Russian Pencils

I have long had an interest in Russia. It’s such a giant interesting country with so much history, all of which is constantly blocked from access by politics. I took a couple years of Russian lessons as a distraction a dozen years ago after a big breakup, and continue to hold fantasies that I’ll put it to use someday…

Canada has a lot in common with Russia, culturally and economically, mostly due to our similar geography and climate. Unlike Canada, though, Russia still has a functioning pencil industry. I’ve been connecting to it through eBay and Ozon.ru.

My first score were these, from eBay, one from the Tomsk-Siberian factory and another from Krasin, the most famous and oldest remaining from Soviet times. The softer ones in both lines are very nice, though the pencil diameter on almost all the Russian pencils I’ve used so far are slimmer than western ones (to the extent that Caran d’Ache is slightly beefier).

Ozon has lots of user-submitted reviews and pics, similar to Amazon, and almost all products have origin data, unlike Amazon. So it was easy to restrict my searches to what was made in Russia. Alas, like many geographic missions, it’s complicated.

This nice bamboo box of Malevich art pencils was listed as made in Russia, as was a dozen box of 4Bs that I bought.

Side by side the 4Bs from the box and the 4Bs from the dozen are identical, same product codes and imprints. They’re actually really nice, softer and darker than I expected for 4Bs, and the harder ones in the art set also show darker than the same grades of CretaColor and Conté.

The odd thing comes when you read the origin info on the packages.

The wood box says Made in Russia (pics are from a Google translate screen grab) but the dozen box says made in China. I assume the pencils were all made in China but the box was made in Russia and the same Chinese pencils were put inside. They’re still pretty nice.

I also got another art set of Krasins (the Constructor line) from Ozon, plus some Voskresenskaya Engineer art sets - oddly, separate product listings showed for sets of 12 and 6, so I got them all, but the two 12s and two 6s were identical, just different packaging.

I also saw these Brauberg Blackjacks and got a pack of 2Bs. I’d never heard of this brand, but both the stick and listing said made in Germany.

Alas, the box said China. They’re nice despite the gimmicky black wood, and I admit I love that gimmicky black wood.

I also saw a brand that was listed made in Finland, which seemed interesting. Alas, another made in China and mislisted. These were crappy yellow school-grade HBs with really bad wood. Not sure I’ll be keeping them.

These three were kind of interesting - pressed paper pencils with seeds in the end, that you can plant when they reach Steinbeck stage. These were in fact made in Russia, but from a manufacturer that doesn’t seem related to any others I’ve found.

I have another box coming from Ozon with a few other brands and some notebooks. More to come from that.