The legendary Soviet rangefinder, it is an exact copy of the Contax II, and the first batches of cameras were even assembled from Contax parts, most of which (along with production equipment) were exported from East Germany as reparations. Thanks to the successful design, Kiev rangefinder cameras were produced practically unchanged until the 80s. Compared to other Soviet rangefinders, they had a very large and bright viewfinder equipped with a plate shutter with a shutter speed range of 1 to 1/1000 (up to 1/1250 in early models) of a second, and Kiev / Contax mount was used to mount the lenses.