Poljot
Encyclopedia
Russian
Russian refers to anything related to Russia, including:*Russians , an ethnic group of the East Slavic peoples, primarily living in Russia and neighboring countries...
wristwatches, produced since 1964 by the First Moscow
Moscow
Moscow is the capital, the most populous city, and the most populous federal subject of Russia. The city is a major political, economic, cultural, scientific, religious, financial, educational, and transportation centre of Russia and the continent...
Watch Factory . The flagship brand of the USSR's watch industry, Poljot produced numerous historical watches used in many important space missions, including the world's first space watch worn by Yuri Gagarin
Yuri Gagarin
Yuri Alekseyevich Gagarin was a Soviet pilot and cosmonaut. He was the first human to journey into outer space, when his Vostok spacecraft completed an orbit of the Earth on April 12, 1961....
.
History
Joseph Stalin
Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin was the Premier of the Soviet Union from 6 May 1941 to 5 March 1953. He was among the Bolshevik revolutionaries who brought about the October Revolution and had held the position of first General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union's Central Committee...
, the First State Watch Factory was the first Serious Soviet watch and mechanical movement manufacturer. Via its USA-based trading company Amtorg, the Soviet government bought the defunct Ansonia Clock Company
Ansonia Clock Company
Ansonia Clocks were made by a clock manufacturing business which started in Ansonia, Connecticut, in 1851 and which moved to Brooklyn, New York in 1878...
of Brooklyn, New York in 1929, and the Dueber-Hampden Watch Company of Canton, Ohio
Canton, Ohio
Canton is the county seat of Stark County in northeastern Ohio, approximately south of Akron and south of Cleveland.The City of Caton is the largest incorporated area within the Canton-Massillon Metropolitan Statistical Area...
. It moved twenty-eight freight cars full of machinery and parts from the USA to Moscow in order to establish the factory. Twenty-one former Dueber-Hampden watchmakers, engravers and various other technicians helped to train the Russian workers in the art of watchmaking as part of the Soviet's First Five-Year Plan
First Five-Year Plan
The First Five-Year Plan, or 1st Five-Year Plan, of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics was a list of economic goals that was designed to strengthen the country's economy between 1928 and 1932, making the nation both militarily and industrially self-sufficient. "We are fifty or a hundred...
. Interestingly, the movements of very-early products were still stamped "Dueber-Hampden, Canton, Ohio, USA" (examples of these watches are very collectible today). In 1935 the factory was named after the murdered Soviet official Sergei Kirov.
As the Germans closed in on Moscow in 1941, the factory was hurriedly evacuated to Zlatoust
Zlatoust
Zlatoust is a city in Chelyabinsk Oblast, Russia, located on the Ay River , west of Chelyabinsk. Population: 181,000 ; 161,000 ; 99,000 ; 48,000 ; 21,000 ....
. By 1943 the Germans were in retreat, and the factory moved back to Moscow, adopting the "First Moscow Watch Factory" name .
In 1947 the first wrist watches under the brand name "Pobeda" and the first Marine Chronometers and Deck watches are produced. By 1951 the production of wrist watches increases to 1.1 million. In 1975 new machinery and equipment for manufacturing complex watches are partly imported from Switzerland. The first chronograph "Okean" (caliber 3133) is produced for the space station "Sojuz-23."
In 1990 production of watches and clocks reaches 5 million pieces and in 1991 the international award "Golden Trophy for Quality" is awarded in Madrid. In 1992-1994 the new brand "Poljot-V GmbH" or "Poljot-International" is set up with headquarters in Kahl, Germany. "Poljot-International" are considered in most countries are counterfeits of the original Poljot watches from the "1st Moscow Watch Factory".
PMChZ watches in Space
Yuri Gagarin
Yuri Alekseyevich Gagarin was a Soviet pilot and cosmonaut. He was the first human to journey into outer space, when his Vostok spacecraft completed an orbit of the Earth on April 12, 1961....
became the first man in space. During his historic flight he wore a Sturmanskie pilots wristwatch (a transliteration of Штурманские which actually means "Navigator"). This watch was not specially commissioned for the flight, they were standard issue to all air force pilots at the time. The success of the mission however lead to the factory being awarded the Poljot name in 1964.
In 1965 cosmonaut Alexei Leonov wore a FMWF Strela (transliteration of СТРЕЛА, which actually means "Arrow") chronograph during his historic first space walk, thus cementing Poljot's place in space history. As with Gagarin's first flight, Leonov's watch was not specially commissioned. The Strela replaced the Shturmanskie as the standard issue pilots watch.
In the late 1970s, the Strela itself was replaced by a new breed of chronographs based around the (then new) 3133 movement (a original Russian movement similar in functionality to the Swiss Valjoux 7734, but with higher number of jewels 23 vs 17 and lever movement operating at 21,600 bph vs 18,000 bph). Poljot 3133-based watches continued where their predecessors left off and were taken into space by cosmonauts from Russia, France, Germany and Ukraine. On the wrist of cosmonaut Valeri Polyakov, a Poljot 3133-based watch set a space record for the longest space flight in history.
Current status
Raketa
Raketa watches have been manufactured since 1962 by the Petrodvorets Watch Factory in Saint Petersburg. The Petrodvorets Watch Factory is Russia's oldest factory, it was founded by Peter the Great in 1721 as the Peterhof Lapidary Works to make hardstone carvings...
watches, were marketed in the United Kingdom
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
under the brand "Sekonda
Sekonda
Sekonda is a British distributor of fashion wristwatches. Sekonda is the best-selling watch brand in the United Kingdom. Originally a company which marketed Soviet-made time pieces in the West, Sekonda's Soviet ties ended with the break-up of the USSR...
". Today's Sekonda company, a British distributor of ubiquitous fashion watches, has no connection to any Russian watches.
At the turn of the 21st century, the First Moscow Watch Factory began reproducing many of their most famous models as limited edition commemorative pieces. Replicas were made of the famous 1960s Shturmanskie worn by Yuri Gagarin
Yuri Gagarin
Yuri Alekseyevich Gagarin was a Soviet pilot and cosmonaut. He was the first human to journey into outer space, when his Vostok spacecraft completed an orbit of the Earth on April 12, 1961....
, the 1940s Kirova pilots chronograph, and the 1970s Ocean chronograph. All of the replicas became sought-after collectibles.
In late 2003, rumors predicting the demise of the Poljot brand circulated on the Internet. According to the rumors, the First Moscow Watch Factory was to cease producing their own models and become a source of inexpensive movements for other European watch brands. These rumors never came to fruition. Instead, in the late 2000's, the company was bought by the businessman Sergeï Pugachev
Sergey Pugachyov
Sergey Viktorovich Pugachyov is a Russian "oligarch", formerly also a politician.-Early life:The son of an army officer, Pugachyov was brought up in Saint Petersburg, where he studied art. As a young man, he became a friend of Vladimir Putin....
, becoming one of the companies of his new luxury group, including: Hédiard, and the channel Luxe TV>