BRTKA
The BRTKA (Vyatka) was sold in Australia too.
It was not a popular machine, I have seen only 2. (I owned one of them.)
They were sold as a "Lemair" brand, the original BRTKA control panel was there but it had a plastic overlay with a new control panel with "Lemair" brand stuck over the top. The Lemair controls had a more attractive script and a turquoise coloured stripe across the control panel.
On my machine the glue holding the Lemair control panel had failed, so the overlay fell off showing the BRTKA controls underneath.
Lemair has long been a cheap brand name in Australia, I think the name goes back to at least the 1950s and still exists today. Lemair is not a manufacturer, it is just a brand name attached to cheap imported appliances. When the Lemair front loader was sold here, they also had some Lemair fridges which were also sourced from the Soviet Union. They seemed solidly built and were reasonably popular, I still see them around for sale second hand occasionally.
When compulsory energy labelling was introduced in Australia, these USSR-sourced Lemair fridges disappeared, as they were not energy efficient and thus had very poor rating labels displayed.
When I got my Lemair (BRTKA) front loader, it had a failed thermostat. I replaced it and it worked well but it had very long cycle times - it used to take over three hours to do a load. I gave it to an uncle as he wanted a front loader to save water - he had tank water and his little Sanyo top loader was very wasteful.I advised him to put it on when he went to bed, the washing would be ready when he got up. Next time I visited, his Sanyo was back in the laundry and the Lemair banished to under the house. He said he couldn't stand waiting around for the long wash cycle of the Lemair.
Then the Lemair went to my sister, who lived at Alice Springs, in the desert in the centre of Australia.She wasn't bothered by the long cycles and appreciated it using so little water. It lasted several more years with her.
Thanks Ivan for sharing about your interesting machines. I hope you are interested to learn that the BRTKA washing machines were sold so far away, in Australia.
