Vostok

History

In 1941 the First Moscow Watch Factory moved to Chistopol, and by the spring of 1942 it was mass-producing precision instruments for military use. From 1943 the plant began making civilian goods, including its first men's wristwatch, the Kirovskie. In 1965 the factory became an official supplier to the Ministry of Defence and launched the Komandirskie ("the commander's"), a tough, sealed watch made to military order. In 1967 the engineers Mikhail Novikov and Vera Belova developed the Amphibia, a diver rated to 200 metres with an innovative compression case whose seal improves as water pressure rises. In 1969 every watch from the plant began to be sold under the single name "Vostok" (Восток, "East", in tribute to Gagarin's capsule). After the fall of the USSR the factory was privatised in 1993 and went through a bankruptcy reorganisation around 2010, but kept running; by the mid-2010s it employed some 450 people and produced between 15,000 and 18,000 watches a month.

Iconic models

• Amphibia (Amfibia)

  The 1967 diver with a unique compression case good for 200 m; Vostok's flagship and a legend of cheap diving watches.

• Komandirskie

  The military watch commissioned by the Ministry of Defence (1965), the emblem of the Soviet field watch.

• Amphibia "Scuba Dude"

  The Amphibia variant with the cartoon diver on the dial, among the brand's most recognisable and most collected designs.

• Kirovskie

  The plant's first men's wristwatch (1943), the founding piece of its civilian history.

• Generalskie

  A line ranked above the Komandirskie, with finer finishing inside Vostok's military catalogue.