Russian and Ukrainian snorkels

[Popgun Pete]

As Russian spearfishermen hunt in freshwater lakes some of their snorkels have a bulbous mesh filter on top. This is to avoid the intake of midges that may be hovering around the top of your snorkel as you push your way through thickets of reeds while searching for fish lurking in the vegetation and around sunken trees and logs.

 

[David Wilson]

As Russian spearfishermen hunt in freshwater lakes some of their snorkels have a bulbous mesh filter on top. This is to avoid the intake of midges that may be hovering around the top of our snorkel as you push your way through thickets of reeds while searching for fish lurking in the vegetation and around sunken trees and logs.

Any idea, Pete, whether what you describe is a home-made or shop-bought snorkel enhancement?

 

[АлександрД]

as I know, there is no one official manufacturers, who produce snorkels with the mesh.
But here exists mesh VALVE - so called Popov valve Хитрый клапан на трубку
really! it is the valve! It prevent water leakage inside the snorkel

this type of mesh stops water ingress. Also cover the breathing air against any particles.
Some very simple selfmade mesh valves:

it made from tea bag

Also we have very common and mass producted Vinogradov valve:

Not government companies, but very huge (according the market volume) - Sargan and Pelengas companies.

But most popular valve of ours fish hunters - is Bubble valve.
Сухая трубка или верхний клапан для трубки - Трубки - Каталог статей - Снаряжение для подводной охоты

 

[АлександрД]

The third picture has a close-up of the mouthpiece.

Do you know reason of existance of such sophisticated snorkel, with very strange of mouthpiece shape?
Very simple.
It is common mouthpiece of half of underwater oxygen breathing apparatus like IPSA, or it used inside FFM like VM-5 or UGK suits.
And was more simple to made new metal parts, than molding form for rubber.

 

[Boston Breakwater]

Hello. I don't think anyone hates snorkels more than me. With that be said. This is probably one of the best post I've seen on S.B. The photos, and information are really awesome. I always enjoy the history of the sport. Thanks to all who made contributions.
Cheers.

 

[Boston Breakwater]

This thread must have been the hardest to research because no snorkel manufactured in Soviet and post-Soviet Russia and Ukraine has ever qualified for a model name other than "Дыхательная трубка", Russian for "Breathing tube", which is still the normal term for "snorkel" in the Russian-speaking world. Although Soviet diving manuals provide ample information about varieties of mouthpieces and valves used in snorkels around the world, they seldom focus on snorkels retailed within the domestic market and often venture into "do-it-yourself" territory to satisfy Russian and Ukrainian spearfishermen who clearly enjoy tinkering, repairing and even building things from scratch.

Anyway, I thought I'd begin with the cautionary message above because I've had to speculate more here than I'd like because of the paucity of evidence available. I'm going to begin with two snorkels, one Russian and one Ukrainian, that are, or were, sold during the contemporary era. My first posting will concern a snorkel manufactured, I believe, by the Yaroslavl Plant for Rubber Technical Products (Russian: Ярославль – Резинотехника) 150 kilometres northeast of Moscow, the same factory that made the wonderfully retro Laguna, Neptun and Nimfa diving masks discussed in the "Post-Soviet Masks: Russian models" thread.

YaRTI Snorkel
View attachment 419796
View attachment 419797
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This L-shaped side-mounted snorkel consists of a straight tube with a single 90° bend at the bottom and a removable lateral mouthpiece.
Colour: Tube — blue or yellow. Mouthpiece — blue.
Material: Tube — plastic. Mouthpiece — food-grade rubber.

On a general snorkel design point, L-shaped snorkels eliminate the usual depth of tubing below head level. A shallow draft reduces water drag, cuts down resistance to breathing and makes snorkel clearing easier and faster than with traditional J-shaped snorkels. During the early 1960s, diving equipment manufacturers on both sides of the Atlantic embraced the “L” design, introducing the Beuchat “Tubalux”, Cavalero “Tuba L”, Dacor “Model LST”, Spartan “L” and US Divers “Snork-L”. East German and Soviet diving equipment manufacturers were also early adopters of the “L” design in the 1960s when developing commercial snorkel models for their recreational markets.

