Raketa Expedition watch nice working condition! This is a vintage men''s Soviet wristwach "Raketa"- (" Rocket"). This watch has original mechanism and new case. The watch has been fully serviced,cleaned and oiled by a professional watch maker. The watch is working very accurately. Raketa (Russian: Paкéтa; IPA: [rɐˈkʲɛtə], "rocket") watches, have been manufactured since 1961 by the Petrodvorets Watch Factory in Saint Petersburg. The Petrodvoretz Watch Factory is Russia''s oldest factory and was founded by Peter the Great in 1721. Raketa watches were produced for the Red Army, the Soviet Navy, for North Pole expeditions, as well as for civilians. As of today Raketa is one of the rare watch brands in the world producing its movements from A to Z. On April 12, 1961, Yuri Gagarin made the first manned flight in outer space on the rocket Vostok 1. In honor of this, the Petrodvorets Watch Factory named its watches "rocket", or Raketa in Russian. At the height of the Cold War, however, the name "Raketa" was perceived negatively in the West, as the word was associated with the latest generation of Soviet intercontinental ballistic missiles, the R-16. During Soviet times it became one of the most produced watch brand in the world. In the 1970s the factory produced about 5 million mechanical watches per year.