Soviet Camera products were exported to western countries, usually with a "Made in the USSR" branding somewhere on the product.