The by-product of randomly surfing around is that I inevitably end up buying something. That’s what caused me to buy a Vostok Amfibia (although to be fair it wasn’t an impulse buy).

I happened on this brand because I was looking at automatic watches, and the Vostok was mentioned as a cheap (but not Chinese cheap) automatic. They are an entirely Russian brand and was the official supplier of watches for the USSR defense department! You can get a new Vostok (they are still being made) for only about $50-$60 USD and it’s a pretty solid watch. It’s a diver, so waterproof up to 200m using an interesting engineering strategy; and of course it doesn’t need batteries as it is an automatic.

I ended up spending a lot of time looking at these watches. The first time I went looking at them, I didn’t buy one because while the watch cost $60 USD, shipping cost $20! At the time, I also had a lot of watches arriving so I didn’t need another one. The second time, I ended up buying one because I started getting tired of my existing watches. It still took a long time though!

The main problem was that it was hard to decide what to get. The are many permutations for the design. You could pick from 3 different types of bezels, a couple varieties of straps, a couple varieties of cases, and most importantly, an incredible amount of watch dials. Aside from the interesting history of the Amphibias, I was piqued at the Russian kitsch that most of the dials had. Certainly, this was not a watch you would wear to a formal event – it was just for fun. I was trying to decide whether I wanted a tank, airplane, or a submarine on my watch!

In the end I picked the above dial. It has an image of an anchor and a chain around the exterior. I liked the white back and the fact that the numbers were clear and distinguished – green with black outlines. Although it took a month and a half to arrive, I’m happy with my purchase!

Posted by Kevin in Blogs Tags: russia, watches