Tomsk Russian Pencils
One of the first sets of Russian pencils I bought was from the Tomsk pencil factory in Siberia, simply branded “Russian Pencils.”
They were very similar to the Krasin and Voskresenskaya clear-laquered pencils I bought around the same time. Unlike the latter, the Tomsk pencils were slightly thinner than standard, and seemed to have a better quality core, though they were all quite off-centre. I loved the packaging, and had spent quite some time in the past few months searching Russian online retailers for more, all to no avail.
This month I managed to get a pack of 24 coloured pencils from an Ebay seller in Russia, but any hint of new stock evaded me, and I finally started doing some Russian-language searches for information on the Tomsk factory. The packaging indicated two different URLs, but both are now dead.
What I did find wasn’t good news. Wages were among the last of many bills left increasingly in arrears over the course of 2019. In trouble throughout the post-Soviet period, and experiencing frequent bankruptcies despite capital-injections from a fund including Koh-I-Noor in 2004, the factory, which opened in 1912, was finally considered a complete bust, and of insufficient value for reopening as a pencil factory. A massive change in product lines in the past few years failed to change prospects, and resulted in overproduction of products which went unsold in warehouses. The owners apparently liquidated the equipment in the final days and what was left was a husk of a building that is now awaiting redevelopment.
Photo from Ria Tomsk.
Some voices have been calling for some historic preservation of the factory, but apparently in its current state it has little occupiable space, and the many upgrades and refurbishments of the factory itself have rendered the building unfit for historical preservation according to the local authorities. Overall a sad story and the first such passing I have witnessed as a stationery enthusiast of a pencil brand from modern to vintage. I’m sure it shan’t be the last.
