In 1927 the Sovjet governement decided to start production of watches. In 1930 the First Moscow Watchfactory was opened. Five years later, in 1935, it was named after Sergei Mironovich Kirov, a politician that was close to Stalin, and was murdered the year before. The 1MWF qrew to be the biggest watch factory in the Sovjet Union, and is still in operation today.
The 1MWF has always been closely related to the Sovjet space program, and most Cosmonauts wore watches that were produced here. In 1961 Yuriy Alekseevich Gagarin took a "Sturmanskie" watch with him on the first space flight ever. In commemoration of the use of its watches for space travel, the factory received the "Poljot" name, meaning "flight", and that name is still in use today for watches produced at the 1MWF.
The Strela ("arrow") shown here was one of the first,
if not the first chronograph made by the 1MWF. It was produced from the second
half of the 50's.
It has a base metal case that is chrome plated, with a steel back and bezel.
Many older base metal cases are in a rather poor condition, but this one is
exellent, probably because it was very well cared for, or it did not see much
usage. The crystal is obviously plastic.
Like a real chronograph should in my humble opinion, the dial and hands draw most
attention, and I think they look great. The dial has a very nice "off
white" color, that matches perfectly with the gold colored applied hour
markers and hands. On top of that is a lovely very long blue steel second hand.
On the dial we find a tachymeter scale in red, and closer to the center a
telymeter scale in blue. Since this watch was never meant for export, all
markings are in Cyrilic.
Readability is not one of it better qualities, but it sure looks fantastic.
Many of the movements in the watches from the 1MWF are based on earlier Swiss designs. The Swiss industry sold designs and production equipment to the Sovjets, in order to recover some of the investment needed for newer models. The Strela uses the caliber 3017, a real castle wheel movement that is based on a Venus movement. Most likely the Venus 150. As far as I know, it is the only castle wheel movement that the1MWF ever used, and the main reason that this is the Russian watch I wanted.
It's a 19 jewels, 18000 bph movement, with a 45min chronograph register, and no hour counter. The movement in my watch looks like it was produced yesterday, and functions perfectly. It feels like my older Swiss chronographs do, with a start/stop pusher that needs a firm push, and gives a satisfying "click", and a reset button that has very little resistance and hardly a "click" at all. I own an older Breitling chronograph with a Venus 170 movement, and it feels exactly the same.
The Strela proves that the Sovjets were very well able to produce watches that were off a good quality, and a very nice design. Probably quality control was not up to Swiss standards, and I think large differences in quality are to be expected. Prices are however very attractive, and value for money wise these classic Sovjet chronographs are hard to beat. The Strela has quickly become one of my favorite watches and I wear it regularly.
Should you want to buy a watch like this, your best bet is
probably Ebay, and more specifically German Ebay.
If you want to learn more about this watch or Russian watches in general I
suggest you visit the WatchUSeek
Poljot forum, and go from there.