About Me

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No Fixed Abode, Home Counties, United Kingdom
I’m a 60-year-old Aspergic gardening CAD-Monkey. Sardonic, cynical and with the political leanings of a social reformer, I’m also a toy and model figure collector, particularly interested in the history of plastics and plastic toys. Other interests are history, current affairs, modern art, and architecture, gardening and natural history. I love plain chocolate, fireworks and trees, but I don’t hug them, I do hug kittens. I hate ignorance, when it can be avoided, so I hate the 'educational' establishment and pity the millions they’ve failed with teaching-to-test and rote 'learning' and I hate the short-sighted stupidity of the entire ruling/industrial elite, with their planet destroying fascism and added “buy-one-get-one-free”. Likewise, I also have no time for fools and little time for the false crap we're all supposed to pretend we haven't noticed, or the games we're supposed to play. I will 'bite the hand that feeds', to remind it why it feeds.

Tuesday, October 20, 2020

MKI is for Московский Комбинат Игрушек

Or . . . Moskovskiy Kombinat Igrushek, literally translated as Moscow Combine [of] Toys, properly the Moscow Toy Factory, one of the 20-odd which were grouped under the Krugozor 'super combine' (which I mentioned the other day) for the late 1970's through to the 1990's, they (MKI) managed to survive and hive themselves off again!

МКИ; Московский Комбинат Игрушек; Bogatyr; Budenovets; Cossack with Spear; Cuirassier; Dzhigit with a saber; Hussar; Kiev Rus Knight; Kuban Cossack; MKI - МКИ; Moscow Toy Factory; Moskovskiy Kombinat Igrushek; Polish copy; Red Guard; Roman; Russian Cavalry; Russian Plastic Toys; Russian Toy Soldiers; Saracen; Small Scale World; smallscaleworld.blogspot.com; Tatar; Teutonic Knight; Winged hussar;
I love these, I only have one pose, but I have pictures of all of them and will slowly build a collection, also, they were - I believe - originally sold in matching sets, horse and rider in the same colour (there are many colours), with a non colour-matched lance or spear, if required; some have sculpted-in weaponry, swords and the like.

Different sources state that they were copied by a co-operative in Odessa (under collectivisation this would have been a permissive thing, like the different sets of Progress revolutionary cavalry we've seen here at Small Scale World in the past), copied by a Polish company and re-issued under Krugozor, while someone was supposed to have issued a complimentary 'new' figure a few years ago, but I now can't find the details of that?

МКИ; Московский Комбинат Игрушек; Bogatyr; Budenovets; Cossack with Spear; Cuirassier; Dzhigit with a saber; Hussar; Kiev Rus Knight; Kuban Cossack; MKI - МКИ; Moscow Toy Factory; Moskovskiy Kombinat Igrushek; Polish copy; Red Guard; Roman; Russian Cavalry; Russian Plastic Toys; Russian Toy Soldiers; Saracen; Small Scale World; smallscaleworld.blogspot.com; Tatar; Teutonic Knight; Winged hussar;
This is my original MKI jobbie, he's a synthetic-rubber/PVC (like Malyesh's output), and has a larger ring-hand hole, so gets a kebab stick as his replacement lance!

The sculptor of the originals is given as Mikhail Anoshin and what I love about them is the stylisation, they remind me almost of the Bayeux tapestry, or - more poignantly - the work of Russian artist Ivan Bilibin, whos work I've loved since I picked-up a book of his theatrical/operatic stage-designs in 1981 or '82, and an exhibition of who's work, in London, I managed to get to, in the early 1990's.

МКИ; Московский Комбинат Игрушек; Bogatyr; Budenovets; Cossack with Spear; Cuirassier; Dzhigit with a saber; Hussar; Kiev Rus Knight; Kuban Cossack; MKI - МКИ; Moscow Toy Factory; Moskovskiy Kombinat Igrushek; Polish copy; Red Guard; Roman; Russian Cavalry; Russian Plastic Toys; Russian Toy Soldiers; Saracen; Small Scale World; smallscaleworld.blogspot.com; Tatar; Teutonic Knight; Winged hussar;
Mine is the 'Russian knight' I believe (or Bogatyr, contemporary of the Redcat Rus we saw earlier today), but which one I'm not so sure, there seem to be two? This is a later version/copy in polyethylene; it's a dense one too, which makes the rider a bit stiff for the horse, but a good shove does the trick! He has a smaller ring-hand hole, so gets a toothpick!

The set would appear to be a 12-count, but with the copies and possible mould-damage at some point leading to a new horse and possibly some detail changes, it is now an arguable 13 to find? There is a good thread on them here, and armed with the scratch info' here presented (for the first time in English?), you won't need Russian-language to enjoy the pictures, the sculptor is seen at work on them on page three, there's a stunning line-up at the top of page five, while page six has the 'main 12' in high-resolution.

These are the supposed '13' of them:

  • 1. Polish Winged Hussar
  • 2. Knight (Teutonic/mid-late medieval)
  • 3. Bogatyr (early/Rus knight + Polish copy)
  • 4. Roman
  • 5. Saracen
  • 6. Tatar
  • 7. Hussar
  • 8. Cuirassier
  • 9. Cossack with Spear
  • 10. Red Guard (two versions of horse)
  • 11. Dzhigit/Zaporozhye with Saber (Ottoman/Caucasian and Central Asian horseman)
  • 12. Budenovets (revolutionary horseman)
  • 13. Kuban/Don Cossack (on a cuirassier horse with 'harem' trousers) 

МКИ; Московский Комбинат Игрушек; Bogatyr; Budenovets; Cossack with Spear; Cuirassier; Dzhigit with a saber; Hussar; Kiev Rus Knight; Kuban Cossack; MKI - МКИ; Moscow Toy Factory; Moskovskiy Kombinat Igrushek; Polish copy; Red Guard; Roman; Russian Cavalry; Russian Plastic Toys; Russian Toy Soldiers; Saracen; Small Scale World; smallscaleworld.blogspot.com; Tatar; Teutonic Knight; Winged hussar;
While, as I said above; MKI extracted themselves from Krugozor after the fall of the 'curtain' and can be found, still-trading, here.

2 comments:

Chris Smith said...

Would any of the lego mini figure Knights long weapons fit the ring hands?

Hugh Walter said...

Good Idea Chris, but not that big-a-hole, when I said 'kebab; it was actually a chicken-sate stick so a bit bigger than the cocktail stick but still not that thick!

H