The early soviet 7x50s were Zeiss in all but name. The Soviets took over the factory after the war and carried on manufacturing the same optics as before. I have both German and Soviet pairs and I can tell you that with small marking diferences and other small cosmetic details, they are identical, even down to the glass eyepiece filters. The quality of both in terms of brightness and clarity is in my opinion right up there with modern day optics of the same format. I use both mine daily for sailing and coastal watching, and have no complaints. I recently emailed james stewert who is as knowledgable on this subject as anyone I know of, and he confirms the above. I recall the Soviet \"Zeiss\" having all sorts of legal hassles importing the wares into Europe in the late sixties, and I think I am correct in thinking that the Eastern German Zeiss had to relabel the Zeiss Jena or the other way around. Whatever the Far cheaper ones were superb. Incidently my late father asked \"which?\" the consumers magazine to review these binoculars, which they did in the late 1960s. It was on that recommendation that he bought a pair of 7x50s, which I still own today.I recall the magazine gave them a \"best buy\" rating. Finally, The same factory also produced a pair of high magnification optics that were tripod mounted, and looked for all the world like a UZO Sighting device on the conning tower. I saw a pair of these in a second hand shop, in the south of England, which were obviously from a Russian Trawler or Commercial ship that frequneted the port. I tried to buy them, but they were sold. I contacted the current supplier of modern day Russian optics, but they seem to have moved on with the times, and no longer sell them. It is apparent that many of the quality German optics were still being manufactured under Communist rule, right up until the seventies. That legacy still makes the Russian binoculars and Telescopes, amongst the best available today, andstill great value. I hope this snippet helps.