Rob wrote:
I had a spectrum as my first computer in the early 90's and remember reading an article about the two particular Russian clones that sounded pretty cool at them.
only two? i listen about 6-8 basic revision of original zx, and 3-4 enchanced version with many updates.
I also remember reading that the Speccy first became popular in the USSR because their small size made them easy to smuggle in.
No, Speccy popular, because it has simple scheme, and many Engineers may repeat this on soviet elements base. Becouse in 80 plain russian people can't buy any things from foreign country. And for Speccy it need to buy only CPU chip, and someone imported contraband these chips.
First time, when i see original ZX - about 2003-2004.
I just found a list of members of ATO Amiga Translator's Organisation. The list was last updated in September 2001 but there were 13 Russian members so it possible some of them may still be reachable on the same emails.
thanks for searching.

since 2002(?) we have big central amiga russian site (amiga.org.ru), but only few people have some activity on it.