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.
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.
