Yep, that's the scoop for sure. And they feed off each other too, incorporating each others design and trying to improve it. Saltlake Vapor had both the 91% and full Russian last time I looked for $90 & $95 receptively. The Russian is not a clone, but the Russian has been cloned.
With rba's authentic is always the best option.
Actually Svoemesto came out and denied this with the following statement on their FB page...
"Dear SvoeMesto friends,
normally we wouldn't interfere with debates going on in the vaping community, but it has come to our attention, that people get into arguments over a rumor that insistently hold itself especially in the American community. As this can be settled by a simple clarification, here is some information you might find helpful:
SvoeMesto was launched not by 2, but 3 gentlemen, o...ne from Russia and two from Germany. And all three of them are still the shareholders of the company. There has been no split up within the founders whatsoever and we all work together with full enthusiasm.
We hope that this post can prevent further unnecessary arguments, so we all can concentrate our energy and more important and more positive things.
To all of you:
Have a wonderful day!"
So the Russian is indeed a chinese clone. It's not a bad clone but IMO the KFL+ is still a higher quality device. So while they at least didn't rip off the original logos, they did steal the design.