LIHULA CULTURE HOUSE
Lihula, Estonia

Projectors are 400kg heavy LOMO 23KPK - these projectors were probably built in larger quantities than any other projector in the world. Most Soviet projection booths were fitted with these machines. According to the Russian forums these projectors were also produced under the license in China. The history of these projectors goes back to 1930s. The lamphouses were modified but the projectors head remained basically unchanged for 60 years. The production ended in 1993. A lot of cinemas in Estonia have been closed down and one can buy a set of 23KPKs for about 500 dollars or even less. A lot of almost brand new projectors have been sold as scrap iron. These projectors in Lihula are produced in 1989 and they have only 300 hours on them together. Pretty good projectors if you beat them up yourselves. I have never ever seen one to fail, which I can't say about Highlight II and Simplex Apogee I'm using right now. The only bad thing about these old beasts is that they are extremely noisy like they were a modification of a lathe. I still show movies in my dreams with these projectors.

April 2009 photo from the Olev Mihkelmaa collection.