In Moscow, it seems as if new Instant Photo booths are proliferating everywhere. Distinguished often by the familiar yellow and red Kodak logo, these establishments offer tourists and impatient residents 24 hour service and the chance to restock their film, usually for a healthy fee. Yet for the black and white photographer, the hunt for appropriate services can lead to frustration.
Rest assured, there are places to develop and replenish your black and white film supply, if you are willing to go off the beaten path. A warning to the novice, however: Many photo-developing shops offer two sets of services and prices to their customers. You should always be sure to specify if you want to proyavit' (develop) your film, in which case you will receive only your negatives, or pechat' (print) it as well, which means you will actually receive photographs.
If you are looking for Western black and white film, Knizhny Mir (6 Ulitsa Myasnitskaya, tel. 921-1947) has Kodak TMax 35/100 film, 36 exposures, for 8,300 rubles a roll; for 120/100 film, the price is 6,500 rubles a roll. The Fotoplyonka Kodak store in GUM (bottom level, third row), has TMax 35/400 film for 5,800 rubles a roll.
Yupiter (19 Ulitsa Novy Arbat, no telephone), a film and photo equipment store divided in individual booths, also has TMax 35/100 film, 36 exposures, for a marginally higher price of 8,375 rubles. A neighboring booth offers Russian black and white film from the firm Sveta FN: 35mm film, 36 exposures with an ASA of 64 goes for 1,250 rubles; 120-sized film costs 1,500 rubles.
A conveniently located shop is Vesta (58 Ulitsa Bolshaya Yakimanskaya, no telephone. Exit metro Oktyabrskaya from the Kaluzhskaya Line, follow signs on the side of the Shokoladnitsa cafe and keep an eye out for the extremely rickety staircase leading down to the basement-level store. Vesta will develop your roll of black and white film for 600 rubles; prints cost 200 rubles for each frame. Another option is Zenit (9 Sokolnicheskaya Square, tel. 269-7111), which charges 300 rubles for a roll of negatives; prints are 250 rubles each for 9x14cm prints, 400 rubles for 13x18cm. Both stores require three to four days for development.
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