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Thursday, October 17, 2013

Progress - Toy Soldiers

I recently ran into this Soviet set at a Toy Soldier Show. Initially, the manufacturer was a mystery to me. I bought them from the Marx Man and even he did not know who made them. Luckily, one of our readers was able to point out their origin and even a site that still sells them today (check out the comments section). Apparently, these figures were made by a company in Moscow called Progress or 'Прогресс' to be more precise. It seems like they started making them close to 20 years ago. Some of the sets were made with painted faces and boots, and have been released in different types of packaging -boxed or bagged-. The set is called  "The Brest Fortress" or "Soldiers of the Great Patriotic War". In addition to these figures, it looks like Progress also produced set of knights and medieval figures as well as cowboys and indians.

Progress Soviet Infantry - Part I
These figures are closer to 60mm in size. The detail is actually rather shallow, as if they were clones of clones. I don't think that's the case though because the proportions are still fine, which is something that gets lost when figures are cloned as much as it would be required to lose as much detail. So I think they were simply sculpted this way. As far as the rest of the sculpting goes, the figures are well posed and in decent action stances, like the firing guy who is leaning forward as if firing on the move.

Progress Soviet Infantry - Part II
The flag bearer is a rather unique figure. He could be getting ready to climb the Reichstag building in Berlin. We'll just need to add the Soviet scythe and hammer to it. That might be an interesting painting challenge. I am assuming the man on the right is wounded, otherwise his pose would be a bit lame. The other two are average poses.

Progress Soviet Infantry - Part III
This is the last pose in the set. I shot him separately because I wanted to compare him to a guy from this set which I bought a couple of years back without knowing the set that it belonged to. Take a look below.

Progress Soviet Infantry - Part IV


Click here to see a post about Soviet Infantry
Click here to see a post about Soviet Armor

10 comments:

  1. I believe these are "early" recent figures that came out of Russia , A few years ago two sets of WWII Russian soldiers were making the rounds with dealers , this group and another , but I couldn't tell you the maker - Maybe you knew this , and just wanted the makers name , I wasn't sure from your question

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  2. Thanks for the info. I did not even know that they had been made in Russia. It would also be great to find out the manufacturer, but even knowing the country of origin is useful. thanks!

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  3. the manufacturer name is PROGRESS in USSR time 1980

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  4. http://vse-soldatiki.sun-site.ru/_ussr_p_po.php
    sorry is in russian google traduct is your friend ;)

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  5. Thanks a lot for solving the mystery! And yes, google translate worked very well!

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  6. BTW, do you know how one can purchase from them? They also have a set of Soviet Infantry by a company called 'Оритет' (Priority?) which would be nice to have.

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  7. OK you want this
    http://soldatplastique-1-32.forumgratuit.org/t545-infanterie-sovietique-oritet-oritet-soviet-infantry
    one member on this forum named Denitz and live in Moskow and have one internet site,
    http://www.toysoldiers.spb.ru/toysoldiers/tehnolog.htm
    contact him for the set ,is it one very cool man
    sorry for my english my natural language is french

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  8. One another russian manufacturer is PVBLIVS
    http://soldatplastique-1-32.forumgratuit.org/t3868-test-shots-pvblivs
    this set is very expensive but is a nice job
    I m a fan of your collection ,i collect the soviet soldier and i painted them
    my pseudo is vernius on the forum
    http://soldatplastique-1-32.forumgratuit.org/t3496-les-soviets

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  9. One newer set of Engineer Bassevich as sorted
    http://soldatplastique-1-32.forumgratuit.org/t4993-engineer-bassevitch-rkka-set-5

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