Sekonda Poljot Strela 3017 Cosmonaut Chronograph

A very rare vintage Russian cosmonauts watch made in the USSR with the Sekonda brand. Inside is the Strela 3017 movement, introduced in 1959 by the 1st Moscow Watch Factory (1. MWF, renamed to Poljot after 1964), and one of the first chronograph movements produced in the Soviet Union. A reliable and robust movement, it was apparently only available to the Soviet Air Forces and a few higher-ranking officials at first, before becoming more widely available in the later half of the 1960s.

Sekonda emerged in 1966 as the British arm of the Russian watch making industry, exporting some of the finer watches made in Soviet Union factories. Many Sekonda watches were re-badged Strela and Raketa models made to be sold in the West. This model would have been manufactured and retailed in the late 60s, after Alexei Leonov wore the Strela during the first human spacewalk in history in March 1965, identical to this watch but for the Cyrilic ‘Strela’ on the dial, instead of ‘Sekonda’. Leonov spent a total of 12 minutes and 9 seconds outside of the ship during the Voskhod 2 mission, and the watch performed, although unfortunately he did not test out the chronograph function! His space suit inflated considerably due to lack of exterior pressure, and he was forced to bleed air out of the suit in order to re-enter the airlock, later crash landing in the deep snow of the Ural mountains after a malfuction of the automatic re-entry system. Despite this, both crew members survived, and the mission was considered a success, with the milestone achievement of the first spacewalk, the Strela being part of this history.

Russian astronauts Vladimir Komarov and Aleksey Gubarev both wore Strela chronographs in 1967 and 1978 respectively, with the former ending tragically of course. Komarov wore a white dial Poljot, and Gubarev a black dial Sekonda, both with distinctive green lume dots, red-tipped hands, and oblong batons. The later design by Strela we can assume was intended to be used as more of a tool than a showpiece, with the highly contrasted display for enhanced visibility.

This design, like the one worn by Leonov, is more elegant than most Soviet era wristwatches, with the tapered gold indicies and slim gold hands, and the numbers 12 and 6 to the top and bottom of the dial in a stylish square font. The case is stainless steel and in good condition for a watch of this age, with square pushers to control the chronograph functions. The dial is an attractive white with a nice patina, a classic bicompax chronometer layout busy with integer markings and a telemeter timing scale. The telemeter markings continue through the two subdials, which register running seconds at the 9 hour mark and 45 minutes elapsed time at 3, both with neat golden hands, the long black centre sweep seconds hand used to for the stopwatch function. Supplied with a brown leather strap.

It is worth noting that the case is shown unrestored, and the pictures will be updated once the movement has been serviced and the case polished.