G is for Grey Guy's from Gidromana

Not much blurb as I ran out of time this week! Looking at a vacuum-packed 'envelope' of 50mm die-cast Russian infantry from the soviet era I picked-up at a small local evening show or car-boot sale about 20 years ago!

They didn't photograph very well so here's the two best shots much enhanced; to not much improvement! They are Semi-flat (Demi-rond) mazac/zamak castings of troops on parade; basically the USSR equivalent of parade 'toy soldiers', such as the Britains produced hollow-cast red-coats.

The insert was printed as two panels on one sheet which was folded in half and placed over the figures before the plastic sheet was vacuum-sealed over the whole; consequently it has been a bit scrunched-up!

Two similar figures to the right of a spare I have. The spare has traces of an overall layer of silver paint which has mostly worn-off. The gold figure is similarly coated and from a similar set, while the female medical soldier is from a more realistically posed set.

When I first discovered the Russian forums (about ten years ago) I spent an afternoon downloading all the images I found without knowing what I was doing, or which 'thread' I was in; due to my lack of Russian language skills.

I can therefore only say that there are quite a few of these sets and they are all slightly different, but as far as English-speakers go, we now know (thanks to Mimi) one of them was from the Gidromana plant in Melitopol - now in the contested (by Russia) area of Ukraine!