Watches from Eastern Europe

Watches from Eastern Europe - Poljot

Poljot seem to be the premium brand of those from the former U.S.S.R., and generally cost more than other such brands.

The factory was set up and started producing watches in 1930. The whole factory was purchased and imported from the U.S.A., and the name "First Soviet Union Watch Factory" was used.
In World War 2 the factory was moved, then returned to Moscow in 1945, and the name "First Moscow Watch Factory" was used.
In 1961, on the world's first flight into space, Yuri Gagarin wore one of their watches. In honour of this, watches from then on were distributed under the trade name "Poljot" ("Flight" in Russian). (Although I believe that the First Moscow Watch Factory makes watches under other brand names too).

Poljot make a wide variety of styles, and a wide variety of movements including mechanical wind, automatics, chronographs, watches with alarms, and some with Swiss ETA movements.

I bought an Aviator and one of their 'Gothic' series.
Aviator watches generally are large, but the one I bought was even larger than Poljot's other aviators. It is 45mm in diameter, but also it is thicker than I had been expecting. It has a 22mm leather band, and ... it's massive. It won't fit under the sleeves of my business shirt. It'd be best suited for a large person with thick wrists - maybe a bodybuilder? On me - I'm trying to work out if it is impressively large, or crosses the border into being comical and embarrassing. A friend who likes large diver's watches likes it. The watchmaker I go to admired it - but I don't know if he was admiring it as something for practical use, or just because it is impressive within itself.
It is one of a limited edition (numbered on the back, out of 999) celebrating famous Russian aviators. Three aviators are commemorated in the series, with different colours for each aviator (blue & white, red & white and orange & green), and the watches are available with either a date window or an alarm. Mine has an alarm, which is more of a buzzing vibration than a piercing chirp. I was pleasantly surprised to find that it came with a mini CD-ROM which has information about the aviators and watches.

Here's a picture of a more regular one, which is just ordinary big. Screw-down crowns, sand-blasted stainless steel finish, numbered out of 999.

(For a review of this watch, see Michael Abraham's review of 4 Poljot alarm watches).

The Gothic I like very much. It's beautiful. My cousin says it looks like an old man's watch. I can see it looks a little old fashioned, but I think it looks very elegant and refined, while still being a man's watch. It has 2 sub-dials, one for day of the week, and the other is a 24 hour dial. Annoyingly, the 24 hour dial is out of synch with the main dial. If I lived in Russia I'd get them to fix it under warranty. This watch too is a limited edition, numbered out of 999. It came with a brown leather band, but I had it changed.