Though westerners tend to concentrate on Swiss, American, German, and Japanese-made watches, eastern-made timepieces are gaining ground as a niche collecting space. 

Russian watchmaker Vostok, which was founded — believe it or not — during World War II, has been making affordable watches for decades. Something of a novelty in the West, their wares aren’t known for, shall we say, chronometric precision, but rather for the charm they exude: Colorful dials, mechanical movements — it’s all here.

This particular watch, a ‘Radio Room’ dating to the 1970s, features an interesting dial design mimicking the clocks once used in ships’ radio rooms: Four separate bands in red demarcate 3-minute periods during which all non-distress signals were banned from use, so that ships in duress would have better chances of their distress signals being received. 

Housed in a 42mm stainless steel case with an acrylic crystal, an unsigned crown, and a painted black and red timing bezel, it features a matte black Tritium ‘radio room’ exotic dial with printed 'Arabic' indices, a matching ‘broad arrow’ handset, and an anchor symbol at 5:00. Powered by the manually wound Vostok 2409A movement, it includes its Cyrilic information pamphlet.

A sufficiently interesting watch on its own merit, this particular example also happens to date from the period of the dissolution of the Soviet Union. 

A cool piece of history, indeed!