baselworld

Like every year I try to keep an eye on proceedings at the world's leading Watch and Jewellery Show. 2,100 exhibitors from over 45 countries but there is only one country that I am truly interested in.

My sight-seeing tour started with the Volmax booth. Mr. Galimyanov was very kind and showed me the whole assortment from Aviator, Buran and Shturmanskie watches.

Buran is now a Swiss Brand that has his production in Porrentruy. Fortunately the Design of these watches still shows some of the russian spirit.

There is a completely new Aviator with Day/Night indicator. Available with red or green lume. I like the design very much, looks much more interesting than the normal 3105 Types.

The other wathces on the picture above are also relatively new, the Aviator chronograph with the 31681 Movement, and the instrument Look on the dial is a real stunner. The way the strap is attached to the lugs, makes this watch looks much more pricy than it actually is. The golden one in the picture has a internal turning bezel (two crowns), phase of the moon and date.

Poljot International has a large collection, I counted over 140 different variants. They presented two new models, one with dual time (two dials) and a new huge Basilika. My favourites are the beautiful BAIKAL's with the 3133 movement inside.

Unfortunately in the newer watches they use Unitas movements and the tourbillons are made in china. There is nothing wrong with the movements but they dont belong in a Russian Watch. One big problem for them is for sure that Molnija still has a production stop.

In another hall Alexander Shorokhoff presented his premium Watches. Wonderful handicraft pieces in a price range much lower than expected. Still pricey but exclusive and real eye catchers.

Vostok Europe was innovative as usual. At the presentation at their booth I could have a look at the new Energia. The movement is a completely new modification from Vostok and is called 2441. The delivery of the Energia starts at the end of April 08.

Also present was the chief designer and artist from Vostok Europe. He did a great job with the brand new Maxim Gorky. A tribute to the amazing Tupolev ANT-20 the largest plane of it's day.

This watch looks breathtaking and has a feature which I have never seen before! You can see the rotation from the winding rotor trough the eight gaps (4 each side) from the front side of the watch. A really cool innovation, congratualtions. Igor Subovskij told me that serial production will start in a few weeks.

Where is the GMT 2440? There is a working prototype of this movement, there is a nice design but there is just no hurry in Chistopol... to bad, let's hope that the giant from Tartarstan moves a little faster.

A sneak peek at some things to come....
There will be a model with Self-powered lighting (GTLS).
Tritium lighting is made using glass tubes with a phosphor layer in them and tritium (a hydrogen isotope) gas inside the tube. Such a tube is known as a "gaseous tritium light source".

Last but not least, I could see a design study showing an extreme shock-proof case. An innovative idea with four shock absorbers!

Maktime presented themselves as a manufacturer of Movements. The showcase was filled with watchmakers tools and individual parts, a nice presentation. Their exhibition of watches was focusing more on the jewelery side, showing some refined and elaborate Models.

Soyuz had a large booth with a very well done presentation. They are doing a great job in some designs and use only mechanical movements. Actually not bad, it's just a pitty that still none of the movements are from russia. I asked them why and got the answer that chinese movements have more complications.

This time the famous Souyuz girls where not present, as a compensation I took some pictures from some lovely Baselworld hostesses...

As usual my first visit at the this years Baselworld was the showroom from Alexander Shorokhoff. I could talk to the marketing director, and have a look at some novelties.

There was a Zlatoust diver version with some new dials and some other modifications. Also new is a tourbillon dedicated to Alexei Leonov. I like the idea of comemorative watches, particularly when they are related to a famous cosmonaut. But maybe this is not the right direction... selling a russian watch assembled in germany with a chinese movement?

On the first picture you can see a very nice chrono dedicated to Gagarins famous flight. A beautiful watch with a creative design and a first class finish. The other pictures show some well known watches from the CCCP line and some other classics.

Maktime learnt that design plays a prominent role. The new design that they use rings a bell ...somehow.

There are for sure some skilled watchmakers working at maktime because a lot of former Poljot employees work there. Just look at those nice refined movements.

Maktime could be factory with a good potential if they only could manage to do better promotions and design watches that dont look like bling-bling. At least some signs of hope are visible.

Soyuz did the same strange marketing like last year. A lot of short skirted ladies and no real russian watches. After asking if it's possible to make some pictures the answer was "нет". So there are no pictures from their watches but some candid pictures from the ladies....

Vostok Europe had some very interesting news. I could see the new GAZ 14 with some cool dial variants.

