Items of the Cold War - A Soviet watch in Britain
During the years of the cold war, items manufactured in the Soviet Union did cross from East to West, largely demonstrating the engineering or manufacturing of the block as well as ensuring a flow of western currency back to the USSR.
One of the more interesting (to me at least) items is a Sekonda branded watch. Today, the brand Sekonda (the Russian for second is секунда pronounced Sekoonda) is a British brand that is still around. You can often see their watches in airport duty free and other lower end department type stores. They are now manufactured in China and use common off the shelf quartz movements.
Back in 1966 however, the Soviet institute for horology or “Научно-исследовательский институт часовой промышленности” Usually shortened to “НИИ Часпром” (NII Chasprom) and meaning Scientific research institute of the watch industry, setup a brand both in the Soviet Union and in Britain to allow the distribution of watches from a number of factories into the west under a single brand name.
A number of Soviet factories produced movements and watches selected to be sold in the west including;
1st Moscow Watch Factory - Brand:Полет/(Poljot)
2nd Moscow Watch Factory Brand:Слава/(Slava)
Uglich Watch Factory Brand:Чайка/(Chaika)
Petrodvorets Watch Factory Brand:Ракета/(Raketa)
Minsk Watch Factory Brand:Луч/(Luch)
Chelyabinsk Watch Factory Brand:Молния/(Molnija)
Maslennikov Factory (ZIM, Pobeda, Elektronika) Победа (Victory)
Integral Electronics (Elektronika-5)
From the 1960’s to the 80’s most of the mechanical movements in the watches came from 1st or 2nd Moscow Watch Factory or Petrodvorets Watch Factory and were rebranded Poljot, Slava or Raketa movements. My watch pictured below is a Raketa movement showing its made in the USSR on the face and stamped (SU) on the movement itself.
Later as quartz watches started to take hold, more of the quartz movements came from the Minsk watch factory (Luch brand). With even digital watches being produced from the Elektronika brand in various factories. As the 80s grew on, Sekonda started to procure movements from Hong Kong and later in 1993 with the fall of the Soviet Union stopped getting watches at all from Russia in favour of Hong Kong/China.
My particular example pictured below is a late ‘70s or early ‘80s vintage as far as I can tell, a Raketa 2609HA 19 jewel movement made in Petrodvorets Watch Factory just outside of St Petersburg. Interestingly the Raketa brand and factory are still going and still making watches after a pause in the 90’s.
In any case, its interesting to me that manufactured goods from the Soviet Union could be sold on the other side of the Iron Curtain, even at a time when global politics had pitched the two countries against each other. To bring this thought into the present day, I can no longer easily buy items I need from EU countries who are allies, and this is even before we consider the global situation elsewhere, and yet 40+ years ago we managed to trade with a country ostensibly the enemy.
I haven’t blogged much about Cold War history despite in being the era I read the most about. This article - written on a friday after a long week - is just to get my brain thinking again and picking up some ancient notes. Hopefully more on the era to come.
