Armata Models - Moscow

[RangerNeil]

Bit of an unusal one here. Ordering from behind the old Iron Curtain!! I found this shop from friends who live in Russia (those who follow the "whats in your stash" thread will know the story there).

I digress though. Armata models have a web shop that lists their quite extensive stock-holding.

http://arma-models.ru

If you lke Russian armour, naval or air they carry models and extra's like decals, resin and PE that I've not seen elsewhere. They also carry pretty much the entire range of AKAN acrylic paints which are an exact match to their real life counterparts.
The store also carries many of the more common Western makes of kits such as Tamiya, Hobby Boss, Italeri, Airfix, Revell, Trumpeter etc, at prices that, thanks to the currency conversions are quite cheaper than more local stores - and the shipping from Russia is not bad cost-wise.

The on-line store is only in Russian so I recommend using Google Chrome to view it and enabling the auto translate function. It works quite well but the search engine only responds to cyrillic input though, for example if you are looking for helicopters entering the word "helicopter" in the search box gets 0 results. You need to enter "Вертолет".
They do reply to emails etc. in very good English though.
When viewing the stock list pay attention to the stock indicator directly under the price. If its not available it might show a price but will say "under the order" if on back order or plain "Not Available" if they have no idea when stocks will be replaced.

I've used them a couple of times now for small things like paint sets and glazing masks and - in all honesty, having dealt with Eastern European suppliers when I owned the BMP and UAZ - was dreading the experience as they never seemed to have heard of customer service. For example it took over a year to get parts for the UAZ from a primary supplier.

I was very pleasantly surprised here though. Replies came back within an hour and I was kept informed during the entire order process from the parts being picked and sent to the shipping dept, when they were shipped and a tracking number and so on. Even with the issues with UK customs I had the parts within 7 days of shipping every time (ever tried explaining to a beaurocrat why you are ordering paint from Russia and that its not vials of Novichok or liquid explosive??).

I can now say I look forwards to using them again.
So - if all things Imperial Russian, Soviet or Rus-Fed float your boat their store is well worth a look.

[KalebB]

Do you have any idea if they ship to the Continental United States?

[digger303]

They look good, but don't take paypal.

[RangerNeil]

As far as I know they will ship anywhere. The site calculator only works for Russia and - ironically - the Ukraine. I emailed them with details of what I was ordering and the postal address and they replied with the postal charges.

Unfortunately they don't take PayPal - payment outside Russia is by Yanex. The shop sends you an invoice via that and you pay that via your debit/credit card. Kind of like a the way PayPal works - you don't need an account with Yanex to pay. They do accept Visa but the current East vs. West scenario makes that difficult. Crazy I know but......