David Wilson
Contributor
As I wrote, the original Churchills were endlessly imitated worldwide and remain in production today. The Soviet connection was just one hypothesis and hypotheses are there to be questioned and if necessary disproved. They aren't facts until the evidence is overwhelming. I would be ready to accept a 1950s provenance for the fins, but I think some account would have to be taken of other supporting factors, such as where the picture was taken, the possible dating of the swimsuit, the identity of the breathing apparatus etc. I won't draw judgments on the latter. As for Stalin, he died in 1953, well before the development of recreational scuba in the USSR. Nikita Khrushchev was the man in power there for the period between 1953 and 1964, which saw a steady process of destalinisation.
Sorry I can't help more with the dating of the fins and hence the chronology of the picture. If it's any consolation, historical diving photos can be notoriously difficult to contextualise in time.
Sorry I can't help more with the dating of the fins and hence the chronology of the picture. If it's any consolation, historical diving photos can be notoriously difficult to contextualise in time.