This is a Raketa manual wind 16 jewel watch made in the Soviet Union in the 1980s to commemorate the Perestroyka movement, when the Soviet government liberalized economic policy and increased transparency to improve it's economics. It was manufactured at the Petrodvorets Watch Factory in Saint...

I like manual winds. There is something about having to stop what you are doing to put in the effort to wind it to keep going for another day. It's a mutually beneficial relationship. The watch needs you to keep going, and you need it to know what time it is. To that end I had decided that...