As with my other Russian dive gear article, Russian refers to any Soviet-era rebreather, regardless of actual vintage (some are still in production and some come from the Borat republiks.)

The purpose of this article is to help you determine if this kind of gear is right  for you.  I will lay out the facts as I know them, and let you surmise according to your needs. My reviews tend to seem negative to most people, but generally, they really aren't.  I have a large collection of the very type of dive gear I review, and use much of it.  If you are similarly equipped and situated, you will find this dive gear similarly useful.

Right off the top, there are a couple of negatives about Soviet dive gear.  First, the cylinders will not have DOT stamps on them, so no one will fill or service them. Secondly, they have unusual fittings, so even if they were willing to, they couldn't.  Thirdly, anything coming from a long way off has built in postage and customs hassle/expense. 

On the plus side, one of the greatest features is, if you get these direct, they come in a nice wooden case, with spares of everything, and a special toolkit. When I say everything, I mean it comes with not just o-rings and diaphragms, but spare scrubbers, and even spare gas cylinders. Enough to keep you diving as long as you own your soviet- made gear. they even have fill adapters. Sadly, these only adapt to other soviet style stuff, so your best bet here is to cut the tube and put a 6 mm swagelok fitting to american 1/4 threads.  Works fine

Assuming that either you are not going to dive them, or you have your own compressors and are willing to make adapters, read on. Otherwise, you may not be interested in this article. Others who love to do extensive modifications might also do well with these systems, but be aware that if this is the case, you may end up throwing everything away but the shell, so bid accordingly.

I am only going to review the closed circuit systems, as SCRs are effectively dead.  They served a function in ther time, that time being before cheap and reliable oxygen monitoring devices.  If you still like SCRs for the dinosaur factor, you may like the soviet ones, the main difference is they are a bit over-engineered, heavy, and needlesly complex. As usual, they come in an aluminum case.

The ida-71 is the most common soviet rebreather. It is configurable for a wide range of missions, and has the most room inside for retrofits. It has double scrubbers and is nitrox capable if you are handy or adventuresome.

If you want to take it out of the 20 foot range, you either need to get some oxygen-producing scrubber material, such as O3, or be prepared to add your own ppo2 monitor.

The shell is large, roomy, and made of aluminum. the staps are fit for a B&D fetish, no quick release here.  there is also a "mine carrier" (not its real function) on many of the vintage ones.  This can be used for a variety of purposes.

The breathing bag is sturdy rubber canvas, and enormous, (14 liters), and doubles as a water trap.

The dual scrubbers are color coded, gray for normal, blue for O3. You can use normal adsorbent in either one.  They are hard to pack because of internal baffling. The scrubber bed is not spring loaded, the final tamping is provided by the cap, which has a tamping estension for that final bit of squashing. Many modders use only one scrubber, which frees up even more room inside the case.  There is a square scrubber that comes with some of these, but it takes special molded wafers for adsorbent, which are not available to you.

If you have a machine shop, you can make custom plugs for the other scrubber connections, and use them for convenient monitoring or injection ports.

The scrubbers seem larger than they really are, because they were designed  with an air jacket for insulation in cold water.  There is extra room in the case for underwater comms, but you can put a pony bottle in there instead if you like. Also,  you can swap out nitrox bottles underwater, thanks to a convenient port in the lower right side of the case.  If you have the leg bottle, it is already equipped with the connector.

You should not attempt to use the nitrox capability unless you understand how it works.  It will automatically switch over at depth to 40% nitrox, and will kill you quickly, as it also shuts off the oxygen bottle when so doing. (your ppo2 will continuously drop until you lose consiousness)  You need to use O3 as your scrubber to use this feature, and it is not available in the US.  This is because it produces a very exothermic reaction when wet.  Imagine a caustic cocktail that not only eats through you,  but also the gurney you are strapped to. Due to a mistranslation of the instruction manual, I have had one caustic cocktail on an IDA, and I was very pleased NOT to have been using O3. 

Idas also do not have a manual add valve, unless you leave the cover off the reg and are able to put your hand behind your neck to reach it.

One of the worst features is the DSV, which has very small ports and is angled for use with a FFM.

The FFM is interesting, but basically crap. It has an internal wiper, which is marginally effective, but also scratches the plastic lens.  The lens is yellow, which has certain benefits, but none of them apply under nice conditions.  Without the FFM, the angle of the hoses make for lots of jaw loading. A couple of interesting features include hard plates for one-way valves (Never warp or suck through) and a snorkle attachment. 

The cylinders themselves come in a variety of types. Steel cylinders are common, both wire wrapped and not. The wire wrapped are combat vintage, designed to take a bullet and not explode and kill you. Stainless bottles are sometimes found on vintage units as well. These were for mine sweepers (Almost all 71s say "Danger Magnetic!" on the side.) If all your metal parts are stamped "AM" and you use the stainles cylinder, you may ignore this sign. Later units, including current production, generally use aluminum cylinders.  Blue for Keeslorod (oxygen) and black for nitrox.

Note that the fittings are often interchangable, you are expected to know what you are doing, which is not always a good bet, since most people cannot read Cyrillic, and even if they could, many soviet "Opposite" words look almost the same, like "open/closed" for example.

Much of the hardware on other soviet CCRs is similar to the 71.  The 64 is the same except o2-only, and the 59 is essentially a front mounted 71 without a shell.

The AT-76 is completely different, of course, as are the other various "escape" Rb's but they are only marginally better thant the KIP-8, which was not *meant* for underwater use (Yes, I have, not recommended) I would personnaly stay away from these, as none of them are any good, you could do better with a common bp-60. 

 The dry suits that come with these systems run from excrable, as with the 59, to amusingly antiquated, as with the 71.

The 71 dry suit is donned the old fashioned way, you crawl through a tube and wad it up after you, and seal it  with a clamp.

You will need help, of course, because the russians love the 3 finger glove, so you can't get in and out of these by yourself, unless you add cuffs or a drysuit zipper.  The mask is molded into the suit, and as such is non removable.  The top of the suit has a clamshell opening which is very reminicent of sticking your head in a bear trap, especially if you don't hold it open continuously.  It is said that a sane person might get into one of these suits, but no sane person has ever emerged from one.  If you are claustrophobic, keep  your knife handy, its the only way you are getting out by yourself.

To be fair, if you have the full suit, with liner and accessories, it is quite warm.

Overall, I recommend these systems to divers who are not dependent on dive stores or boats, or have all their own equipment.  Remember, at this time, there are no recognized agencies that issue a certification card that is likely to be accepted at your local dive shop.  If you are fascinated by alternate gear and would like to maximize your exposure to different stuff, go for it. Also, there is the WTF factor, as the average diver has not come in contact with this gear, expect some stares and questions. Not for those who do not suffer fools gladly.

This is not the kind of stuff for someone who is a casual diver, or who only wants one rig.

If you feel better informed about this dive gear, please take half a second to click the "Yes" button below. If you need more information, email me and I will include it in this article.  Thank you.