soviet vintage handcrafted portsigars

I recently didnt go out at all (no sun, shitty weather etc), I'm even skipping the wednesdaywalks -- no posts from me cause I literally dont go out and shoot anything... and no creative impulses to post something from the archives. As a creative person (isnt it too pathetic to call myself 'an artist'?..) my recent work is the one I'm in love, and the one I love most; that is always the case, thats why you always supposed to share your last, fresh and new pictures -- cause you want to share the best, and the last actually is the best... this is an artist's internal feature, hehe.

My preambula is not connected directly to the stuff I wanted to share with you today -- except it is fresh and I shot it just a few hours ago.

I have mentioned a while ago that I have an extra book layout job, and the recent one I am working since December, is an album dedicated to the soviet soldiers' handcrafter portsigars of the 2nd World War. I am doing the object photography for this project -- for all the entries I consider need to have more quality photos.

So, I have been accumulating for a few months more and more of the stuff in my hands, and now it is already two medium-sized boxes! And they are piling in such a cool-looking piles, that today after doing a few more shots I needed, I decided to have some extra fun and take a few more pictures for myself -- these piles look really cool, they are all unique, every one was made on demand and they show all the creativity and original approach of the common Russian soldiers, that lived more than 70 years ago...

Probably I have to do a separate post with all of them, but it will take a damn much time from me, and I am not sure if I could do that at all. And giving just a pile of the pics without telling the story is definitely not what I want in this case...

This one has the 'USSR' abbreviature clearly visible, and also symbolics of the soviet state' crest, and a
copper plate with portrait of Lenin (the founder of the Soviet state, if you are not in the know). Any soldier who offered comrades cigarettes from such an outstanding and exclusive cigarette case, could be extremely proud!

(a crop from the previous frame, with Lenin's portrait)

And this is the reason they were doing this stuff. Cause everyone wanted to have some exclusive stuff, to be proud of... (there were not so many opportunities for the soldiers living their military life day by day, to do so). There was also another reason: sometimes they had a lot of spare time, sitting in the trenches, and really nothing to do with it.