Russian/Soviet Watches

[AMCHornet]

I recently discovered the fascinating history of Russian watchmaking. I never thought that at one time, the USSR was a major producer of some of the best watches in the world, but they were. The history of these watches and the watches themselves are fascinating for many of the same reasons that Mosin-Nagant rifles are fascinating. I think many people here could find interest in Russian watches.

I won't recite the history the history of Russian watchmaking in detail here because it's just a quick internet search away if you want to read about it, but the gist of it is Russia had no real ability to make their own clocks or watches prior to the revolution. The new soviet government realized they needed timekeeping devices in order to build and run a modern industrial economy, so they bought a bankrupt U.S. watch factory and moved it's equipment, workers, and all, to Moscow. That factory was the seed that sprouted into several other watch factories that became a thriving industry after WWII which flourished until the hard economic times of the 1980's and 90's. However, most of the factories survived and are now finding new success.

Early Soviet watch movements were initially slightly reworked copies of French or Swiss designs, but the Soviets soon started tweaking, perfecting, and designing their own movements, many of which were truly world-class and easily rivaled Swiss movements for quality and precision. Soviet watches, like most Russian things, are known for rugged and simplistic reliability. They just work and never stop. They were not fancy...you won't often see automatic winding mechanisms or day/date functions. They were, for the most part, simple hand-wind movements in watches that just told the time and nothing else. But, the quality was all there and they had some nice style with neat, unique features. The watch companies within the Soviet system felt no desire to over-complicate, over-sell, gimmick, or falsely advertise their products. They are just good, solid, dependable watches.

I bought two that interested me from a reputable seller in Ukraine.

The best part is, I paid only about $100 each and they keep remarkably good time for mechanical movements. It'll take a few days of daily wearing and recording the data to get a good average, but so far I know for certain that both watches run within 30 seconds per day, possibly even half that. That is very good for anything but a chronometer grade movement.

[AMCHornet]

This one was made by the Chistopol Watch Factory in 1958 to celebrate the launch of Sputnik I. It says "Sputnik" across the dial and the second hand is actually a rotating disk with a painted on Sputnik satellite that "orbits" the Earth to show the seconds. It has the Soviet standard 17 jewel hand wind "Pobeda" movement named by Joseph Stalin himself. The Chistopol factory adopted the name "Vostok" in 1962 and is still in operation today. They are famous for their "Komandirskie" and "Amfibia" lines of watches, the latter being one of the first and still one of the best diver watches ever made.

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[AMCHornet]

This one was made by the Petrodvorets Watch Factory in 1972. This factory adopted the name "Raketa" in the early 1960's to celebrate the Russian space program. This watch is nothing special, but I thought it was absolutely beautiful. It has the excellent Raketa 2609A.I. 21 jewel hand wind movement that so far has astonished me with accuracy. The Raketa factory is enjoying a renaissance today building watches the old way using old equipment and techniques. They are one of only a few watch factories in the world that make every part of their watches themselves from start to finish. In fact, Raketa makes some components for Swiss companies and just completed the largest clock movement in the world. Raketa is famous for their polar watches designed specifically to handle extreme cold weather and their "big zero" watch.

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[tjtM38]

I bought two Vostok watches for myself and my wife in 2019 from an EBay seller in Moscow. The Komandirsky is mine on the left and the Amphibia is my wife's on the right. Both are basic, rugged mechanical watches that keep accurate time. The same seller had a lot of military and retro Soviet watches for sale.

[SA1911a1]

I went through a phase where I was buying Soviet era watches on ebay. Most of the ones I bought quit working within months and I suspect that they had been cheaply refurbished. I have a small box full of dead ones around here somewhere and a few working ones. I have one Raketa (sp) that lives up to its name and gains about 15 minutes per hour.

I had better luck with the pocket watches than the wrist watches, and still have a handful of them working.

[Junk Yard Dog]

The rule on mechanical watches like this is they need service and lubrication every two to three years if they are in daily use. Steve's watches probably stopped because they haven't been serviced in 30-40 years. Back when you could get genuine Soviet era watches very cheaply, like $20 cheap, I acquired a number of commemorative pocket watches, wrist watches, and even two Soviet era Submarine clocks. All of these were later produced by the same factories that made them under the USSR, but with updated country of origin markings. I bought mine in 1992-93 immediately after the USSR ended and the Russians were selling off anything they thought western souvenir collectors would be stupid enough to pay money for. What was penny's to us was a fortune to them at the time. Military medals, badges, clocks and watches, signs, phonographs, all sorts of shit, and you know it was dirt cheap just like the first Mosin imports . Rifles aside I would only have collected the rest if it was pocket change because I am not a badge or medal collector, but I do dabble in pocket watches, the antique ones, not the modern . At the time the idea that the Big Bad Thing that loomed over us for so many years had collapsed and died was such a novelty that people wanted relics of it to assure themselves that it had been real. Vendors sprung up in the flea markets with tables loaded with crap, many of them recent Russian immigrants who had connections back home to get things out. I have a Russian navel officers cap that a vendors cousin had swiped off the hat rack in a Moscow restaurant. High end cover with the new Russian badge for ten bucks in 1993. I remember that seller, all military stuff, claimed in a heavy accent to have been special forces, he was big as a house, and could probably lift one so if you didn't buy his story the opinion was best kept to yourself.

Yes, they bought their watch industry from the USA, something they couldn't reverse engineer and make themselves like they did with so many other things. In 1945 they would capture the Electrola factory from the Germans, disassemble it and take it back to the Soviet Union. For the next 40 years they cranked out portable phonographs that are so close to the prewar German and UK originals that some parts can be interchanged. The Soviets bought the Ansonia company in NY, they had been a very well known and popular clock maker back into the 19th century before the depression caused the company's failure. There was watch making and clock making going on in Russian well prior to the communists, or the 1929 Ansonia purchase, they just needed Ansonia to modernize the industry from old school hand fitting sort of production to mass production by machine. However much I hate the shitbag commies they were capable of making some good stuff, or at least copying good stuff. The watch movements are of good quality.

[Junk Yard Dog]

Some of the Soviet and later Russian watches.

[SA1911a1]

I just dug in a drawer, and these are the ones I have that are still working:

[AMCHornet]

Oops, I goofed the link for the photos of the Sputnik watch in my previous post.

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[srtjeeplover95]

Oops, I goofed the link for the photos of the Sputnik watch in my previous post.



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Those are cool! I collect 1970s-1990s Bulovas and Seikos

Not are soviet tho
No sekovakis