Konstantin M. Simonow

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Hi Martin

That bag looks good , well knocked about with the scratches and nicely painted ...another colour variation to leather , look forward to seeing it in place

Thanks for sharing

Happy benchtime

Nap
 
72. Day, February 17, 2022


Today the self-made reporting bag will be assembled!

Since these bags were usually carried very low - for example where a western hero at Hollywood had his six-shooter hanging...










... for me that means first of all: lengthen the belts!

The straps themselves are the remains of a slaughtered blister pack (they have the right thickness!), the buckles come from the junk box and the brass ring is made from solder...:








Cheers

BTW: Kev, look at his shoulder belt: I've added some shadows...
 
Hi Martin

As always wonderful research , never doing things by half ! .....nice work on the new straps they will look good painted up

Noticed the shadows as well...LOL

Out of interest was doing the reporting bag like this in your mind when basing up on the brass post ?...have you pinned it to the base side ?

Hope you have his head safe !

Thanks for updates ...always enjoyable

Happy benchtime

Nap
 
Dashed it Martin...thats looking the business ....great result on those straps

Can't think what you will do next on him ...head on perhaps ?

Happy benchtime

Nap
 
74. Day, February 20, 2022



Our friend will be carrying an early war Red Army backpack on his back - one like this:



Copies of newspapers will be sticking out of this backpack at the top, as Konstantin Simonov repeatedly describes in his war diary that he and his colleagues always took the latest hot-off-the-press newspapers from the editorial offices with them on trips from Moscow to the front.

These newspapers were of course handed out to simple "frontoviks", but delivered to the political deputies ("commissars") of the troops visited; in the Red Army it was common for these newspapers to be read (out) together during breaks in combat and at the same time to be used for ideological training.



So first the question: Which newspaper should I choose?

The best known was of course the party newspaper "Prawda" - and the most famous issue of "Prawda" was the following - everyone who lived through the summer of 1941 in the Soviet Union knows it!



Here is the story of this issue...:

When the Hitler Wehrmacht attacked the Soviet Union on June 22, 1941 without a declaration of war, Stalin had sent his intimate, Foreign Minister Vyacheslav Molotov, ahead.

Molotov spoke briefly on the radio...



... addressed the "comrades" in the old-fashioned way and called on them to "crowd even more closely around the banner of the party of the working class".







The following quote from Stalin himself has been handed down from that day:

After Defense Minister Semyon Tymoshenko and Chief of Staff Georgy Zhukov explained the situation to him, he said, more muttering than exclaiming: "Lenin created our state and we shit on it."

The host himself was not heard from in public for days and spent the time at his dacha in Kunzewo near Moscow...:







Rumors soon circulated among the population that Stalin was sick, dead, arrested and more.

Then the bang:

On July 3, 1941, Stalin spoke on the radio!



And he struck a tone that people had not heard from him before:

"Comrades! Citizens! Brothers and sisters! Fighters of our army and fleet! I turn to you, my friends!”

Stalin no longer speaks of the party, but consciously refers to the history of Russia by now speaking of the "Great Patriotic War", taking up a formula that Tsar Aleksandr I had coined in 1812 as Napoleon's Grande Armee invaded Russia.

Stalin went on to say: "This is a war of the entire Soviet people, a decision about freedom or slavery". The remedy is a mass enlistment of soldiers and a scorched earth war:

"Not a single locomotive, not a single wagon, not a kilogram of grain, not a liter of fuel must be surrendered to the enemy."

At the same time Stalin also admits that in the first border battles there were heavy losses, defeats and retreats of his own troops.

At the same time, the master of the house also issued a warning to his own population: anyone who obstructs the defense faces a court martial, including “whiners or cowards” as well as “panic mongers and deserters”.

Historians, regardless of ideological boundaries, agree that it was above all the tone and the facts of the speech that were not glossed over, which suddenly unleashed an enormous will to resist in the population.

The speech was simultaneously printed in full in Pravda...:



That, in short, is the story of the "Prawda" issue I chose.

It's also important to me that the newspaper had a different format back then - it was clearly smaller than it was in the 1970s, for example...:



So today I set about making a stack of mini editions of this July 3, 1941 issue of "Prawda" - and I printed them out on "environmental paper" because paper "whiteners" weren't invented until after the war...:




So much for today.


Cheers
 
75. Day, February 21, 2022


It goes on - I'll start with the backpack...:



Here's a pair of these things - they were first issued in 1930 and actually contained the assault pack...:











Our friend will transport freshly printed newspapers in it.

I rolled my Minis "Prawdas" together into three rolls and glued them together with "Uhu", the whole thing deliberately uneven, as if they had been packed together in a great hurry.

Around these three rolls, I roughly model the basic body of the backpack from "Fimo" and bake the whole thing in the oven.

As I said, everything is still pretty rough, but here you can already see where the journey is going...:



Tomorrow I will model the actual backpack around this - now fixed - base body with "Milliput"...

I have already built the "rope" to close it, it consists of three "strands" of 0.5 mm solder, which I clamped into the "Proxxon" and twisted at low speed and with careful pulling...:




Cheers
 
Hi Martín

Good start like the way this is moving , having the papers at different levels works well

Look forward to seeing the backpack around the fimo

Happy benchtime

Nap
 
77. Day, February 24, 2022


While everything around me is falling apart and my world is collapsing, I try to distract myself with my character.

Unfortunately, it only succeeds imperfectly!

Nevertheless:

First, I used the "Proxxon" to chamfer the side of the backpack that touches the shoulder blade a little and then attached it with two-component glue.





After drying, the straps were attached - they are made of doubled gold paper.

The transition from the modeled to the added strap on the shoulder was equalized with "Milliput".







This part at the other shoulder...



... which I have neglected so far, I will do when the backpack is finished painting...

Sad, angry and desperately helpless greetings!

 
Hi Martín

Good to see your at the bench on this great subject ,at times like we are in the hobby we all love which helps my friend

See where this is going , might be pics but the newspapers look very high IMO of course , not seen with the head added yet so might be spot on

Thanks for update

Look forward to next

Happy benchtime

Nap
 
79. Day, February 28, 2022


Most important things first: Shortly after seven o'clock this morning, after 19 hours of waiting at sub-zero temperatures, Tanja and her companions finally crossed the Moldovan-Romanian border. They are now in a small Romanian inn, resting.

They're frozen and exhausted - but together, safe and sound - and in the EU!

Tanya's neighborhood in Odessa has been bombed. She doesn't know if her house is still there.

Tomorrow they go to Bucuresti and see how it goes. And maybe I'll fly down to Bucuresti if I can help them better there. There are several direct flights there from Bremen.

They no longer have to worry about travel expenses to Germany! Since February 25, all Ukrainian refugees have been able to use all European long-distance trains free of charge to get to their respective destinations - a Ukrainian passport is enough as a ticket!

Meanwhile, I've started painting our hero's backpack.

The colors are dictated by the belt he wears around his torso. And I'll do my best to make the thing look as dingy and "used" as possible.

The basic painting is on it - tomorrow comes the "fine touches"...:






Cheers
 
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