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How the Soviets revolutionized wristwatches (2016)
Though it's hard to believe, there once was a time when workers in the Rust Belt were delighted to have their jobs—and themselves—shipped overseas. Sh...
The international maneuver wasn’t viewed as a competitive threat to American industry—after all, the company’s products were already outdated and the recently established Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) lacked any prior watchmaking culture. That discovery was a pivotal moment for me, and I think that’s common for people from younger generations who grew up with quartz watches and have never laid hands on a mechanical piece: They’re seen as foreign, antiquated relics that seemingly no one uses anymore. We have a running thread on a watch forum I visit that’s entitled, “Please decipher this Cyrillic engraving.” And many people eagerly post their photos, anxiously awaiting some mysterious revelation about their piece—myself included—only to find that it says, “To my grandson on this 17th birthday, 1979,” or some other very humdrum inscription.
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