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Raketa Basel World Expo 2014 Presentation

A catalog/presentation by the Raketa Factory, Petrozavodsk, Russia, at Baselworld 2014.

Raketa was not an exhibitor at BaselWorld 2014. But they did make this presentation.

RAKETA BASELWORLD 2014 (link) -- at the Raketa site. In the public domain.

Contents

• Raketa's stars in Basel Marina Krylova and Yevgenia Maleva.

• New models: Raketa Avtomat (an automatic Raketa), Raketa Amphibia (a diver's Raketa), Raketa Zvezda (Star), and new Pobeda re-issues by Raketa.

• New movements: Raketa Avtomat, Raketa 2609 with some decoration, I expect (and hope) this movement will be in the new Pobedas, Raketa 2623.

New Pobedas by Raketa (pictures)

As was reported earlier - elsewhere and on this blog too, the Raketa factory, Petrodvorets, Russia, decided to re-launch the old USSR's famous Pobeda watch.

Recently first photos appeared on watch forums (borrowed pics). 

Pobeda Red Twelve, Pobeda Crimea (too soon?), Pobeda Victory Day.

 

Pobeda Crimea

The look: not as bad as it might have been. The question of the price remains as the original Pobeda was one of (if not the) the cheapest watches in the USSR and then Russia. And also the fact that there is no small seconds hand at 6 o'clock is almost... almost a fail which is only redeemed to a degree by the fact that there were original Pobedas with the central seconds hand using so-called tall movement. So its design is not entirely out of keeping with tradition... Unless, of course, these are going to be quartz watches -- that will certainly do it... The best one can hope for is that they are going to be using Raketa's 2609 movements (which are of the same size as Pobeda's 2602). 

 

The new poster. Says "Crimea 1944-2014 - 70 Years Without Fascism". No more no less.

The Return of Pobeda?

As was noted elsewhere, the legendary Soviet Pobeda wristwatch may be about to make a comeback.

The new (so-called) Raketa may have purchased rights to the Pobeda brand and says it is preparing a run of Pobeda watches for the year 2015, promising to make the first ones available some time in 2014.

They even went so far as to set up a dedicated website, even though not everything works on it, and you can't find the new Pobeda watches on sale yet.

Link to the website: New Pobeda by Raketa

Personally I am not convinced. For one thing, I don't see Pobeda wristwatches without the cal. 2602 movement. Secondly, even though it was once the most widely produced Soviet and then Russian movement, it still is more technically complex and more difficult to make than the simple Raketa calibers, such as the cal. 2609. Then there is also the issue of the sub-dial second hand which is not offered by any of the current Raketa movements.

For this reason, I fear this will be a failure and an insult to the image and memory of the true Pobeda. But we shall see. In the meantime, I am going to stick to late-period Pobedas by ZiM -- my favorites.