I have started taking photographs back in Russia more that 30 years ago, in my childhood. It was "Zenit B", soviet-made SLR. I remember the day my father took me with him to "Sport tovary" ("Sport goods") store to buy the camera.

It was a beautiful camera considering the time and the place (Small rural town Yelabuga, Russia, 500 miles East from Moscow, 1967 or 1968?). Here is how it looked like (please take a look at the image).

All-manual and all-metal SLR with dim view finder and 50mm/f:3.5 "Industar" M42 lens. No meter (I've gotten "Leningrad" meter from my father). I spent summer taking pictures, developing film and printing. There were no commercial photo services available at the time, well, you could go to the "Photoservice" and they would take a picture of you with a big wooden viewcamera, but in most cases refuse to develop your own 35mm film or print pictures from it.