A Soviet/(Russian) style watch

cerastes

I'm considering buying a watch with a style/theme of a Soviet era origin,
I've looked at a images of Vostok watches and think one would be nice, but not necessarily the Vostok make

I'd be interested in watch with a hint of aviation/space/military/soviet era poster look, in dark green, blue (navy or sky blue) or brown.
Some of these seem interesting.

Other than Vostok, whats a make noted for that styling or would be a good watch and where is a place to buy them? is new not an option and what were the quality of older watches like?
I'm not looking to fork over large sums, so the budget for this isn't much.

https://www.google.ie/search?q=soviet+era+watches&biw=1138&bih=548&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwixpZrgnsTJAhVCLQ8KHUbXAjIQ_AUIBigB#imgdii=CJu6jImTz371-M%3A%3BCJu6jImTz371-M%3A%3BhwfhkSKq3JaZqM%3A&imgrc=CJu6jImTz371-M%3A

Menas

There are hundreds of vintage USSR made watches for sale on ebay for very low prices.
I have a couple. Its nice to have a real 'made in ussr' watch on the wrist. Generally the old ones have good build quality and are real work horses. But that is a VERY generalised statement based on my limited experience.
If you are going vintage then Puljot is a good brand to look out for.

peasant

Depends really what you mean by "Soviet style"

Most soviet made watches look like any other watch from the period, perhaps a bit more old fashioned (as in lagging behind a decade or so) and a bit more Eastern-European than Western in design ...but nothing particularly "Soviet" about them other than reasonable quality and good durability.

If you're looking for red stars, tanks and parachutes and the like on the watch face then the only Soviet period watch to feature those is the Vostok Komandirskie.

All that changes with the end of the Soviet Union in the early nineties. With government contracts ended and the market disappearing, Russian watchmakers sought salvation in "souvenir" watches with all sorts of communist emblems and what have you ...even uncle Joe's face ended up on several dials.
The 90's to early 00's is the period for garish dials and shoddy quality where old stock was assembled by a dwindling workforce in crumbling factories or where unpaid workers paid themselves in kind and assembled their wages at home on the kitchen table.
Some of these kind of watches are still being made today.

Moving on to today and you only have a few real Russian watchmakers left.
Vostok and Raketa make everything themselves, Vostok is affordable, Raketa not so much.
Then there are Volmax (Sturmanskie/Aviator), Moscow Classic and Denissov who make pretty good quality and design watches with old stock Poljot movements or new Vostok ones.
Apart form a few minute brands, the rest of all the other "Soviet" / "Russian" watches currently available are mostly Chinese made knock-offs with any and all fake "history" attached to the marketing (CCCP, Zavtra, Pilot)

Daemonic

This one seems to tick quite a few of the boxes you mentioned. Not dirt cheap, but for a 3133 movement watch it's around the going rate.
The seller also has a good reputation in the Russian section of WUS so although the usual ebay caveats apply,it's about as safe as it gets.

peasant

Starting at one Euro (still too much if you ask me)

cerastes

Daemonic wrote: »

This one seems to tick quite a few of the boxes you mentioned. Not dirt cheap, but for a 3133 movement watch it's around the going rate.
The seller also has a good reputation in the Russian section of WUS so although the usual ebay caveats apply,it's about as safe as it gets.

That looks quite nice, even modern, Id like it, but not quite got the unique character I have in mind.

peasant wrote: »

Starting at one Euro (still too much if you ask me)

That looks kind of rough in some ways , but then looking at the hands and the dials, it looks quite precisely made too?
1943? a kind of memorial/celebration watch?
It looks like a copy of other styles, Ive a plain Citizen watch that has a similar shape to the case.