Spycameras: The Soviet Kiev 30 Subminiature Concealed Camera.

Kiev Arsenal Kiev-30 Camera.
Manufactured 1982.
Serial Number 8210738.
Industar-M 1:3.5 23mm lens
Modified subminature with cigarette pack concealment.
The Kiev 30 was manufactured by the Kiev Arsenal between 1974 and 1983.
It is a subminature camera which takes 16mm film with a frame size of 13x17mm. There are three shutter speeds.
It is suggested by some that modified cameras such as this were used by the KGB and the STASI, and there is anecdotal evidence to support this, however, other agencies behind the Iron Curtain such as the police could have ordered or carried out the modifications these cameras in order to use them for covert purposes.
The most famous example of this type of camera is the John Player Special type, which is now acknowledged to have been faked extensively in Poland.
This type, however, has more in common with the 'Hertzegovina Flor' version manufactured in 1976 which exhibits extensive signs of use and was probably used for covert purposes.
The origin of this pack is unknown, but the brand name translates as 'Standard' in Tajik.
Kiev Arsenal Kiev-303 Camera
Manufactured 1990s
Serial Number 0121
Modified subminature housed in notebook concealment
The Kiev 303 was the successor to the Kiev 30 and was manufactured in the 1990s.
The camera features the same lens, but now with 1/30 to 1/250 shutter speed.
It can focus from 0.5m to infinity with stops marked at 1 and 2m.
This camera is concealed within a leather bound notebook. The majority of the pages of the ‘book’ are actually the metal frame of the concealment, with only the top few pages actually made of paper.
The camera views out of a hole in the spine of the book.
The film is advanced and the shutter cocked by racking the attached pen holder on the side of the book.
As with the Kiev 30, there is some suggestion that the camera was manufactured for and used by members of the KGB for covert photography, but given the wide range of specialist cameras produced to order that were available to that organisation, this seems perhaps unlikely.
This does not preclude that the camera was used by some other group for this purpose, such as local police units, or perhaps for foreign operations by the Soviet PGU, where possession of a commercially available camera would have been easier to explain away.
It is of note that only seven such cameras are known. The Kiev John Player Special camera, now known to have been produced mostly in Poland by entrepreneurs for sale to Western collectors, exists in great numbers.
The low numbers of these notebook cameras suggest that perhaps indeed they were produced to order for some special purpose, but by whom is unknown.
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