Mail order from Russia?

Has anyone mail-ordered anything from Russia? One web-retailer

(http://www.rugift.com/) has good prices on things like Zenitar

lenses, but I'm wondering about shipping times, reliability, etc. I

live in Canada. Thanks.

You might ask at the Russian Camera Users forum on BestStuff.com:

 

http://www.beststuff.com/forum/list.php?f=21

I've got the odd thing from former Soviet nations via Ebay. It takes awhile but it's not outrageous. On the other issues remember each company is different.

 

I seem to remember at least some of the Soviet firms actually have US outlets. You might want to look at those also.

I've gotten 2 things from Russia via EBay, one was a Industar 61 L/Z and the other was a Iskra MF camera. Both were exactly as advertised and both were from sellers with a long and positive history.

 

There are a couple of EBay sellers who seem to be well regarded - the russian camera sites will usually give you leads on which eastern European sellers to trust. The ones that I seem to remember are "zenitar","cupog","grizzly33bear" and "araxphoto".

I just received a 16mm Zenitar fish eye lens from Ru Gift. They warn you that it will take 2-4 weeks for delivery, and they were right, it took 4 wks & 3 days, but it came pretty well packed, and the company was responsive to my Email queries at the 4 week point. I'm having fun with the lens on my 10D - well worth the money. I think they have a dealer in USA for ordering, but the lens came from Russia.

I once bought a Mosvka5 'for parts' from an ukrainian dealer via ebay. The camera matched the description - the shutter was almost ruined and the lens was spoiled. Well, I might have got the same stuff with the same description from any other dealer - probably for less shipping cost. I think in this case the dealer was not to blame. I also bought a Leningrad6 light meter from Ukrainia and it was almost flawless.

 

There some guys on a german photo newsgroup reporting good experiences with russian photo webshops.

I have a Moskva-5 that I carry every day. I bought it on eBay from a dealer (sovietfoto) in the Ukraine. It took just over two weeks for delivery after PayPal payment; shipping cost $15. It appears to have been recently serviced; the lens is clean and incredibly sharp, shutter works perfectly on all speeds, rangefinder works correctly and is perfectly calibrated. The only flaw I've found in three months or so is that the back latch isn't very secure, but since I normally carry the camera in its leather everready case, that's not a big fault; if it bugs me I can fix it in a few minutes with a needle file. And breaking the slider knob off the 6x6 framing window shutter was my fault, not a problem with the camera.

 

Given that I paid only $57 total (plus $15 shipping) for the camera and 6x6 format mask, I'm very well pleased with the entire experience.

What Charles Ewen said. Go to the Russian Camera Users Forum (http://www.beststuff.com/forum/list.php?f=21) and click on "Forum List" and then "Text Resources." There you will find a file with a list of Russian/Ukrainian sellers whom forum members have found reliable. This list is by no means exhaustive, but it is a good place to start.