Completly new to me was the TU-144 with the 2440 movement. I instantly was enraptured by this watch. Thanks to the turning beezel, this watch can show three timezones!

There also is a new model in the pipeline with a clever (linear) way to show the 24h position. Then something comletly different is comming up, a model called "ENERGIA". I could hold the "dummy" in my hands, it looks ingenious with the seconds in a separate dial. I hope that they are going to produce this watch very soon.
After that I had a long chat with Irina Maier and could really update my knowledge about what is going on in russia.

On saturday I finally could meet my friend Mark Gordon www.ussrtime.com. As you can imagine two nuts like us had a lot to talk about... After all the exhausting walking we needed a recompense. Together with my wife and Sugi from www.redarmywatches.com we had an excellent dinner in a lovely castle near Basel. Looking forward to meet again soon...

My first visit at the this year's Baselworld was the showroom from Alexander Shorokhoff (Poljot International). A very nice lady told me not to take pictures! After I explained to her who I am, she cleaned the windows for me, so that I could take proper pictures. Although the glass was clean then, my pictures can only give a poor image of those breathtaking beauties. Shorokhoff has two different stands this year so I guess business is going well for him.

Maktimes stand was disappointing in some ways. I thik that they need asap a new designer. The blue dialed chronograph for example is in my opinnion not what I would call a beauty...

Sad that they dont have better designs, because it's a russian company that uses russian movements.

At the Vostok Europe Stand, I was assisted by this lovely lady. She showed me the new Red-Square! A very heavy and extremly beautyful watch, congratulations!

What where they thinking... Soyuz (Orion) did a huge promotion for the new collection. To my shame I have to admit that these are good looking watches with a acceptable finish. But why do I have to meet Stalin there and why are they using some chinese movements??? The appropriate compensation for this was the fact that they had the most beautyful hostesses on the whole Baselworld! Actuaily I was surounded by real playmates from russia! As I am used to take pictures from russian beautys, I could not resist.... :-)

The Volmax booth was sensationally. A perfect looking arrangement of cool watches. They added new pushers to some models. There was a lot of business going on so I did not wanted to disturb there.

Slava is allive! They had a stand together with right-move. The Speznaz line is not my taste, but at least they dont look boring.

Meeting Vladimir А. Dzhanibekov ! This was a great moment for me. To sit there, drinking and listening to some exciting and funny storys from this legendary cosmonaut. After over one hour of laughing and chatting, I promissed him to send him some fine swiss cheese...

Baselworld 2005

Today I finally had the opportunity to visit this huge event. After walking trough the great halls, I found some russian made stuff. These pictures show Maktimes and W. Gabus watches. Maktime is doing the same like volmax, using Poljot and ETa movements. Their speciality is to put them into solid gold cases. Maktimes anouncement was in the official booklet from Basel World and filled one page! (I guess their business is going well) The Gabuswatches are a nice homage to the famous Gabus Watches. They look much better than on the picture. (Its hard to make a good picture through glass.)

Hold your breath, these beautys created by Alexander Shorokhoff
are some of the nicest watches I have ever seen! The finish is absolute high class and can compete with any of the other brands. Prices of the famous brands seem to loose every entitlement compared to those watches build in moscow. These pictures are a lousy compensation compared to the sensation of holding one in your hand.

I dont get any money for this advertising but my new dream watch has the name of Alexander Shorokhoff.

Even if without my russian "infection" this is something i am going to save every penny for. Till now the Oris Atelier was the watch of my (achievable)dreams but this has changed since i truely felt in love...

The Volmax stand was quite small, only some showcases standing arround and they shared the flat with POLICE watches (IMO a dispointing presentation). But the good thing was, thath they exposed all the new models so I could finally see how they look unfeigned.

The modell in the middle on top of the first picture is not released as yet. Looks very vanguard but I hate those covered subdials

I have to admit that i dont like any of those new high-class looking dress watches, they all look a bit kitschy to me. IMO From the new stuff the GT Chrono is the best looking creation from the Volmax stuff.

Here you can see the some of Vostok Europe colection. Irina and Peter Maier had a very nice booth, prensenting the whole range of production from Vostok-Europe and Vostok.

Coclusion:
The russian watch industry seems to be growing slow but steady.
Surrounded by companys with unendingly high budgets for promotions like this watch circus are somehow repelling and you are afraid to put a foot on their booth. Not so with the russians. They are very friendliy and helpful even with a guy who wears no tie not even a business-suit.