It is possible that the history of the company that I have called ‘Perm’ goes something like this. In 1939 the Soviet People’s Commissar for Munitions established ‘Factory number 260’ in the city of Perm, situated on the banks of the Kama River in the Ural Mountains a thousand miles east of Moscow. The factory produced ammunition and steel helmets for the Red Army.

In 1946 the factory was converted to civilian use and became the ‘Perm Vladimir Gramophone Factory’ (Пермь Владимирского патефонного завода). In 1966 it changed product and name, becoming the ‘Perm Bicycle Factory’ (Пермский велосипедный завод). In 1977 it was renamed the ‘Perm Machine Building Plant named for the October Revolution’ (Пермский машиностроительный завод им. Октябрьской революции) although it continued to make bicycles amongst other engineered products. Finally in 1991, as the Soviet Union collapsed, it was renamed ‘Velta’ (Велта) and possibly privatised. ‘Velta’ may have first gone bankrupt in 2003 and may have finally closed in 2006.

Amongst its more famous products are small wheeled bikes called Kama (Кама) after the local river, traditional bikes called Ural (Урал) after the local mountains and possibly sports bikes called Velta (Велта) a word which may refer to the world or globe. These words are sometimes used as model names, sometimes as sub-brands and sometimes as brands. Sometimes two of these words may be used together. All very confusing - but probably no more confusing than the way that Raleigh uses its plethora of brand and model names.

In terms of derailleurs I have been able to find three patents issued to the ‘Perm Machine Building Plant named for the October Revolution’ for derailleur designs. These patents have three notable features:

• The two earlier designs are heavily influenced by Gian Robert, with their characteristic placement of the adjustment screws.
• They all look to me like designs intended to be manufactured from cast aluminium (rather than the pressed steel or cast bronze used by Kharkov).
• They all feature idiosyncratic placement of the parallelogram spring in the middle of the parallelogram, acting on the two parallogram plates.

One of the patents features the curved parallelogram plates that are a distinctive feature of the derailleur in this collection that I have called ‘Perm’.

I suspect that the derailleur in this collection that I have called ‘Kharkov 4th style’ may also be a Perm product. This is because it is all aluminium, is heavily derivative of a Gian Robert design and carries a logo that could be seen as В for Велта (Velta). However I have only ever seen this derailleur fitted on Kharkov bikes and featured in Kharkov literature - so I will continue to consider it a Kharkov product - at least for now.