The first Soviet L-shaped snorkels (below) came with metal alloy or plastic barrels:
View attachment 419800
View attachment 419801The first Soviet mouthpieces (above) could not be easily removed.

Soviet Amfibiya (Russian: Амфибия; English: Amphibian) snorkels (below) were made with plastic barrels in a Leningrad rubber factory.
View attachment 419802
View attachment 419803
Amfibiya mouthpieces (above) were embossed with the brand name.

Earlier Yaroslavl snorkels (below) came in a range of different barrel and mouthpiece colours.
View attachment 419804
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Yaroslavl mouthpieces (above) were similar in design to Amfibiyas.

The next posting will focus on a J-shaped snorkel made by Kievguma in Ukraine.

Hello. Extremely well done. Thanks for your time......I'm thinking this took a while.
Cheers.

 

[David Wilson]

Thank you so much, Boston Breakwater, for such positive feedback on this thread. Delighted you value the history of diving equipment as it developed around the world.

And particular thanks to you, АлександрД, for explaining the operation of the Popov and Bubble valves. I never fail to be amazed by the ingenuity of the spearfishermen of the former territories of the USSR when it came to devising and completing do-it-yourself projects where no commercial solution was available.

As a lifelong snorkeller, I often wondered how the so-called "splash cap" worked on the " Typhoon T1" breathing tube made in England by E. T. Skinner and Co. in the 1950s:

Here is an image from 1954 showing the "T1" in use underwater:

The picture shows air being expelled from the top of the snorkel while the swimmer is under water. Then I managed to buy a very well preserved one on eBay:

When it arrived, I could hardly wait to examine the blue splash cap at the top of the snorkel:

Note the loose-fitting base of the cap. Here's the view when the cap is removed from the snorkel:

Note the holes punched on either side of the aluminium alloy tube. That's where the inhaled and exhaled air enters and exits the tube. Here's the view inside the splash cap:

Note the "protuberance" at the bottom. That fits inside the opening at the top of the tube, serving as a watertight seal for the tube opening and an anchor for the splash cap. So the top end of the splash cap when fitted stops water from getting into the snorkel, while the loose-fitting open bottom end of the cap allows air to escape from those holes punched into the sides of the tube inside the cap.

Quite an ingenious design from the 1950s to keep water out of a snorkel. Of course, it only works properly if the snorkeller remains on or close to the surface.

Several manufacturers adopted this early "splash cap" design, not only because of its simplicity but also because the inventor omitted to patent the original concept. By way of example, I'm researching early Australian spearfishing gear at the moment and I recently chanced upon an advertisement for a splash-cap snorkel distributed by Undersee Products of Bondi back in 1952:

 

[Popgun Pete]

I had one of those when I was a kid, the snorkel was olive green with a slightly different colour for the mouthpiece and top cap compared to the main tube. I remember pulling the rubber cap off to examine the holes bored in the sides of the tube when I was figuring out how it worked. I thought of it as my diving bell snorkel. My mask, fins and snorkel were all shades of green, that being a common colour in those days. Ironically stuff for kids was more easily found than professional gear which would have to searched out and ping pong valve top snorkels were very common.

Russians and Ukrainians often cobbled their own gear together, a trend that still continues to this day, although supply of mass production diving products has increased enormously. The mesh top valves fall into that category, you can see them on www.apox.ru.

 

[Popgun Pete]

Here is a Pelengas snorkel cap which can be purchased on eBay. (Pelengas Store)
Valve On The Snorkel 3D Print | eBay

 

[Popgun Pete]

Fluffy seed heads from water reed tops are something else you don't want going down your windpipe. The small flies that pursue you to the water's edge here in high summer fortunately give up once you get into ankle deep water, otherwise they would soon go down the hatch. Once small boys on shore throwing small pebbles randomly into the sea scored a hole in one down my snorkel, since then for close shore work I used a so-called dry snorkel purely for the cage on top.