This Zenit SLR was made in Krasnogorsk, Russia, in 1972.
It features a selenium-powered built-in exposure meter (uncoupled, so you must set the aperture and shutter speed manually after establishing your values).
It supports auto stop-down lenses, with an internal levered plate to activate lens aperture pin.
It is compatible with 42 mm universal screw mount lenses, except for some of the Pentax lenses, which will get stuck on the mount, due to placement of the screw holes on the Zenit mount.
The internal shutter mechanism actually evolved from the classic German Leica design, although the film transport and the viewfinder system are quite different. Shutter speeds range form 1/30 to 1/500.

This is my cleanest and smoothest example of a Zenit SLR.

A good friend in another city made this proposal to our little group of photographers:

"Fellows:
A modest proposal:
On the heels of our 10-10-OM10 event...how about a time dedicated to shooting our favorite Soviet-made camera?
Nov. 9, 1989 was the date the Berlin Wall came down...forerunner to the end of the Soviet Union which occured on December 8, 1991. Might these be significant dates
for such a proposed event? We could shoot anytime between those dates.
Or, we could observe the 76th anniversary of the FED camera...named for Felix
Edmundovitch Dzerjinski. Exact date unkown but camera was released in 1934.
What do you all think? All the best, dave"

We elected to do our shoot between Nov. 9 and Dec. 8.

My first participation in the project was last week with a Zorki 5 rangefinder camera.
This is my second Soviet Shooter offering for the month.
I loaded the Zenit with a fresh roll of Walgreens branded ASA 200 print film.
Two lenses were in my bag: the Helios-44 f:2 / 58mm "normal" lens, and a Carl Zeiss Jena Biotar f:4 / 135mm telephoto that I have had for years. The CZJena lens was made in East Germany while under the domination of the Soviet Bloc.

These images were shot mostly in Fenton Old Town. The former St. Paul's RC Church building has been in private hands for decades.

Please click on thumbnails to see enlarged.
All images are ©2010 E.J.Kowalski.