Industry | Optical engineering, optoelectronics |
---|---|
Founded | Krasnogorsk, Russia (1942) |
Headquarters | Krasnogorsk, Moscow Oblast, Russia |
Key people
|
Alexander Tarasov (director) |
Products | Cameras, night vision devices, rangefinders, military optics |
Parent | Shvabe (Rostec) |
Website | http://www.zenit-foto.ru |
Krasnogorskiy zavod im. S. A. Zvereva (Russian: Красногорский завод им. С. А. Зверева; Krasnogorsk Works named after S. A. Zverev) is a Russian factory in Krasnogorsk near Moscow which specializes in optical technology. Part of Rostec state corporation.
During the Soviet period it was called Krasnogorsk Mechanical Works (Красногорский механический завод, Krasnogorskiy Mechanicheskiy Zavod). The abbreviation KMZ (КМЗ) is still in common use.
KMZ is known largely for its photographic and movie cameras of the Zorki, Zenit and Krasnogorsk series, several million of which were produced. It also has a large military optics and mechanical engineering division.
Zenit 12 SLR camera
After the German invasion of the Soviet Union in World War II, the Red Army had acute need for precision optical instruments. The existing factories were either inaccessible, such as LOMO in besieged Leningrad, or overloaded with demand, such as FED which had just been evacuated from Kharkiv to Berdsk. The KMZ factory was set up in 1942 near Moscow, which by then was no longer in immediate danger from German troops, on the site of a recently evacuated mechanical plant. Initially the company took over production of scopes and binoculars as well as reconnaissance cameras.