Thank you VERY MUCH, tomt, for this interesting site. I like it very much. Altho I canīt understand Russian, the google robotic translator lets one know what they are talking about.
You can bet we here in Cuba had a very close relationship with some of the Russian gear. Mainly radios, phonographs and TV receivers. I donīt know why our stores never sold tape recorders. People used to bring them when traveling to Russia (studying or working there).
My first tape recorder was a Mayak-203, and I had never bothered to find what the name meant (it is "lighthouse" in Russian, in Spanish "faro"). It worked very well after I changed the diameter of the motor idler (it was made for 50 Hz). And added a photoelectric tape end sensor, because most of the Russian R2Rs lacked it. If you fall asleep, the spools keep turning and slapping around the tape all night long!
And the customary tank-like weight common to Russian appliances. We liked to say they used the shields of discarded T-34 tanks to make portable radios with!