Minsk - Aoshima - 1/700

Hello friends! I hope you don’t mind writing my review in English. This kit is quite rare on any modelling webs. I love Soviet/Russian aircraft carrying cruisers, so when I’ve seen it on ebay I had to have it. The only other Minsk you can have in 1/700 is well know Trumpeter kit. But the Aoshima version is a little bit different.

So what is in the box? You’ll get one-piece hull, one-piece deck, waterline plate and 4 other frames. Biggest one carries mostly the superstructure parts + P500 Bazalt missiles, the other two quite lots of detailed parts and the last one carries the air-wing of the carrier. You’ll get totally 4 Kamovs 25 and 12 Yaks 36. The instruction sheet text is completely in Japanese and therefore useless. Happily however the scheme is clear and easy to follow. The decal sheet contains only ship name plates and tactical number 117. There is another one decal sheet for the aircraft markings containing red stars in six sizes: from very small to ultra small. Overall the kit is quite nicely moulded regarding its age, some details are better than Trumpeter’s, some are worse. Interesting is, that Trumpeter’s kit’s hull is about 2 cm shorter. On the other side, Trumpeter details are totally over-scale and I had to replace lot of them with spare parts from other kits when I was building Kiev. As for accuracy, the real Minsk had reshaped portside platform for AK-630 in early 80-ties, this Aoshima kit has the original shape from late 70-ties.

I’ am looking forward to building this nice kit; maybe I’ll use some PE for the first time.

Moge tylko potwierdzic co napisales bo mam Kiev-a z tej firmy. Widzę, że budujesz z zestawu Trumpetera Gorshkova

Moge tylko potwierdzic co napisales bo mam Kiev-a z tej firmy. Widzę, że budujesz z zestawu Trumpetera Gorshkova

Yes, one day it will be Baku (Gorshkov), the conversion of hull is almost completed, now comes the new superstructure. Your build-up of Dniestr gave me courage to start this project and helped much to manage the work with Evergreen plastics.

Interesting review. Thanks. I’ve never seen this model in shops, so it’s probably rare. 1/700 is not my scale – I hope we will receive someday Kijew class in 1/350 (maybe Trumpeter ?). I’m also fan of these ships.