u/The_WalnutGuy

Hello everybody!

I recently bought this Soviet cold war era medic bag (dated 1982) but it came with more debris and rust than I expected, so I wanted to do a deep clean. For the rust and corrosion on the metal, I was planning on scrubbing it off with some rust remover, but I'm not too sure how to wash the whole bag itself. I'm fine with the stains and such, as that's part of the bags history, so mainly it's just to clean it of dirt and the strong smell of gasoline since I do want to wear it (of course, after covering the red cross symbol just to be safe).

I was planning to just hand wash it cold with regular detergent, but the only problem is that there are these flat hard sheets in the front and back of the bag to give it structure, and I'm not sure if it is safe to wash, since I don't know what it's made out of. I mean, logically I would hope it would be waterproof, but I just want to double check to be sure.

I've tried researching what this hard part is made out of to no avail, but it is decently flexible while being sturdy at the same time. The only decent video I could find of this model is this youtube link below, but the auto-translated subtitles still didn't really translate what he said the hard part was made out of (it was simply translated as "cardura"). I also do not want to cut open the fabric to find out, for obvious reasons of damaging the bag. As well, unfortunately I am unable to dry clean this bag since no local stores near me are specialized in dry cleaning militaria nor do they accept bags like this for dry cleaning.

Link to here (newer model as you can tell by the buckles and date but otherwise basically identical): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y9cG32Ltmh0

Any advice would be greatly appreciated!

I recently bought a DP5A soviet geiger counter sold as non-tested, so I decided to try my luck and purchase it. The backlighting works and the ammeter works as well, however what's weird is that the needle gets stuck at this exact point in the first picture. I'm pretty sure that the geiger tubes work just fine because I tried measuring the B-8 check source it came with and the needle started moving, but it just keeps getting stuck at the exact same point. I have not yet successfully gotten it to move past this mark.

I'm assuming there is a problem with the ammeter or calibration. I've also heard something about manually recalibrating the needle using not the PEЖ symbol but the big screw underneath the name plate DP-5A, but I'm not too sure if that will work. Any ideas on how to fix this would be greatly appreciated!