T is for They Were Verh'verh'ry Drunk!

This one took me a while to locate and pin down, but I am now satisfied enough to share it with you, despite the fact that I may be wrong, but given how little we seem to know about some Western manufactures, researching the Eastern ones is no easier!

The following was - I now believe - manufactured by The People's Soviet Socialist Republic of Russia's Medical & Labor Dispensary №.1 Tambov Region, Zelenyi Settlement but I stand to be corrected . . . and may have extended the title somewhat, for comedic effect!

First, however, a rant; a small rant! We have all been lied to, and are continually lied to by those in power, and those who control the media or have other 'vested interests'. There is no difference between 'them' and 'us', which is not to say there aren't differences in funding, or finance, in political will or behavior, in economic model or philosophy, but ultimately the Russians ("the 'Commie' Sov's") and us were far more similar than you might think from what we were told.

Today's toy (below) was basically manufactured by recovering alcoholics, they could just as easily have been disabled people, or ex-servicemen, but that 'meaningful, gainful employment' by way of therapy or as a means to aid convalescence - in the Soviet Union - is (was!) no different to the work being done by the blind at PZG in Poland, by ex-servicemen at Enham Alamein or Linburn (both latterly: Remploy) or (because a lot of the drunks were at Tambov custodially) Prindus (Prison Industries).

Now, there are two points to take away from this, the first is that the Soviets had a rehabilitation system for habitual drunks . . . they didn't send them to Siberia, they didn't 'disappear' them out of helicopters (a trick of US backed/funded/trained regimes in Central and South America), no, like any normal, day-to-day society, they had a rehabilitation program for troubled (or troublesom) citizens; just like ours.

The second point is that the facilities at Tambov (which is how I'll refer to it for the rest of the article, as otherwise their title - any other way you cut-it - is a mouthful!) are now derelict, as PZG seems to have ceased producing toys, as Linburn disappeared, as Enham was swallowed by civilian (state funded) 'charity' bureaucracy and has now lost it's Remploy unit. So the parallels of good programs under social responsibility are mirrored in the later neglect of today's Thatcherite-Raganomic 'free-market' Capitalists . . . everywhere!

All simplistic (and a bit muddle-headed), I'll grant you, but you know what I'm trying to get across and to do the above properly would require a wordy tome on nuanced-parallels of socio-economic conditions in differing political systems, which only academics would read! But, if Tambov, PZG, Linburn and Prindus were still making toys; what a nicer world it would be!

And if Remploy (all units, Britain-wide, closed without warming by the Cameron-Glegg administration) were still going last December, they could have scaled-up and been producing the PPE we needed, before we needed it, negating the need for Boris to give £122m for PPE to a company with no assets formed seven or eight weeks ago . . . by someone he gave a peerage to!

You see, as well as there being no difference between us all at the bottom, there's no real difference between them all at the top!

This is the item in question, a towed field-gun with caterpillar-tractor, all as a one-moulding 'readymade'. Similar to the solid ones we looked at a while ago from Chris (both rockets and large howitzers being towed on that occasion), but hollowed-out to lessen material costs, and the heat shrinkage.

It was in a mixed lot with some other stuff, among which was this chap, who being the same semi-transparent polymer which - after recent conversations with Polish collectors - is probably nylon66 (what in the past I have called a nylon/rayon type or Polypropylene!) and a similar scale, is I suspect part of the same set? They go well together anyway!

Foreshortening from the camera-angle has made him look a lot smaller than the Airfix figure, he's not, but he is only HO-compatible to the Airfix 1:76th scale.

This was the logo, and it wasn't in the list of 160-odd I use as a first point of reference for these things (many thanks to Nazar Marchenko for that heads-up), so I had some days looking, but in the end I think I've called it right . . .

. . . for the Tambov 'clinic' (on the left here), while other contenders were both too circular and the toy-vehicle's mark lacks anything which might be the tree's trunk (Roshal Chemical Plant 'A.A. Kosyakov')* or the lettering of the Mercedes/Pizza Hut-hat (Moscow Factory 'Spetsstanok'), so I think the rather crude mark on the toy (carved with an engineer's chisel straight into the tool?) is the one we're after? But . . . I stand to be corrected!

* Also now derelict (I like the construction guide-board for a noddy-suit respirator, all laid-out like an O-Level lab-rat!) and like Tambov; known for colourful sets of blow-moulded figures; manufactured on an armaments site!