The history of mechanical alarm wrist watches is quite interesting and extensive. First true alarm wrist watch was developed by Vulcain in early 1940's, until today more than 50 different movements were developed and almost every serious watch company issued at least one of the model with alarm complication (but the fact is that only few of them developed it's own movement, they mainly used one of the "standard" movements). So it is a bit unusual fact that despite all of the variety of the mechanical alarms, only two companies developed chronograph movement with alarm function - Fortis and Zenith. What is even more surprisingly is the fact that no other company tried to launch a chronograph alarm watch which would use Fortis or Zenith movement. And that is not the end of the surprises. First alarm chronograph was developed very late, namely the first alarm chronograph was developed for Fortis by Paul Gerber after the Russian space agency ordered such a chronograph only in 1995!

Almost exactly three years ago I reviewed Alexander Shorokhoff (AS) first alarm watch, called Tschaikovsky, which used Poljot 2612.1 movement. At that time the review was published only on our local watch forum, so one month ago I rearranged that review also for my web page. If you missed that review, I suggest you to read it before you continue reading this review here:

Today, I would like to share with you my first (and second and ...) impression of the watch which is quite unusual member of my collection. It does not fit to any of the categories to which I pay attention to, but yet it attracted me. I am talking about World watch V7 made by YES company.

In the last two months I added two "modern" German watches which both uses Poljot 2612.1 alarm movement. I decided to compare those two watches and on the same time use this opportunity to write something about the history of Poljot 2612.1 movement.

"Pierre DeRoche?? Never heard, another microbrand?" That is a quite common first reaction from many of my watch friends, some of them even professionally involved into the watch business, when I mention my new alarm watch. So - who or what is Pierre DeRoche?

April 12,1961. What a day! One of the most important days for the human race, the day when the first man reached the stars! And what an important day for the watch lovers!  Hey, that man wore a WATCH on his wrist! 

My beginnings of the watch collector are far far away and interesting thing is that I have started building my collection with the focus on all ex. eastern (socialist) block watch production, but not for a long time. I soon realized that just USSR watch production is (was) so vast and interesting that I focused rather only to USSR watches. Nevertheless, from that beginnings Prim company is known to me. And to add even more, my best friend once told me, that Prim has been one of his first watches. So Prim has always had a kind of positive sentiment for me. But to be quite honest, my knowledge about Prim and it's destiny stopped there. I never paid any attention to Prim anymore. Until recently...

Even though Zenith released Pilot Type 20 chronograph almost three years ago, I was not able to find fully independent review of the watch when deciding about the purchase of this watch. There are of course a lot of introduction's articles and videos, but a lot of them have very a very commercial tone. I have purchased the watch anyway and now it's time to give you my impressions about the watch.

Ex. USSR Raketa company is making me crazy lately. For the last Black Friday I was able to find a beautiful Raketa Leopard 24 watch with some discount, I was just starting to prepare a review for my blog and then BANG, Raketa issued an new watch called "Space Launcher". Which I just had to have..... Since Space Launcher was issued in two versions - with white and with black dial, I had another issue - which one to choose. For a while there was also a third option - Raketa was also offering gift set, where both watches were included, together with a Soyuz rocket model. I was seriously considering buying a gift set, but I waited too long. On Sunday evening it was still in stock, when I tried to order it on Monday, stock was gone. At the end I decided for the white one, and my review will be focused on this version of the watch.

I am sure that you are all familliar with the Luch (Luč) watch company from Minsk (Belarus). Le me just say, that Luch is one of the (as it seems) successfully reconstructed ex. USSR watch companies with the help of (also) foreign capital. In 2010 Franck Müller International B.V. invested in company as well. Luch collection is huge, but majority of today's watches are still cheap, low quality watches powered by their very old hand winding movement 1801. As I can see on the watch forums, their one hand watches are quite popular (I also have one BTW). Just recently company has organized a design competition and then issued a collection designed by the winners of that competition, which at least to me is similar to Alain Silberstein watches.

Today I would like to introduce you to a very interesting vintage alarm watch - Wittnauer alarm watch - with one of the first modular alarm movements with technically very unusual construction of the movement, called WA10.

In my alarm watch collection another unusual watch has arrived. I want to share with you some basic information and impressions about the watch. I am talking about Boegli musical alarm watch (Boegli Reveil Musical Mecanique Alarm).

Just recently Poljot International issued another watch with vintage ex. USSR style and movement - called Samara. Another combination which I just need to have. Let's have a closer look.

I never paid much attention to the Swiss Military Hanowa brand. Their watches did cross my path on my web browsing of watches, but I always treated those watches as a fashion watches with quartz movements. OK, they have "Swiss made" declaration, but that was just not enough for my attention. Beside that, I was always confused with the flood of similar brand names with swiss cross, such as: Swiss Military Hanowa, Hanowa, Swiss Alpine Military, Swiss Military by Chrono, Victorinox,.. Until last week.

I follow recent developments of the watch industry in Russia and one of the companies that  is worth mentioning is Molnija. As you probably all know Molnija was originally established in Soviet Union as ČČZ - Čeljabinsk časovoj zavod - in 1947. At first it was specialized in special watches for military purposes (airplane, tank, truck watches) but soon the production of pocket watches started (in cooperation with 2MČZ). ČČZ in time became a pocket watch specialist and pocket watches with movement 3602 were it's main product known worldwide. In 1960 company was renamed after it's main brand to Molnija. Company hardly survived post USSR period, but in 2010 it was privatized and became a solid company again. In latest years Molnija launched a lot of different models, seems that guys there have a lot of good ideas, since Molnija's latest watches are well designed and uses good quality materials. A variety of different movements are used. To be concrete, at the moment their offer consist of: AČS (named after board watches for airplanes) with quartz Ronda 3520.D or mechanical Miyota 8215, Baikal with Miyota 8215, Chameleon with Miyota 8215, Energy with quartz Ronda Z60, Evolution with quartz Miyota 6S21, Etude with own 3603 mechanical movement, Green Ray with 3603, Tribute 1984 and Tribute 1984 ver.2 with 3603 and Pearl with Ronda 715. Special watch is Hyron, which does not have any Molnija brand insignia on the watch and can be understood as separate brand. Hyron uses Selitta 215-1 hand winding movement.

Today I would like to share with you my first impressions of the watch from the new collection - called NEVA - from Alexander Shorokhoff brand. I have just received it so this impressions are really fresh..

I am quite sure that the vast majority of you who are not from Russia have never heard of Tsedro watch company. And even though I collect soviet and Russian watches  for quite a while now, even I was not familiar with this brand until recently either.

Today, I would like to present you a very interesting, monstrous watch from the brand Specnaz. Even though this brand is already presented on my web pages, I think that for the vast majority of the readers this brand is not well known, so I will start this review with a short presentation of the brand and the company behind this brand.