Svema
Svema ( Russian / Ukrainian Свема) was the name of the most important manufacturer of photographic films in the Soviet Union and is still the registered trademark of Chemischen Werke Schostka , Ukraine . The abbreviation stands for СВЕточувствительные МАтериалы / SWEtochuwstvitel'nye MAterialy, which means as much as light-sensitive materials .
history
The plant was founded in the 1930s at the Schostka site , which at that time had been the location of the chemical industry for almost two centuries. The local powder factory supplied the Russian tsar's army . From then on, the films enjoyed a very good reputation in the Soviet Union . After the Second World War, the range was expanded to include color film, produced on dismantled Agfa-Wolfen systems. Although Soviet scientists subsequently examined the processes of the Agfacolor process again in detail, it does not seem to have resulted in any essential findings that were not already known in Wolfen. Many well-known Soviet films were shot and copied on Svema film; every child knew the manufacturer's name as a synonym for photographic film . After the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, the plant became the property of the Ukrainian state, but could not hold its own in competition with western manufacturers of photographic materials. The number of employees has been falling continuously since the mid-1990s, and several attempts to reorganize the socialist company failed. Svema has been bankrupt since 2004. The factory is largely abandoned today; former employees illegally sold the factory's technical equipment. A resumption of production therefore seems impossible.
Products
During the Soviet era, Svema produced a wide range of different film materials: cinema film (black and white and color), photographic film for almost all private, public and military applications, X-ray films were part of the production scope . In the last few years of its existence, however, the product range and its own production decreased: The black and white film materials for hobby photographers were recently repackaged rejects from an Eastern European film manufacturer, which were sold cheaply under the Svema brand.
