Rodina

Back from the Watchmaker is my 1950's Rodina (Motherland) automatic watch made by the 1st Moscow Watch Factory (Poljot).

A 22 Jewel automatic, this was the the first automatic design produced in the USSR. Also known as a Kirova after the founder of the 1st Moscow Watch Factory.

From the Poljot watch site:

"By 1955, 1.1 million mechanical wristwatches were made by the 1st MWF. In 1956 production of the first automatic movement watches under the Rodina (Fatherland) brand started. The Rodina watch opened a new line of watch movements with the 24 mm caliber. They have a central second hand. The height of the movement was 6.3 mm, with 22 jewels."

Though no definitive proof exists to my knowledge, it has been suggested that Yuri Gagarin the first man in space wore a Rodina watch on his first flight into space.

One of the notable things about this watch is the clear audible clicking sound of the self winding system. My watchmaker was much impressed with the quality of the mechanism and gave it a favourable comparison to more expensive and well known Swiss brands.

Some pictures of the back and mechanism:

My watch was likely an export model as evidenced by the English script on the back and the obverse of the back.

USSR Watch Trademarks

From a 1977 Soviet text on watch repair. The watch names aren't translated as collectors tend to use the Russian name. The factory names are related to their geographic location and I translated them phonetically and there are probably other acceptable spellings.

Edit: an excellent resource for Soviet/Russian watch trade marks can be found on Phil's excellent Russian Times website.

1st Post

Why collect Russian/Soviet watches?

I guess the larger question is why collect anything? However, that is a question beyond the scope of this post.

After a lifetime of seeing watches as simply tools to tell time, I became interested in mechanical watches after receiving an automatic watch as a gift from my wife. It originally belonged to her father who bought it in Afghanistan while he was working there as an engineer in the last days of the Soviet/Afghan conflict. As I learned more about the watch I became fascinated by the precision mechanics of telling time and the unique evolution of the Soviet watch industry.

These Soviet/Russian pieces evoke a feeling of the time of the USSR and of a production and engineering philosophy unique in the world. Fortunately for the collector they are still relatively inexpensive and it's fairly easy to put together a modest collection that tells the story of Soviet/Russian horology.