The success of Russian watches in recent years can be traced back

Watches
Baikal
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The success of Russian watches in recent years can be traced back to a long
history of innovation and many Soviet-made models are prized collector’s items
Text: Kevin O'Flynn
Photography: Rory Daniel
to the socialist ideal,” says Mark Gordon, a well-known
ut it on your hand and you will
Singapore-based collector of Soviet watches, who is
immediately feel the weight, a solid
currently writing a history of them. Like the ethos of
chunky object on your wrist that you feel
the Soviet state, the majority of the watches produced
might drag you down into the water
used simple utilitarian designs that were – in a vast
rather than help you tell the time down
country where people were used to fixing things
there. This is the Vodolaz, a Soviet diver's
themselves – easy to repair.
watch, 58mm in diameter
Timepieces in the Tsarist era were
and weighing 260 grammes, one of the
Opposite: a selection
very
much for the elite and it wasn't until
thousands of Soviet watches that have
of Soviet-era diving
after
the Revolution that the watch
bewitched collectors and tourists since the
watches. The model
industry became a mass phenomenon.
on the far left weighs
timepieces became available over the last
more than 280 grammes
A Chasovoi Dvor or Watch Courtyard
two decades. The appeal of the watches
and was produced
existed on Myasnitskaya ulitsa not far
is both in their retro style and their history,
in the 1960s by the
from the Kremlin in the 17th century
with many of them linked to different areas
Zlatoustowsky Factory
where Russian and foreign watchmakers
of the Soviet system from the Navy with
lived and worked. Top watchmakers
the Vodolaz to the space industry and the
like Paul Buhre and Henry Moser had their own
army. Most of them are mechanical and remain reliable
workshops too but the majority of timepieces were
and true to their owners years and sometimes decades on.
made by local craftsmen using imported movements
In the 1970s, the Soviet Union was the second biggest
and parts from Switzerland.
watch manufacturer in the world after Switzerland and
In the 1920s when the Soviets were looking for
the variety and breadth of the industry is huge. “Russian
ways to create a new industry from scratch, the
watchmakers tried to make timepieces that conformed
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Watches
easiest thing to do was to just buy a factory new, which is
what they did. Two bankrupt factories in the United States,
the Dueber-Hampden Watch Company in Ohio and one from
Brooklyn in New York, were purchased and they became the
basis of state watch factories No. 1 and No. 2 in Moscow, two
of the most famous watchmakers in Soviet times. Twentyone employees of the American factory were brought to help
set up No. 1 State Watch Factory and their influence was
strong as a few watches were even produced with the words
Dueber-Hampden Watch Company engraved on them. They
are very much a collector's item today. In the 1930s, the Soviets
bought Chronoflight watches from the Swiss manufacturer
Jaeger-LeCoultre to put in aircraft cockpits and later bought a
license to produce them in Russia. French watch firm LIP also
helped set up factory in Penza and licenced several designs to
be produced there.
There are hundreds of different kinds of Soviet watches
but one of the most famous is the Pobeda (Victory) and the
design of these watches were said to have been approved of
by Stalin himself when they were first produced in 1946. The
watches, which featured a celebrating soldier on its dial, were
extremely popular among Soviet citizens. The No. 1 Watch
Factory produced another legendary Soviet watch brand,
Poljot, the official watches of the Soviet space mission. Yuri
Gagarin actually went into space wearing a Navigator watch,
which were worn by air force pilots. Other moments in
Soviet history were marked with new watches.
When the first satellite Sputnik went into
space in 1957, a special watch was
produced and that same year a
24-hour timepiece was created for
the Soviet expedition to Antarctica.
Both watches are rare finds today.
In 1965, cosmonaut Andrei Leonov took a
Strela watch with him on the first-ever space walk.
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2
1. Singaporean Mark
Gordon has one of the
largest collections of Soviet
clocks and watches
2. A pocket watch
manufactured in 1934 by
the 1st State Watch Factory
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3. A selection of timepieces
associated with Soviet
exploits in space. On the
left is a clockwork device
which displays 10 space
missions starting with
Sputnik in 1957
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Watches
If you want to start off buying watches, collectors suggest
starting with a Vostok, which is known for its reliability. There
is the Vostok Komandirskie, an army service watch which
features a parachute on its face, and a Vostok Amphibie,
which was first produced for the Soviet navy in the 1970s which
had a number of different chunky designs some with a diver
on its face.
Many of the Soviet watch factories did not survive
capitalism but a few have battled on and are these days
producing both old and new models. Vostok Europe makes
trendy Soviet-looking chunky watches named after different
Russian successes such as Artika after successful Arctic
expeditions and TU-144 after the plane. The new lease of life
goes back to 1991 when Igor Zubovsky was a radio physicist
at a radio device measurement institute in Vilnius, Lithuania
which was working with the Vostok watch factory. When
time came to pay the institute in Lithuania, the Soviet Union
did not exist and money supply had almost collapsed so the
factory sent a suitcase of watches in lieu of cash. Zubovsky
sold the watches at the market and from then on slowly built
up the company.
There is also Vostok, which works with Vostok Europe.
The factory is based in Tatarstan because in 1942 all of the
No. 2 Watch Factory and its 500 employees were evacuated
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to Chistopol in the republic as the Germans moved on
Moscow. Later renamed Vostok, the factory was awarded
a defence ministry contract and created the Komandirskiye
watch, which gained huge popularity in the armed forces.
On a tour around Europe a few years ago the company
would show off the enduring strength of its Amphibia model
by inviting people to whack it with a hammer and then show
that it continued to work.
Another factory with new ambitions is the Petrodvorets
Watch factory in St Petersburg whose history goes back
to the early 18th century when it was founded by Peter the
Great as a workshop to make carvings of precious stones.
The factory worked on the Lenin mausoleum and the red
stars on the Kremlin spires and released the Raketa (rocket)
watch in 1962 in honour of Yuri Gagarin. As with other
factories, Petrodvorets had a rough period after the end
of the Soviet Union but has now rebranded itself. Russian
supermodel Natalya Vodianova has designed a model for
the factory and the watches are now available at Moscow’s
plush GUM department store as well as in Paris. One of the
stylish new models is the Yalta 34, a reworking of a 1960s
version which was in honour of the Yalta summit at the end
of Word War II and which the factory notes is perfect for
meetings with world leaders.
A selection of
timepieces from the
earliest days of Soviet
watchmaking. At
the top is an aircraft
chronograph clock
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